Lone Star ReviewsMichelle Newby, NBCC,
Contributing Editor
Texas ReadsGlenn Dromgoole
>> archive
Gary P. Nunn writes about his life in music
Gary P. Nunn is considered one of the founding fathers of the Austin music scene that evolved in the 1970s as a blend of country, rock, jazz, and folk and spawned such iconic figures as Willie Nelson, Michael Martin Murphey, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Waylon Jennings.
Nunn was there from the start, usually playing bass or piano or organ, singing backup, and even opening up his home where visiting musicians could crash.
And he started writing songs — the best known of which was “London Homesick Blues,” which includes the memorable chorus, “I want to go home with the armadillo, good country music from Amarillo and Abilene; the friendliest people and the prettiest women you’ve ever seen.”
“London Homesick Blues” would become the theme song for the Austin City Limits TV show from 1977 to 2004.
Nunn, now 72, has published his memoirs, appropriately titled At Home with the Armadillo (Greenleaf Book Group, $24.95 hardcover).
The 320-page saga begins in Oklahoma, where Nunn was born and lived until his family moved to Brownfield when he was twelve. He started playing music in junior high and caught on with several West Texas rock bands before moving to Austin in 1967 to attend the University of Texas and study to be a pharmacist.
Music soon won out over pharmacy. Nunn played and sang with Murphey and Walker, traveling around the country and even overseas.
It was on a trip to London with Murphey that Nunn composed “London Homesick Blues” on a cold, drizzly, miserable day. “I never imagined at the time that anything would ever come of it!” he writes.
Well, it did. Many songs later, now even a book has resulted from it.
Nunn is also an avid photographer, and he said he relied on his photographs to help stir his memories in writing the book. Oddly, the book doesn’t include any photos, but Nunn has talked about a book of photos as a future project.
If there’s ever a second edition of At Home with the Armadillo, the publisher might consider adding an index because Nunn’s narrative mentions so many musicians that he played with over the years. An index would be a handy reference.
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Glenn Dromgoole has been writing his Texas Reads column since 2002, focusing on Texas books and authors. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.
>> Check out his previous Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life
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Maverick Books
Hardcover, 978-1-5953-4807-7 (also available as an e-book), 304 pgs., $32.50
November 7, 2017
The datelines are Mobeetie and the Boquillas Crossing, Cotulla and Paducah, Comfort and Aurora (the Roswell of Texas), Bigfoot (named for Bigfoot Wallace) and Indianola, Canton and Hawkins. The subjects are as disparate as Temple Lea Houston, Italian prisoners of World War II, water witches, and aliens. There is cowboy poetry in Alpine, Chataqua in Waxahachie, the Sanctified Sisters of Belton (a commune whose book collection became the Belton Public Library), the world’s only beauty salon/bookstore (Beauty and the Book), man-heads buried in Malakoff, Port Arthur trying to talk Hollywood into blowing up its downtown, and that time the Marx brothers were arrested for playing cards on Sunday in Nacogdoches. >>READ MORE
Flatiron Books
Hardcover, 978-1-2500-5891-1, (also available as an e-book), 384 pgs., $27.99
February 6, 2018
“Only in Texas was there enough space for so many second acts.”
