Coming live from the San Miguel Writers' Conference
Plus the next Teas and Tales
I am writing from San Miguel de Allende, Mexico where I am going to be volunteering at the San Miguel Writers’ Conference and Literary Festival.
This city has been voted among the best in the world for many years and it is a really beautiful place; chocolate-box pretty and popping with colour.
The festival is in its twentieth year but this is my first time joining. I’ve heard much about the festival over the years (reading about keynote speakers such as Sandra Cisneros, Barbara Kinsolver and Elena Ponistowska among many others). It’s really put San Miguel on the literary and cultural map. Traditionally a festival that mostly ran in English, this year it is working to be a more bilingual festival, which I was very happy to hear.
I decided to volunteer to really be part of the festival rather than just an attendee and I am already really glad I made that decision. We had a training day yesterday and the energy was fantastic. It was great to be around so many other writers. Among the volunteers there are best-selling authors and industry professionals.
I’ll be manning (womaning?) the non-fiction tent, which while not my usual beat anymore will be interesting nonetheless as I work with a lot of life writers and memoirists, so I’ll be taking notes for them.
I also played a small editorial role on the first ever San Miguel Literary Magazine, which was a great honour.
Among the speakers this year are John Irving, Kaveh Akbar and Jennifer Clement. And in a last minute change, Margaret Atwood will be speaking on the final day. I’m hoping I get to enjoy that!
I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with my usual offerings and maybe some insights gleaned from the festival!
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Teas and Tales 🍵
The first Teas and Tales online gathering was a great success! It was a nourishing, generous and fun space with everyone writing, sharing their writing, encouraging each other and, of course, sipping tea! I am always amazed how prompts can generate such diverse responses and what beautiful pieces can be created in just five minutes.
The next Teas and Tales will be:
Sunday March 2 @ 1pm Central time (11am PT/3 pm ET/ 7pm UK/ 6am Sydney)
Recommendations
A few things I have enjoyed recently…
Flash Fiction: I loved this reading and discussion of the flash piece Pancakes by Kristin Tenor in
newsletter. It’s a stunning story and so lovely to delve into it more deeply.Short Story Pod: I love The New Yorker fiction podcast and this episode where Rebecca Makkai reads a story by Jhumpa Lahiri was a particular favourite recently. I adore Lahiri’s short stories and again diving in deeper made me see even more about the story in question.
The Writing Life: This conversation between Natalie Goldberg and Julia Cameron is nourishing food for the writerly soul.
Mentoring
As we move towards March and into Spring, you may feel yourself wanting to blossom into your true writing self. What writing projects are calling for your attention? What do you need help bringing into life? I’d love to support you as you move towards your writing dreams, to help you build courage, skills, tenacity and joy. I have two spots opening in March so jump on a free call with me to see if I might be the right mentor for you!
THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE!
It was lovely to meet you at the Everett/Atwood grand finale! Looking forward to following you here and learning more about your work.
Enjoy the conference. I used to volunteer for Bath Lit Festival - both adult and children - and it was amazing. Hope you get to see lots of amazing people too and have amazing conversations with other writers :)