For years I have attended The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, held this year on the University of Southern California campus. It was a beautiful day. The first panel presentation was “Novel Arts. The Artist in Fiction.” Considering my next novel to be published, ”The Woman with an Ostrich Feather Fan,” that seemed like a natural for me, –and it was.

Ths panel staff was excellent, well balanced writers, editors, etc. The big surprise for me was one of the panelists, Adrienne Sharp, was the author of a book on the infamous Russian ballerina, Mathilde Kschessinska, a character who lived to be 100, mistress of Czar Nicholas II, and many others. More on this in a separate post here.

My focus was on the maze of publishing today. The panelists on this subject were well chosen, experts in their field and qualified to discuss their particular niche in the business. Being experts, naturally they did not agree and that left most of us not much better informed. I at least learned that no one knows for sure, and that they had all been wrong about the future of e-books five years ago.  E-books are booming even in fiction. But still, no one was predicting the end of print. So much to learn! But, it was certainly worth a long day in my moccasins and Hawaiian beach shirt.

Any comments from others on the The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books?

If you haven’t read it –get  YOUR copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

The comment I continually hear from readers of my family book “Dos Gringos” is that it ought to be a film.

“In the middle of the Mexican Revolution, a penniless Norwegian and a drifting Irishman meet in an El Paso bar and are hired by a Pittsburg con-man to fix a gold mine in Mexico with parts which, they discover too late, purposely don’t fit.” I agree it should.  Some of what I have heard:

“This is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid—with accents.”

 “Can’t put it down.  So much intrigue.”

“A page turner, better than most out of Hollywood.”

“Thrilling – and funny.  Crazy guys.”

 If anyone has an idea how I can get this responsibly started toward a film, let me know. I have had classes in screen writing and would be open to working on a financed production. Quality is the thing.

 Let me know if you have ideas.

 If you haven’t read it –get  YOUR copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

I visited the Hartsbrook School in Hadley, Massachusetts where my grandson, Forest, attends. I was surprised to have some of his friends come up and tell me how much they enjoyed my book “Dos Gringos.” I am hearing that from grownups all around, but I was so pleased to hear this from 7^th graders.

What do they like about this story of my Norwegian immigrant father’s escapades in The Mexican Revolution? They said it was funny. Some giggled it was “racey.” For sure a Hollywood version would be more visual, but 7^th graders have an imagination, too.

The Hartsbrook School is a Waldorf School and the education is broad, deep, and energizing to the students. Forest’s brother and sister have both graduated from there and are truly world citizens. i am impressed. I was visiting when Forest’s 7th grade performed “Mary Poppins” and it was excellent. What was so obvious was the children’s enjoyment in doing this.

Anyway I am glad they read real books as well as dance and sign.

Buy YOUR copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

As you have read in earlier posts to this column, although born and raised in El Paso, on the Mexican Border, I was ignorant of the Chinese and Japanese in Mexican history. But I did know about the Mormons. After Utah was annexed by the United States in 1848, many Mormons, to escape the American ban on Mormon practice of polygamy, fled to Mexico.

I read there are over a million Mormons in Mexico today, including many Mexican converts. They are mostly in Chihuahua and Sonora. I knew about the original escape from Utah, but I should have assumed their legendary missionary efforts would be activated in Mexico as in the U.S. and elsewhere. George Romney, once a Presidential candidate, and father of Mitt Romney, was born in Mexico.

Our neighbor Mexico surely has a history which so many of us know little about. That is a reflection on our educational system that ignores the 1,969 mile border we share with that neighbor to the south.

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

As I knew nothing about the Japanese in Mexican history, although born and educated in El Paso, Texas, on the Mexican border, I knew nothing about the Chinese in Mexico. The Texas school system didn’t think it was important. But the history is long and often troubled.

There is a well publicized theory that in 1421, 71 years before Columbus, China’s legendary Zheng He and his spectacular Ming fleet of treasure junks discovered America. See “1421: The Year China Discovered the World”

The little known history of the Chinese in Mexico–one that is marked by a bloody massacre and a successful effort to shut down Chinese-owned businesses in one Mexican state–is documented in an English-language book authored by a UCLA professor. The book, “The Chinese in Mexico, 1882-1940” (University of Arizona Press, 2010) notes that Chinese migration to Mexico dates back to the 1600s when Spanish trading ships sailed between Mexico and the Philippines. About 60,000 Chinese entered Mexico during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many of them with the intent of trying to gain illegal entry into the U.S., which had barred Chinese immigrants in 1882.

A nationalist fervor swept Mexico in 1910, the year in which the Mexican Revolution started. Many Chinese residents were killed and robbed. Their private residences and business were ransacked and destroyed. Pancho Villa was known to go out of his way to murder Chinese. But many survived, contributing to Mexico’s diversity and are tailors, barbers, and shopkeepers.

When I went to El Paso, my hometown, to speak and sign my new book, “Dos Gringos” set in the Mexican Revolution, one thing I did not expect to learn was how little I knew about Mexico and its history. But all agreed that the Texas school system still teaches little about anything other than Texas history, and even that from an insular perspective.

