January 9, 2020: Literary Sala Author Presentations

A New Home for the Literary Sala with presentations by Henry Hitz and John Russell

By Carole Schor

The Literary Sala has big news! Join us in welcoming in the New Year in a new venue. Starting in January, the monthly Literary Sala presentations will be held at the Sala Literaria Bellas Artes at the corner of Hernández Macías and Canal. The Sala Literaria is a center for literary projects for San Miguel youth and children in both Spanish and English, including poetry readings, ongoing classes, writing workshops for all ages with a focus on teenagers from local high schools, and a Bilingual Reading Circle that promotes reading and cultural integration.

Henry Hitz

The first event, January 9, will feature two men with two different and very interesting tales to tell. Henry Hitz hails from the San Francisco Bay Area, and we first met him in 2016 when he published his chronicle, White Knight, about a Bay Area revolution culminating with the deranged, “Twinkie-provoked” assassination of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk on November 27, 1978.

Henry’s latest work is Squirrels in the Wall, a collection of stories about animals and humans and their unique perspectives on life and death. The book not only features annoying squirrels, but also a suicidal toad, a cat, two mice, a bee, Grandfather’s ghost, and a turtle who possesses a boy named Barney in an apocalyptic tale of environmental activism gone awry. Other stories take on the human points of view of Barney’s mother, sister, and older brother reflecting a collage of family dysfunction―and love. Henry has written six novels, a memoir, a screenplay, and many stories based on the fact and fiction of his own experience.

John Russell

John Russell, like many writers from the South (think Pat Conroy and John Updike), paints a vivid picture with his words of a place shaped by its unique past, scandal, political intrigue, and generations of secrets.  Southern literature tends to have common themes: a history based on plantation culture, slavery, and racism; plus a strong sense of family and religion and the importance of community in one’s social and personal life. In All The Right Circles, Jack Callahan is a successful but outsider lawyer who is trying to fit into the tight circle of Southern society but finds himself burdened with a mother in a sanitarium, a marriage on the rocks, and his biggest client facing an increasingly hostile takeover. Russell’s epic tale captures the distinctive personality of a Southern community that prides itself on family values and justice while being influenced by money and power, sex and greed, politics and race.

These two men will entertain us with their stories at the January 9 Literary Sala, 5:00 to 7:00 PM in the Sala Literaria Bellas Artes, on Hernández Macías at the corner of Canal. Admission is 50 pesos for members and 100 pesos for non-members. Membership in the Literary Sala supports not only the literary life of San Miguel including scholarships for teens and reading projects for children in the campo, it also offers attractive benefits to members.