The Kings of Big Spring: God, Oil, and One Family’s Search for the American Dream is the best kind of history. The microcosm of a family story (anecdote) illustrates the macrocosm of a place and time (demographic). In Bryan Mealer’s account, his family’s history begins in 1892, when “trouble between the moonshiners and revenuers” motivated his great-grandfather to leave a Georgia hollow behind to join his brother in Texas, where he landed in Hillsboro. By 1909, motivated by the boll weevil, the Mealers lit out for West Texas, along with many others who “pulled their teams across the 98th meridian and entered the American West,” eventually finding their way to Big Spring, where oil has been discovered, refineries has been built, and a fifteen-story hotel is rising. >>READ MORE
introducing LONE STAR LIT’S NEWEST FEATURE
LONE STAR LISTENS interviews >> archive
Author interviews by Kay Ellington
2.4.2018 “Queen of Christian suspense” DiAnn Mills on creativity, Christian fiction — and coffee
DiAnn Mills is a bestselling Texas-based author who creates action-packed, suspense-filled novels in Christian fiction — and has sold more than 2.5 million copies of them. Her titles have appeared on the CBA and ECPA bestseller lists; won two Christy Awards; and have been finalists for the RITA, Daphne Du Maurier, Inspirational Readers’ Choice, and Carol award contests. Library Journal presented her with a Best Books 2014: Genre Fiction award in the Christian Fiction category for Firewall. She spoke with us via email about her latest book, High Treason, launching this week, and her life as an author.
Where did you grow up, DiAnn? What was that like; and how do you think it may have inspired you to write later in life?
I grew up in Bucyrus, Ohio, a rural community. Many of those years were on a small farm. We had a creek flowing through our property, and lots of animals. The pastoral environment gave me lots of quiet time, nestled in nature. I’ve always created story, and my growing-up years paved the way to create. >>READ MORE
Texas’s only statewide, weekly calendar of book eventsBookish Texas event highlights 2.4.2018 >> GO this week Michelle Newby, Contributing Editor
SPECIAL EVENTS THIS WEEK
- FronteraFest 2018, Austin, January 16-February 17
- Lone Star Ink Writing Conference, Dallas, February 8-10
- Humanities Texas presents Texas Storytime: A Family Reading Program, Midland, February 8-March
- North Texas Comic Book Show, Irving, February 10-11
- 10th Annual Romance Readers Social, Pflugerville, February 10
DALLAS Mon., Feb. 5 Interabang Books, Gay Gaddis discussing and signing COWGIRL POWER: HOW TO KICK ASS IN BUSINESS AND LIFE, 7PM
ALSO SIGNING IN SAN ANTONIO Fri., Feb. 9 The Twig Book Shop, 5PM
DALLAS Tues, Feb. 6 B&N – Lincoln Park, Twelve Years of Turbulence: The Inside Story of American Airlines’ Battle for Survival book signing with Gary Kennedy, 7PM
DALLAS Tues., Feb. 6 Highland Park United Methodist Church, Friends of the SMU Libraries present Daniel H. Pink and WHEN: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, 6PM
AUSTIN Wed., Feb. 7 Austin Public Library – Central, BRYAN MEALER speaking and signing The Kings of Big Spring, 7PM
ALSO SIGNING IN DALLAS Thurs., Feb. 8 Half Price Books Mothership, 7PM
AUSTIN Wed., Feb. 7 BookPeople, Elizabeth Crook speaking and signing The Which Way Tree, 7PM
BURNET Thurs., Feb. 8 Herman Brown Free Library, Coffee Talks: Vicki Tongate reading and signing Another Year Finds Me In Texas, 1:30PM
ALPINE Fri., Feb. 9 Front Street Books, Author & Sul Ross Professor Dr Sean Graham dispels myths about snakes and explores their relationship with humans in his new book, American Snakes, 6PM
LUBBOCK Sat., Feb. 10 B&N, Hidden History of the Llano Estacado book signing with Paul Carlson, 4PM
AUSTIN Sun., Feb. 11 BookPeople, DELBERT McCLINTON and DIANA FINLAY HENDRICKS speaking & signing One of the Fortunate Few, 2PM
DALLAS Sun., Feb. 11 Dallas Museum of Art, Arts & Letters Live presents Paul Auster, author of 4 3 2 1, in conversation with Will Evans of Deep Vellum Publishing, 7PM
News Briefs 2.4.18
Lone Star Lit wraps up Indiegogo campaign ’18: Thanks for helping launch our 4th year!
