I’m now back from attending one of the best writers’
conferences I’ve experienced, and I’ve done workshops in Washington State,
Idaho, Oregon, and California. I’m pleased to add San Miguel, Mexico, to the
list.
This flowers-and-books graphic from the website sums it up—many
books, and plentiful flowers. It was sunny and mid-80s during the days. Not too
shabby for February. The altitude is 6000 feet, but that wasn’t a problem.
The San Miguel Writers’ Conference had not one but four
keynote speakers. I wasn’t able to attend them all, but I did see and enjoy
these:
Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild, was terrific—funny, serious, touching. An excellent speaker,
and inspirational.
Luis Urrea, author of Into the Beautiful North and other
books, and a Pulitzer Prize nominee. If you ever get a chance to hear Luis
speak, don’t miss it. He received a standing ovation, and it was well deserved.
Because the writer’s conference is in Mexico, the conference
organizers make sure that the conference has a strong Hispanic component,
including workshops in Spanish. Mexican author Juan Villoro spoke in English, and was
both intellectually stimulating and entertaining.
I missed hearing Lawrence Hill, The Book of Negros, speak, but everyone I talked with told me that
he, too, was marvelous, both entertaining and able to touch hearts.
I did my Crafting Killer Description and Dialogue workshop
to a sold-out audience. The writers were energetic and darned good—they did
well with the writing exercises. As usual, I really enjoyed it, and it seems that
the workshoppers did as well.
There were many valuable workshops offered, but I was able
to attend only one. Mark Saunders, author of Nobody Knows the Spanish I Speak,
did a workshop on writing humor that I found very helpful. His book is the
proof of the pudding—filled with chuckles. Full disclosure: Mark is a book design client as well as a funny writer.
So next year, if you’ve the bucks and would love to have a
lovely time at a high-caliber writer’s conference, I recommend San Miguel
Writers’ Conference. I’ve applied to do my Killer First Page workshop in 2014.
Fingers crossed.
Best,
Ray