By Judith Jenya
The 20th annual San Miguel Writers Conference and Literary Festival opens on Wednesday, February 12 at Hotel Real de Minas. Those of us who have attended the Writers Conference in past years know how exhilarating these five days can be.
This year Jodi Pincus, the Conference’s new Executive Director, brings a collaborative leadership style and a new vision. She is working with founder Susan Page and an enlarged staff and Advisory Board of people from across the San Miguel community. She sees that her role is to usher in a new era for the Conference. There will be new programs, including enhanced bi-lingual offerings. Some new genres this year include screenwriting, songwriting and writing about issues with greater narrative power.
Jodi has formed strategic partnerships with the Dallas Literary Society, the Bay Area Book Fair, San Diego Writers Festival, the Santa Fe Literary Festival, the Guadalajara Book Fair, and the International Women’s Club of Mexico City. These organizations will cross promote writing events in Canada the US and Mexico.
“It was important this year to create more free events,” commented Jodi. This year’s events free to the public, with more author events, include: Discussion Circles from 3:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. daily, Yoga Classes at 8:00 a.m., free; Happy Hour daily at 5:30 p.m. (at hotel), and a Mercado offering local artisan goods from 3:30 p.m.-6:00 p.m. Bilingual author readings and storytelling at 9:00-10:30 a.m. The “Big Read” session is on Wednesday at 10:45 a.m. It’s open to everyone. The featured book for discussion is “Martyr” by Kaveh Akbar. Mr. Akbar will be part of the Big Read discussion. He is also a keynote speaker. “The Americas Read” discussions are at 4:30 p.m. the “Canada Read” is on Thursday, the "Mexico Read" on Friday, and the "US Read" is on Saturday.
Single tickets are now available for the following: Wednesday, February 12, the Literary Agents Panel at 2:45 p.m. Keynote addresses by John Valiant, a 2:15 p.m. on Thursday, February 13; and Ruth Reichel on Thursday, February 13 at 6:30 p.m.. Jennifer Clement on Friday, February 14 at 2:15 p.m. and Jorge Hernández at 6:30 p.m. Kaveh Akbbar keynote address on Saturday, February 15, and Deepa Rajagopalan will give the Geller address (Canada), on Sunday, February 16 at 2:15 p.m. The Keynote Panel is February 16 at 4:00 p.m. Each of these events in one and a half hours. Individual tickets are available for some workshops also; see sanmiguelwritersconference.org
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