Lone Star Literary Life covers the Texas literary scene like no one else, week in and week out. Since 2015, we’ve given Texas authors, booksellers, libraries, publishers, and readers a trusted platform of their own. With shrinking coverage devoted to books in mainstream media — and most of that focused on the same handful of national bestsellers — where were Texas authors to get noticed, and where were Texas readers to discover the books they crave? >>READ MORE
Nineteen elected to Texas Institute of Letters for 2018
Members of the Texas Institute of Letters have overwhelming approved nineteen writers to join the ranks of the TIL, a distinguished honor society founded in 1936 to celebrate Texas literature and recognize distinctive literary achievement.
The TIL’s membership consists of the state’s most respected writers — including winners of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, Academy Award, Tony Award, and MacArthur “Genius” grants. Membership is based on literary accomplishments and is granted only though an election by existing members.
This marks the first year the TIL has recognized a songwriter based on literary accomplishments: Willie Nelson.
Other 2018 honorees are Oscar-nominated screenwriter-director Richard Linklater, fiction writers Daniel Chacón (El Paso), Bret Anthony Johnston (Corpus Christi/Austin), Guadalupe Garcia McCall (Eagle Pass/San Antonio), José Skinner (Puerto Rico, Rio Grande Valley); and nonfiction authors Marcia Hatfield Daudistel (El Paso), Michael Hurd (The Woodlands), and Mary Beth Rogers (Dallas).
Also honored are filmmaker- playwright Severo Perez (San Antonio/Los Angeles), playwrights Kirk Lynn (Austin) and Ted Shine (Dallas); and journalist Alfredo Corchado (Dallas/Mexico City).
Poets honored this year are Katherine Hoerth (Beaumont), Sheryl Luna (El Paso/Denver), Sasha Pimentel (Phillipines/El Paso), José Antonio Rodríguez (Rio Grande Valley), Steven Schneider (Rio Grande Valley), and Christian Wiman (Snyder, New Haven, CT) >>READ MORE
ConDFW XVII announces headliners
ConDFW XVII has announced that its 2018 guests of honor will be author Charlaine Harris and artist John Picacio. The event is slated for Feb. 16–18, 2018, at the Radisson Hotel Fort Worth Fossil Creek. >>READ MORE
————— A D V E R T I S E M E N T —————
Lone Star Listens compilation available spring 2018, for readers, fans, and writers everywhere
The present generation of Texas authors is the most diverse ever in gender, age, and ethnicity, and in subject matter as well.
Week in, week out, Lone Star Literary has interviewed a range of Texas-related authors with a cross-section of genre and geography. To capture this era in Texas letters, we’re pleased to bring you
Lone Star Listens:
Texas Authors on Writing and Publishing
edited by Kay Ellington and Barbara Brannon; introduction by Clay Reynolds
Available in trade paper, library hardcover, and ebook Spring 2018
360 pages, with b/w illustrations and index
Featuring novelists, poets, memoirists, editors, and publishers, including:
Rachel Caine • Chris Cander • Katherine Center • Chad S. Conine • Sarah Cortez • Elizabeth Crook • Nan Cuba • Carol Dawson • Patrick Dearen • Jim Donovan • Mac Engel • Sanderia Faye • Carlos Nicolás Flores • Ben Fountain • Jeff Guinn • Stephen Harrigan • Cliff Hudder • Stephen Graham Jones • Kathleen Kent • Joe R. Lansdale • Melissa Lenhardt • Attica Locke • Nikki Loftin • Thomas McNeely • Leila Meacham • John Pipkin • Joyce Gibson Roach • Antonio Ruiz-Camacho • Lisa Sandlin • Donna Snyder • Mary Helen Specht • Jodi Thomas • Amanda Eyre Ward • Ann Weisgarber • Donald Mace Williams
As a collection of insights into the writing and publishing life, the book will be useful in creative writing classes (not just in Texas alone) and other teaching settings, as well as for solo reading and study—and a great Texas reference volume.
- Examination and review copies will be available fall 2017 in watermarked pdf format.
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