By Judith Jenya
San Miguel Writers Conference and Literary Festival’s 20th Anniversary event will be held Wednesday, February 12 to Sunday, February 16, 2025 at the Hotel Real de Minas. The Founder and President of the conference, Susan Page, is back and will be joined by a new co-director and Executive Director, Jodi Pincus, who brings a youthful energy and longtime nonprofit experience. The Conference has a more inclusive bilingual advisory board and team for this tricultural, bi-lingual gathering.
Among the highlights are the seven keynote speakers:
John Irving
Legendary author John Irving has written 16 celebrated novels including The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Cider House Rules, and Widow for One Year. He is a winner of the National Book Award and an Academy Award among many other honors.
Percival Everett
Author of the current runaway bestseller James (This is Twain’s Huckleberry Finn story told from the viewpoint of the enslaved “Jim”), The author of more than 30 books, he has won or been a finalist for both the Pulitzer and the Booker and numerous other prizes.
Jorge Hernández
Jorge F. Hernández is a prolific short story writer, essayist, novelist, columnist, professor, magazine editor, and radio show host. Until recently, he worked at the Institute of the Culture of Mexico in Madrid.
Ruth Reichl
Former editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine, chef Ruth Reichl was the food critic for both the Los Angeles Times and the New Your Times. She has written cookbooks, memoirs, novels, and has won the James Beard Foundation Award six times.
John Vaillant
John Vaillant’s current bestseller, Fire Weather, is a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award and has been named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times.
Kaveh Akbar
Kaveh Akbar’s 2024 debut novel Martyr! Akbar is a multi-award-winning poet, poetry rditor of The Nation magazine, and Professor at The University of Iowa.
Jennifer Clement
Jennifer Clement’s five novels, two memoirs, and several poetry collections have received numerous awards and been translated into 38 languages.
The co-directors want the conference to feel more like a retreat than a normal conference. There will be early morning wellness offerings and a full morning of workshops, and in the afternoon special readings, poetry, and times and places for participants to meet in discussion circles or choose their own adventure. There will also be special meals and authors’ readings.
The Spanish language program, directed by Armida Zepeda, has 4 intensive workshops in Spanish. There are scholarships for 25 students from Universities in San Miguel. The Spanish speaking keynote program is free to 100 Mexican nationals on a first come first serve basis. There will be 7 Spanish language workshops and a Spanish language writing contest. A Spanish writing center open to participants will make the conference truly bilingual.
All keynotes and workshops will be translated into Spanish, or English.
The conference is also designed for readers with a special package, ‘The Pleasure of Reading’. One program will focus on the lyrics of Leonard Cohen and another with Ruth Reichel the former cooking editor of the NY Times will focus on food.
The conference opens Wednesday morning with a plenary and Big Read discussing, “Martyr”. There will also be a Big Read in Spanish. The mornings will have 49 workshops over 4 days, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday.
Saturday will be a day of excursions and intensive writing workshops of either 3 hours or 6 hours. In the evenings there will be open mikes and other events offsite around San Miguel. There are several levels of ticket packages for the events, from all- inclusive, including keynote talks, workshops, and all social events, to only keynotes, or just workshops or ala carte.
The Fiesta this year will be full of surprises. There are opportunities for local participation beginning with attending the total conference or individual events, or volunteering, and hosting conference faculty and keynote speakers in your home in Centro.
Becoming a Patron, sponsoring scholarships or being a business sponsor are other ways to engage with the conference.
The bookstore, Aurora Books, will sell books by keynote speakers, and the bookstore at the conference will have books by faculty and local literary sala members. This is a world-class event in our own hometown.
For more information and to buy tickets go to www.sanmiguelwritersconference.org
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