San Miguel, Ep. 1

February 15, 2019 — In our first-ever event South of the Border, Literary Death Match teamed with the wonders at the San Miguel Writers' Conference for a magical event that saw Victoria Zackheim topple Kent Evans in a down-to-the-wire Arithme-Lit finale, winning Zackheim the LDM San Miguel, Ep. 1 crown, and literary immortality to go with it. 

Here are all the participants from the night-of: 

JUDGES: 
Literary Merit: Susan Orlean, New Yorker staff writer, and author of eight books including The Orchid Thief, The Life and Legend of Rin Tin Tin, and The Library Book

Performance: Diana Spechler, author of Who By Fire, Skinny and the New York Times column Going Off, plus she's a seven-time Moth StorySLAM winner who has been featured on The Moth Radio Hour

Intangibles: Joseph Bennett, founder of The Improv People, San Miguel's favorite (and only!) improv theatre troupe

READERS: 
Round 1: 
* Judith Gille, author of the memoir, The View from Casa Chepitos: A Journey Beyond the Border, was awarded Writer’s Digest’s Grand Prize for a Self-Published Book in 2013 and received a Nautilus Award
* Victoria Zackheim, author of The Bone Weaver and editor of six anthologies, including the international bestseller, The Other Woman

Round 2:
* Kent Evans, musician and author of Malas Ondas: Lime, Sand Sex and Salsa in the Land of Conquistadors, a semi-autobiographical novel, and the novel, A Crash Course on the Anatomy of Robots 
* David Ramsey, contributing editor for the Oxford American and the Arkansas Times whose work has  been anthologized in Best Food Writing, Best Music Writing and Cornbread Nation: The Best of Southern Food Writing

Host: LDM creator Adrian Todd Zuniga (check out his debut novel Collision Theory today!) 

Where: Hotel Real de Minas, Camino Viejo Al Panteón 1, San Antonio, 33700 San Miguel de Allende (map) 

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