| | |  News from Around Banderas Bay 
Creative Nonfiction - The Puerto Vallarta Writers' Group February Conference Theme
 Barbara Sands - PVNN
January 11, 2010
| | Award-winning author, Elizabeth Kadetsky will deliver the keynote address. | 
| | Journalist and personality of Ft. Worth, Texas aka "the Yankee Cowboy," Dave Lieber. | |
'Creative Nonfiction' is a relatively recent addition to school curricula, but as a literary form it is ancient, as lists of works demonstrate. I feel akin to the person who discovered she had been speaking prose all her life. I write a bit, read a bit, but don't read a lot about writing, per se.
So Googling the term Creative Nonfiction brought me the revelation that I'm a practitioner in a small way. I try to imbue my stories in the local press with a personal, if not always amusing, viewpoint. That's part of it. "Reporting" carries no such license and "editorializing" is reprehensible in straight reportage.
But, Creative Nonfiction, ah! This is when the reporter becomes a writer . . . like Studs Turkel; or go back to Mark Twain, to Steven Crane and forward again to H.L. Mencken to Hemingway, Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote, Nora Ephron. The list is long and growing.
Bruce Dobler is an Associate Professor of English in the Creative Nonfiction Program at the University of Pittsburgh who has created a compendium of definitions, lists of writers and so forth that can be Googled for elucidation. In fact, Googling the topic will produce absolute buckets of data, enough to fill a long afternoon. It is literature based on fact unrestrained by the rules of reporting.
Puerto Vallarta Writers' Group has chosen Creative Nonfiction as the theme of its fifth annual conference to be held at and in collaboration with Biblioteca los Mangos on the last weekend of February, 26-28. Because the genre, if that's what it is, can include so many types of writing (travel and cooking among them) one might wonder what the theme for 2011 could be. Be that as it may, the roster of writers coming to Vallarta this year will satisfy any reader's or writer's curiosity and will entertain those who register for a whole weekend in a prime weather slot (usually)!
On Friday evening, Elizabeth Kadetsky, award-winning New York-born and -raised author, will deliver the keynote address centering on creative nonfiction and her current focus, personal and family histories. Elizabeth is at Penn State University serving a two-year professorial appointment in its Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Program. Her fiction and journalism have appeared in Best New American Voices, the Pushcart Prizes, Gettysburg Review, Self, the Village Voice, LA Weekly and The Nation. Her fiction has been selected in contests that include (as first pick) the AWP Grace Paley manuscript award for 2004. She has been a fellow at MacDowell Foundation, Camargo Foundation, Albee Foundation, the St. James Centre for Creativity in Valletta, Malta and elsewhere.
A reception will close the evening with wine, cheese, dessert and cash bar. There will be ample time for guests to mix and mingle with the invited authors and fellow attendees.
Saturday, at the end of activities at 4:30 pm, second featured speaker Marcos McPeek Villatoro will take the stage. The Southern California Emmy-award winning author, mystery writer and broadcaster (PBS and Los Angeles' KCET) and his wife, Michelle have four kids all of whom shared a recent adventure, a quest for Marcos's grandmother's tamale recipe in the mountains of Salvador. The resulting book and video, available at bookstores, is titled Tamale Road. His seminar will address "Finding Your Own Voice to Tell Your Story."
On Sunday, following "early bird" seminars, guests will be treated to words of wisdom and wry observations from Dave Lieber, journalist and personality of Ft. Worth, Texas aka "the Yankee Cowboy." Lieber, of the Fort Worth Star Telegram believes nothing motivates people more than stories about positive change to make them change positively. He is leader of Watchdog Nation, a growing national consumer rights movement. His wrap-up will be an up-beat humorous presentation, "If a New Yorker Can Make it in Texas, Imagine What You Can Do!" His seminar will explore how new journalism techniques can make you a better writer.
After closing remarks at noon, the assemblage will move to Los Muertos Beach in front of Daiquiri Dick's Restaurant in Old Town. Under a large tent, book signings by conference authors and local writers will be featured at a beach party that, with luck, will culminate in a blazing sunset. A variety of Vallarta's best restaurants are nearby along Calle Basilio Badillo and surrounding streets.
Completing the roster of authors, workshop and seminar leaders are actors Mark and Dana Zeller who promise to "put more drama into your readings;" poet and prolific writer James Tipton down from his perch in Chapala and Karen Hursh Graber, senior food editor of online publication MexConnect. A special video presentation on writing will feature Kathryn Blair, long time Mexico resident and celebrated author of In the Shadow of the Angel.
The cost of the conference is $100 USD or peso equivalent; the price will rise after January 15th. To register for the conference, and for additional information, contact Ginger Carpenter at gingercarp(at)yahoo.com (322) 222-2537 or Margo Landry at Margo(at)attitudefactor.com. Also check out PuertoVallartaWritersGroup.com. At this writing there are still many excellent values at good hotels in Vallarta that extend through the conference date. A first step is to check all travel sites for hotel and flight offers.
For up-to-date Vallarta information, check BanderasNews.com early and often and read the online editions of the Vallarta Tribune and the Puerto Vallarta Mirror. All writers AND readers will be glad they followed their instinct for upgrading their intellectual pursuits in the New Year after registering for this eye-opening conference. Our speakers are excited, we are excited and we want you to be there to share this extraordinary weekend.
 Barbara Sands has been a resident on Calle Cuauhtémoc since 1981. She was born in LA and grew up in Long Beach, Santa Paula and San Marino. Later she lived in Berkeley, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Monterey. Between times she worked in NYC, Munich, Paris and DC (28 years). Vallarta has been her full-time home since 1997 and she has written for most of the local publications. She began writing on a manual typewriter and labored on every IBM electric typewriter model before graduating to a computer in the 1980s when displays had green letters on black. She is happy to know how to use PhotoShop and still misses WordPerfect.
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