We couldn’t be more excited about the upcoming Conference, February 20th through 22nd, and want to personally invite you to join us for this very special event.

With a roster of seventeen accomplished presenters sharing their proven expertise on a rich variety of engaging topics from humor to imagination, we are certain to have an unforgettable gathering, which we don’t want you to miss!

From our opening keynote reception with best-selling author/award-winning television producer Linda Ellerbee on Friday evening to our weekend offering of hands-on workshops and thought-provoking seminars, we promise you exposure to a wealth of stimulating ideas and interesting, inspirational individuals.

Whether you are a published or aspiring writer, an avid reader or a creative thinker, if you relish learning, this conference is a must. And the price couldn’t be sweeter–$US 100 for three workshops, three seminars, two evening socials, two tropical continental breakfasts, and a farewell interactive lunch! We have priced this conference affordably to enable anyone to attend who is truly interested in expanding their skills, polishing their technique and networking with others committed to personal development and self-expression through writing.

If you are a published author and a conference attendee, you may market your publication at the book display throughout the conference.

Please take a moment to log onto our website: www.pvwg.com for topics, presenter bios, registration information and further details. If you are currently in Puerto Vallarta and it is more convenient to make your payment in person, you may do so before or after our regularly scheduled Writers Group meetings on Saturdays, 10:30 a.m. to noon at the International Friendship Club.

During the last few years, members of the Writers Group have often expressed the desire to build on our previous conference successes by enlarging the event and offering more variety. To allow for that expansion, we have secured a new venue–Los Mangos Biblioteca, which will be the site of all conference activities.

We are very grateful for the vision and support of the Writers Group members and past conference leaders, along with their planning teams. We look forward to sharing in this year’s conference experience with you.

Cheers!

Norma Schuh and Karen Blomain
2009 Writers Group Conference Co-Chairs

Turning the Pages is an online resource of original copies of many ancient manuscripts now made available by the British Library.

If you are interested in old books on many subjects, this resource is amazing. The books can be read by a program simulating real-time book page turning or by standard photo reproduction. The complete books are shown. This is a small example:

Vesalius’ ‘De Humani Corporis Fabrica’

After a chapter explaining how to assemble a skeleton, and another telling how Vesalius stole a skeleton from a gibbet, comes the famous series of three skeletal men. Posed in front of a barren landscape, the first skeleton rests his arm on a shovel. Next to the skeleton’s right foot is a freshly dug grave, suggesting that he has dug his own grave. The figure serves as an illustration of skeletal anatomy and as a memento mori – a reminder of human mortality.

One of México’s most vocal and controversial journalists will be speaking at the Hotel Krystal on August 7 on the subject of México Today. (Spanish)

SUMMARY

During recent years, the publishing industry in Mexico has shown continuous growth. In 2007 it is estimated that approximately 160 million books were sold. According to the National Publishing Industry Association (Caniem), these book sales generated USD 650 million in revenue. Bookstores that also sell their products online are a growing and lucrative segment within this industry. Furthermore, the Mexican government has recently proposed a favorable Book-Reading Promotional Law to encourage book reading. The effects of the law will be felt throughout the book supply chain in places such as educational institutes, government entities, libraries, bookstores, distributors, etc. This law might enable buyers to get books at more reasonable prices, due to the unique price structure envisioned in this law. All of these above mentioned factors and trends generate favorable business opportunities for US exporters. In addition, book imports to Mexico are comprised mostly of those from the United States. However, emerging competitors for U.S. publishers of books include companies from Spain and China. U.S. proximity to Mexico provides a competitive advantage to U.S. firms over more distant foreign competitors due the lower cost of shipping.

» READ WHOLE REPORT

Mexico draws dire picture for migrants
By Chris Hawley and Sergio Solache, USA TODAY

MEXICO CITY — One migrant gets his legs sliced off by a train’s wheels. Another is shot by bandits on the Arizona border. Others are beaten and robbed by crooked Mexican police.

In a new effort to dissuade people from crossing the border illegally, Mexico’s top human-rights agency has published two comic books packed with tales about the horrors that migrants may face. The tone is very different from previous government publications that focused more on travel and safety tips.

One of the two Migrantes comics is aimed at Mexicans, while the other focuses on Central Americans traveling through Mexico on their way to the USA. The National Human Rights Commission began distributing 20,000 of them this month at migrant shelters and bus terminals.

“We could have made the stories a little softer, but the (commission) asked us to be very realistic,” said Domingo Perea, editorial director of Comics and Visual Arts, the firm hired to produce the comic books. “That was the intention, to discourage people from migrating.”

In the past, several Mexican states have published booklets with advice for migrants. And in 2004, the Mexican Foreign Ministry published a comic-style Guide for the Mexican Migrant that offered safety tips for those attempting to cross the border, information on their legal rights and advice for living unobtrusively in the USA. That booklet outraged U.S. immigration-control groups, including the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which said the comic style and frank advice trivialized U.S. immigration laws.

