LONE STAR LISTENS interviews >> archive
Author interviews by Kay Ellington
2.18.2018 Michael Hurd of Prairie View A&M tells the story of black football in Texas
For three decades he’s been writing books about inspiring and underappreciated stories of African-American football. Now, the author of Thursday Night Lights: The Story of Black High School Football in Texas (University of Texas Press, 2017), will be inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in April, and he’s been a part of the most notable book festivals across the state. Michael Hurd kicks off the Texas Writers Series in Abilene this week, and he talks with us via email for Lone Star Listens.
LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: Where did you grow up, Michael, and how would you describe those days?
MICHAEL HURD: I was born in Texarkana, Texas side (!). Despite the segregation in the 1950s, I look back at that as the best time in my life. We had a wonderful family centered around my maternal grandmother — my “Big Momma!” There was always somebody to give you a hug, or tell you to get me a switch!, or offer a lap to sit in, or walk with you to church every Sunday. My grandmother, Ellen Baxter, my uncles and aunts, cousins were the best people I’ve ever known. Solid human beings who loved family, loved kids, and were well-respected in the community. It was such a loving and supportive environment. We moved to Houston when I was ten, and I was mad at my parents for the longest time because I didn’t understand why we had to move, why we had to leave that.
How old were you when you first played football, and what position did you play?
I didn’t participate in team sports at school, but played sandlot games — touch football, sometimes tackle, basketball, Little League baseball. I started playing those sports early on with my friends, and we’d have neighborhood teams that played against neighborhood rivals. >>READ MORE
Texas’s only statewide, weekly calendar of book events
Bookish Texas event highlights 2.18.2018>> GO this weekMichelle Newby, Contributing Editor
SPECIAL EVENTS THIS WEEK
- Humanities Texas presents Texas Storytime: A Family Reading Program, Midland, February 8-March 15
- First Impressions Festival for Local Playwrights, Dallas, February 21-23
- 22nd Annual ASU Writers Conference in Honor of Elmer Kelton, San Angelo, February 22-23
- People’s Poetry Festival, Corpus Christi, February 22-24
- Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas, Austin, February 24
- Poetry Out Loud Finals, Austin, February 24
- Wild & Wonderful Evening: 4word Gala & Dinner featuring Barbara Bush and Jenna Bush Hager, Dallas, February 24
ABILENE Mon., Feb. 19 Abilene Public Library – Downtown, Texas Author Series: Michael Hurd discussing and signing Thursday Night Lights, 12PM
DALLAS Mon., Feb. 19 Belo Mansion, World Affairs Council of DFW hosts former Mexican president Vicente Fox discussing and signing Let’s Move On: Beyond Fear and False Prophets, 12PM
ARLINGTON Tues., Feb. 20 UT Arlington – Texas Hall, Maverick Speaker Series presents best-selling author and sustainable food advocate Michael Pollan: “One Writer’s Trip: From the Garden to the Plate and the Beyond,” 7:30PM
ALSO SIGNING IN HOUSTON Tues., Feb. 13 Blue Willow Bookshop, 7PM
DALLAS Tues., Feb. 20 Interabang Books, Michelle Staubach Grimes launches her newest children’s book, PIDGE TAKES THE STAGE, 6PM
AUSTIN Wed., Feb. 21 Harry Ransom Center, Early Digital Facsimiles: Sarah Werner, who previously served as Digital Media Strategist at the Folger Shakespeare Library and author of the forthcoming Studying Early Printed Books, 1450–1800: A Practical Guide, will discuss the rise of digitization and its impact on the study of early modern books, 4:30PM
COLLEGE STATION Thurs., Feb. 22 TAMU – Annenberg Presidential Conference Center, “How to Become a Star Writer” by Skip Hollandsworth, author of The Midnight Assassin, 1PM
EL PASO Thurs., Feb. 22 B&N – Sunland Park, Meet Crazy Horse family members and W. Matson, author of Crazy Horse: The Lakota Warrior’s Life & Legacy, 5PM
SAN ANTONIO Thurs., Feb. 22 San Antonio Central Library, A Public Platica on the current state of the literary arts in San Antonio, with the debut and signing of Literary San Antonio, featuring Dr. Tomás Ybarra-Frausto Bryce Milligan, Texas Poet Laureate Rosemary Catacalos, San Antonio and Texas Poet Laureate Jenny Browne, journalist and cultural historian Cary Clack, and San Antonio book collector extraordinaire Bill Fisher, 6:30PM
