Greetings from Miami, Florida. The title of this blog comes, of course, as a paraphrase of a Jimmy Buffett song I've always liked, "Everybodys Got a Cousin in Miami." I happen not to have a cousin in Miami, but I have something better--two close friends from San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where I wrote A Southern Girl between 1993 and 1995. Barbara and Federico Vidargas moved here from Chicago a few months ago and have generously made their downtown condo available to me. Th

Last week’s blog identified three forces in Mexico that inspired me to more and hopefully better production in my writing. But motivation is not the same thing as inspiration. Today, I want to address inspiration. Writers are routinely asked where they get their ideas. I have long suspected that those most inclined to ask are the people for whom the idea of writing a novel is a foreign (and as magical) as pixy dust on faireys’ wings. I am equally in awe of anyone who can pain

Last week’s blog mentioned some challenges presented by Mexico that required adaptation. For me, the challenge above all others was to write a good book which, after all, was the reason for coming. Three forces shaped my time and influenced the results. The first of these was my writing group, the core of which consisted of Donna Meyer, Roy Sorrels, Barbara Covarrubias and yours truly. Donna had been, some years earlier, in the original cast of the European production of the

San Miguel de Allende was recently named the world’s number 1 city in a Conde Nast survey of its readers. That’s right, NUMBER ONE!! Paris? An also-ran. London? Chopped fish ‘n chips. New York? Forgettaboutit! No one here takes this coronation particularly seriously except the mayor, who is widely believed to have higher political goals. The city dates from the year 1541. In the decades following the Cortez invasion, it became a significant way-station along the roads connect

Last week I wrote about our move to Mexico in 1993, a move that promised to give me the time to write the next novel at hours later than 4 a.m. to 7 a.m. I should say a bit more about that decision. Why Mexico? The three most compelling reasons were culture, distance and dollars. As long as we were planning to be gone for a year with our two younger children, ages 14 and 13, we wanted a cultural experience that broadened the horizons of all four of us. Barbara and I felt the

When I left you last week I was on the cusp of literary stardom with my first novel, Bethesda’s Child. I had what I had been assured was a very good story, one of the top literary agents in New York had signed me up as a client, and the timing of the genetic science, which anticipated issues and tensions springing to world consciousness a few years later when Dolly the Sheep was created (invented?) seemed perfect. All the elements had fallen into place for a best seller with