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• Complete coverage of Miami Book Fair International
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The private John Updike

Originally published January 30, 1994

. . . authors are a dreadful clan / To be avoided if you can,

-- From 'I Missed His Book, but I Read His Name' by John Updike BEVERLY FARMS, Mass.-- A conspiracy of near-zero temperatures, sluggish airports and an inadvertent swerve past Salem's Lydia Pinkham Memorial has made you more than an hour late, but the angular form unfolding from a seat near the rear of K.C.'s Restaurant & Pub is not in the least bit dreadful. Your anemic apology is whisked aside with a handshake and a light quip about how you have "fought your way over the frozen tundra in a malfunctioning dog sled to get here." Then John Updike slides back into the wretched, patched vinyl booth and orders soup and a tuna sandwich. "So you see, I'm a cheap date."

Covering book fair is a labor of love for Herald veteran

W ear comfortable shoes. Get a copy of the schedule beforehand. Sign up for tickets in advance. Bring a big bag for the books you'll buy, whether you plan to or not. Be sure to try some sessions utterly out of the blue.

This is advice from Miami Herald Book editor Connie Ogle, who has spent the past few months preparing for the Miami Book Fair International, which begins Sunday night. For Connie, it's the seasonal height of a job that turns both impossible and exquisite for the next eight days.

Starting with Sunday's paper, you'll find extensive coverage that she, fellow writers and editors Margaria Fichtner, Rory Clarke and Pat Andrews have developed to help make the most of this remarkable South Florida institution.

Authors juggle different duties

Follow Lisa Black around on her workday and you might uncover the plot behind her next mystery novel. It might even be in the little notebook she pulls out to jot notes and ideas for characters or sequences.

But don't be fooled. While the ideas may come

from her day job, Black, a forensic specialist with the Cape Coral Police Department, devotes almost all of her off-the-clock time to writing. And then there is the new demand on Black's time -- promoting her books.

'Precious' director pushes worst aspects of child abuse to screen

The first movie Lee Daniels directed, the 2005 drama Shadowboxer about a terminally ill assassin and her unusual relationship with her partner in crime, was largely derided by critics and virtually ignored by audiences, grossing less than $1 million worldwide.

So when Daniels, who had also produced other films about profoundly dysfunctional families ( Monster's Ball , The Woodsman ), set out to try again, he kept expectations low. Even though his second film, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire , is adapted from a highly lauded and widely read book, Daniels didn't believe many people would turn out to see it.

``I basically made this movie for my mother and her demographic,'' Daniels says. ``She was always telling me `Why are you making movies about pedophiles and killers? Why can't you make movies like Tyler Perry?' And I said `OK, Mom, I will.' So I was really thinking about an African-American audience when I embarked on this. I really didn't expect it to go anywhere but straight

Cuban 'ghost' writer regaining his legacy

Few literary tragedies are so heartbreaking as is the life of Guillermo Rosales. By the beginning of the 1970s, Rosales was only in his early 20s, yet he already had earned an enviable reputation among his fellow dissident Cuban novelists, all blacklisted by Fidel Castro's government.

Reinaldo Arenas accords Rosales almost mythic status in his memoir Before Night Falls , discussing his writing at clandestine Havana salons, borrowing his typewriter (mere possession of such an object was enough to inspire police suspicion), and gazing admiringly as Rosales, perched on his bedroom balcony, waited patiently while Arenas feverishly banged out a fresh chapter for him to read.

Yet Rosales remained unknown beyond the Cuban cognoscenti. His younger sister Leyma recalls that as the years wore on, ``He grew tired and disillusioned. He didn't feel there was anything remaining for him in Cuba. The system broke him down and kept him down until he left.''