Among the new things I learned was about Japanese in Mexico. Their settlement goes back to 1897 where they settled in Chiapas. Another wave came in 1901-07.  When the the Mexican Revolution began many Japanese Mexican emigrants left for the U.S., settling in the farming valleys of California and in Arizona and Texas.

They suffered a rough time during World War II, like in the United States, but afterward the Japanese population grew and shifted from agriculture to small urban businesses. Mexico became their permanent home. Today, young Japanese Mexicans continue to build upon the legacy of their past while playing a more integral role in Mexico’s multicultural society and Japanese Mexicans in general are proud of their community in Chiapas  called Colonia Enomoto and are very important in Mexican culture.

It is a beautiful and colorful time. Every home will have a Nativity scene. They have the “Posadas,” an enactment of looking for lodging of St. Joseph and Virgin Mary, nine days before the 24 which is the “Noche Buena” or “Holy Night”.

The hosts of the home are the innkeepers, and the neighborhood children and adults are Los Peregrinos, who carry small lit candles in their hands. The Peregrinos will ask for lodging in three different houses but only the third one will allow them in. After the singing and prayer is done, then it comes the party for the children, there will be a piñata filled with peanuts in the shell, oranges, tangerines, sugar canes, and seldom wrapped hard candy. Of course, there will be other types of chants the children will sing while the child in turn is trying to break the Piñata with a stick while he/she will be blindfolded.

On Noche Buena, December 24, everybody goes to Misa de Noche Buena which is at midnight. After the Mass, everyone goes to their respective homes to have dinner with family and any friend who does not have a family is always welcome to be part of a family celebration, and most important of all to place the Baby Jesus in the manger in the Nativity scene.

The presents are not received on Christmas, for Christmas is a celebration of Life of Our Savior. The children’s celebration of receiving presents is not until January 6th, “el día de Reyes“, the day of the Kings, or the Wise Men Day.

Lately, these traditions have been modified. For example, the Posadas are now nine parties that are celebrated in different friend’s homes before Christmas. Also, mostly among the affluent people, Christmas is now often celebrated the American style, with Santa Claus, the meals and presents.

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

The main cause of death in Hollywood, they say, is encouragement. I can understand that concern as the encouragement I have received for the film potential of my latest book, “Dos Gringos” has been mounting. But, I don’t consider it threatening.

Readers, including screenwriters and others in the film industry have said that “Dos Gringos” is visual, moves along, well written with a unique voice. The characters are well developed, deep, but at the same time humorous. They say all that and more. And at this time, the centenary of The Mexican Revolution, and set in El Paso and Juarez, anything having to do with Mexico gets attention.

“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid—with accents” they call this story about a Norwegian and an Irishman who meet in an El Paso bar and against all common sense, are conned into going to Chihuahua to fix a gold mine with parts that, they learn too late, purposely don’t fit. I welcome all the positive comments. 

I am encouraged–healthily encouraged.

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

Spain searched for “Cibola”, the Seven Cities of Gold and never found them. But from late 16^th century they kept traveling up the Rio Grande River, through El Paso del Norte, the pass through the foothills of the Rockies, all in the name of Roman Catholicism, and gold. So the two cities, Juarez and El Paso, like sisters, grew at that pass.

 But, today, it struck me as if the sisters were always orphans. Juarez is too far from Mexico City, even Ciudad Chihuahua; and El Paso is too far from the center of Texas, like Dallas and Austin. Their “parents ” don’t really know them.  And like orphans who have grow up divided by “the tracks,” actually that shallow and narrow river, one in a middle class working family and the other in distressed barrio of crime and poverty, they are far apart, but still sisters.

 Having been born and raised in El Paso, it is a sad feeling to see my home, El Paso, called the 2^nd safest city in America and its sister city Juarez, called the most dangerous city in the world today.  There are articles asking if Mexico can survive. If Americans were not buying the drugs and supplying much of the guns, there would not be the problem. Something to think about. What is our responsibility?

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

 A friend asked me, “Do you have a story?” When I said I did, she encouraged me to take a screen-writing course, which I did. That started my writing life. I took lots of film courses, but then met a woman who was a line-producer for John Malkovich. She advised me, “Never write a screenplay. A screenplay is never your own. Write a novel. The best films come from novels.” That changed my direction. She added that a novel is like a painting, no one can change it, even if they want to. The story is yours. The screen play can be constantly changed.  But that is only half of the story.

Because of my screenplay learning, my novels are often said to be “filmic.” Being so, I wanted to still learn more and I took a three-day course from Tom Schlesinger and learned so much

That is why my last published novel, “Dos Gringos” is said by all to be so visual, like you are really there, so “filmic,” that it moves, so entertaining, With all that support, I am reminded by my film friends that the main cause of death in Hollywood is “encouragement.”  But, still, “Dos Gringos” would be so much fun as a film.  I will not be deaf to such encouragement. In fact, the ball is already rolling.

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.