The new comics have a more depressing tone, Perea said. “We knew about that previous one, and both we and the Human Rights Commission felt it was too light,” he said.

The commission has been accused of being cavalier about illegal immigration in the past. In 2006, it abruptly abandoned plans to distribute maps of the Arizona desert to migrants after U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff objected.

The National Human Rights Commission is funded by Mexico’s federal government but operates independently. Its two Migrantes books are particularly harsh on Mexican authorities, portraying police and soldiers as corrupt.

In Issue No. 1 of Migrantes, a group of Mexicans is robbed by two Mexican police officers, abandoned by a smuggler and attacked by bandits on the Arizona-Mexico border. All the migrants turn back except one, who is seen dying in the desert on the last page.

Issue No. 2 follows a group of teenagers from Central America as they try to cross Mexico on their way to the USA. They are harassed by Mexican soldiers, beaten and robbed by Mexican police, kidnapped and beaten again by a machete-wielding gang, and then suffer extortion by another gang member. Two teens are killed by a train, and only one continues onward.

Perea said there are no immediate plans for more comic books.

Guillermo Alonso, a demographer at the College of the Northern Border, said the commission should be giving out travel information if it really wants to save lives, especially as the U.S.-Mexican border approaches its hottest season.

“I think the National Human Rights Commission is using the wrong strategy,” Alonso said. “What the migrants need are maps or radio programs to tell them what the weather is like.”

Hawley is Latin America correspondent for USA TODAY and The Arizona Republic

Original Story: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-04-21-mexico-comics_N.htm

Five of Vallarta’s best local book authors will get together for a group book signing symposium on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 from 10:30 am until 12 Noon (Jalisco time) at the NVBookstore, on the 2nd Floor of Paradise Plaza Mall, part of the Paradise Village resort area in Nuevo Vallarta.

This is your chance to meet these interesting people, who live in the Vallarta area and whose talent adds to the vibrant Vallarta culture. Their book subjects are varied, including Vallarta nature, mysteries set in the Vallarta area, memoirs of Puerto Vallarta’s past, as well as inspirational and self-help books. Light refreshments will be provided.

Featured authors include:

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Robert Hardin

Hardin’s first career was in sales; he later earned a law degree and practiced tax law. He eased into retirement, working part time as a factotum in a Sausalito law firm for several years and living on a sailboat in Sausalito harbor. A late-in-life marriage in 2002 brought him back to live on dry land, this time in Sebastopol, CA. When Hardin fully retired at the end of 2004 he and his wife moved to Mexico and are enjoying life in Yelapa, a small remote fishing village south of Puerto Vallarta. Robert now works full time as an author and, just as his mother did, reads mysteries like eating peanuts. Paradise Marred is his fifth novel in the David Armstrong courtroom thriller series.

Featured Book:
• Paradise Marred

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R.D. Lyons

A retired International lawyer, R.D. (David) Lyons is a long-time resident of Puerto Vallarta. When not writing, he can be found singing jazz standards to his own guitar accompaniment at several of the town’s popular venues.

Featured Book:
• Mexico’s Hidden Gold

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Jenny McGill

Infused with candid humor, McGill recounts her experience in Puerto Vallarta, going back to 1973 when she and husband Howard first moved to Puerto Vallarta, continuing through her years as an English teacher and subsequently as the second ever US consular agent in Puerto Vallarta.

Featured Book:
• Drama & Diplomacy

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Petr Myska

Petr Myska is a zoologist, conservationist and photographer of Czech origin who has been a resident of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico since 2002. Petr has worked as a researcher for the Czech Academy of Science and as a correspondent for the BBC radio. He has traveled extensively in Latin America, is the founder and manager of Viva Natura, an online source on the Biodiversity of Mexico, and the owner of Viva Natura publisher.

Featured Book:
• Viva Natura: Field Guide to the Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds and Mammals of Western Mexico

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Linda Abbott Trapp

Dr. Linda Abbott Trapp lives and writes in Nuevo Vallarta. A former Dean of the California School of Professional Psychology, she has given over 3000 seminars throughout the US and abroad. Her 7 books and more than 200 articles cover several decades and the fields of cross-cultural psychology, the arts, music, environmental concerns, social justice, business management, and theology. She is married and has four grown children.

Featured Books:
• Ornamental Plants & Flowers of Mexico
• Letters to My Granddaughters
• Intentional Living

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NVBookstore offers full service, specializing in “Everything about Mexico,” and is a Mexican/American partnership. It is co-located with Vilma’s Yacht Services, which offer immigration services, UPS packaging, mail delivery from the USA, and property management services. For more information, visit nvbookstore.com or call (322) 297-2274.