The 2010 San Miguel Writers' Conference is scheduled for February 19 - 23, 2010
Please check back for further details.
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The 2009 San Miguel Writers' Conference &
Literary Festival Proudly Presented

ERICA JONG

Erica Jong—novelist, poet, and essayist—has consistently used her craft to help provide women with a powerful and rational voice in forging a feminist consciousness. She has published 20 books, including eight novels, six volumes of poetry, six books of non-fiction and numerous articles in magazines and newspapers such as the New York Time, the Sunday Times of London, Elle, Vogue and  the New York Times Book Review.  

In her groundbreaking first novel, Fear of Flying (18 million in print around the world), she introduced Isadora Wing, who also plays a central part in three subsequent novels—How to Save Your Own Life, Parachutes and Kisses, and Any Woman's Blues. In her three historical novels—Fanny, Shylock's Daughter, and

Sappho's Leap—she demonstrates her mastery of eighteenth-century British literature, the verses of Shakespeare, and ancient Greek lyric, respectively. Erica’s latest book, a memoir of her life as a writer, Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life, came out in March 2006.  It was a national bestseller in the US and many other countries.

Erica Jong was honored with the United Nations Award for Excellence in Literature. She has also received Poetry magazine's Bess Hokin Prize, also won by W.S. Merwin and Sylvia Plath. In France, she received the Deauville Award for Literary Excellence and in Italy, she received the Sigmund Freud Award for Literature. The City University of New York awarded Ms. Jong an honorary PhD at the College of Staten Island.

Her works have appeared all over the world and are as popular in Eastern Europe, Japan, China, and other Asian countries as they have been in the United States and Western Europe.  She has lectured, taught and read her work all over the world. 

TODD GITLIN

Speaking on "The Recovery and Revival: Obama and the New Prospects"

Todd Gitlin is the author of twelve books, including, most recently, The Bulldozer and the Big Tent: Blind Republicans, Lame Democrats, and the Recovery of American Ideals; other titles include The Intellectuals and the Flag; Letters to a Young Activist; Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives; The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America Is Wracked by Culture Wars; The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage; Inside Prime Time; The Whole World Is Watching; Uptown: Poor Whites in Chicago (co-author); two novels, Sacrifice and The Murder of Albert Einstein; and a book of poetry, Busy Being Born. These books have been translated into Japanese, Korean, Chinese, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. He also edited Watching Television and Campfires of the Resistance.

He has contributed to many books and published widely in general periodicals (The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, Boston Globe, Dissent, The Nation, Wilson Quarterly, Harper’s, American Journalism Review, Columbia Journalism Review, The American Prospect, et al.), online magazines (Salon.com, openDemocracy.net), and scholarly journals (Theory and Society, Journal of Communication, Critical Studies in Mass Communication, et al.). He is on the editorial board of Dissent, a contributing writer to Mother Jones, and a member of the board of trustees of openDemocracy.net. Mr. Gitlin holds degrees from Harvard University (mathematics), the University of Michigan (political science), and the University of California, Berkeley (sociology). He is now a professor of journalism and sociology and chair of the Ph. D. program in Communications at Columbia University.

 

JOSEPHINE HUMPHREYS

Josephine Humphreys is the author of four novels: Dreams of Sleep, winner of the PEN/Hemingway award for best first novel of 1984 and named by the The New York Times as a Notable Book of the year:  Rich in Love,  also a Notable Book of the Year, with a film version produced by Richard Zanuck starring Albert Finney and Jill Clayburgh; The Fireman’s Fair, also a Notable Book of the Year; and Nowhere Else on Earth, winner of the Southern Book Award, a novel based on the true story of the Lumbee Indian outlaw Henry Berry Lowrie.

A native of Charleston, Humphreys studied writing with Reynolds Price and William Blackburn at Duke University; she went on to receive an M.A. from Yale University.   For her work she has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Lyndhurst Prize.  In 2002 she was named McGee Professor of Writing at Davidson College, and in 2005 Distinguished Visiting Writer at the University of Richmond.   She is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.