SAN MARCOS Thurs., Feb. 22 Texas State – Alkek Library, the Wittliff Collections presents a reading and signing with Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, 3:30PM
ALSO SIGNING IN KYLE Fri., Feb. 23 Katherine Anne Porter Literary Center,7:30PM
ALPINE Fri., Feb. 23 Front Street Books, Ben H. English discussing and signing Yonderings: Trails and Memories of the Big Bend, 6PM
AUSTIN Sat., Feb. 24 BookWoman, TORCH Wildfire Reading series featuring Dr. Jacqueline Allen Trimble, author of American Happiness, winner of the 2016 Balcones Poetry Prize, 7PM
HOUSTON Sat., Feb. 24 Blue Willow Bookshop, Lincee Ray will discuss and sign her new book, WHY I HATE GREEN BEANS, 11AM
News Briefs 2.18.18
10th annual Texas Teen Book Festival slated for October 6
Milestone year to bring several surprises for 2018 festival attendees
AUSTIN — The Texas Teen Book Festival is excited to announce that its 10th annual Festival will take place Sat., Oct. 6, at St. Edward’s University. Young adults and YA-genre fans can expect a fun day filled with entertaining panels and inspiring sessions led by some of 2018’s best-selling and most critically acclaimed Young Adult authors, along with interactive activities, games, book signings, and more.
The 2017 Texas Teen Book Festival welcomed more than 4,000 attendees and an all-star lineup of more than thirty celebrated YA authors, including keynote speakers Jason Reynolds and Marie Lu. The 2017 TTBF also introduced the iTent and We Need Diverse Books for a special session on professional opportunities in the book and publishing industry.
“We are ecstatic to announce that the 2018 Texas Teen Book Festival will be returning for its 10th year,” said Shawn Mauser, TTBF festival director. >>READ MORE
6th annual Book Festival to bring more than ninety authors to San Antonio Apr. 7
SAN ANTONIO—The San Antonio Book Festival (SABF) has released its lineup of more than 90 national, regional, and local authors who will appear at the 6th annual Festival, which will take place on Saturday, April 7, 2018, from 9 am to 5 pm at the Central Library and Southwest School of Art. A detailed schedule of the Festival’s author sessions will be available at saplf.org/festival in March.
Headlining the 2018 lineup is Emmy award-winning journalist Jorge Ramos with his latest book, Stranger: The Challenge of a Latino Immigrant in the Trump Era. Ramos has been the anchorman for Univision since 1986 and was hailed as “one of the 25 most influential Hispanics in the United States” by magazine. His 2016 documentary, Hate Rising, investigates the state of hate in America.
Other top attractions in the SABF lineup include popular comedian Paula Poundstone with her book exploring happiness, The Totally Unscientific Study of the Search for Human Happiness; Pulitzer Prize finalist Luis Alberto Urrea with his new novel, The House of Broken Angels; former San Antonio mayor Henry Cisneros with Building Equitable Cities: How to Drive Economic Mobility and Regional Growth; Attica Locke, author of Bluebird, Bluebird and former writer for the TV show Empire; National Book Award finalist Carmen Maria Machado with her debut collection of short stories, Her Body and Other Parties; former LBJ Presidential Library director Mark Updegrove with The Last Republicans: Inside the Extraordinary Relationship Between George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.
MacArthur Fellow and best-selling author Sandra Cisneros will appear with her memoir, A House of My Own: Stories from My Life. >>READ MORE
BLACK HISTORY MONTH FOCUS
NCCIL opens exhibit of African-American authors, illustrators
ABILENE — The Coretta Scott King Book Awards have been given annually since 1969 to African-American authors and illustrators of books for children and young adults for demonstrating African-American culture and values. The largest exhibit honoring these authors and illustrators opened last week at the National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature (NCCIL) in Abilene.
An exhibit three years in the making, “Our Voice: Celebrating the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Awards” will run through at least May 19, 2018, according to Sujata Shahane, director of education and exhibitions programming at the NCCIL.
Texas Poetry Out Loud finals slated for February 24
LEFT: 2017 Texas Poetry Out Loud competitors
AUSTIN — The Texas Commission on the Arts will host the Texas Poetry Out Loud recitation contest for high school students at 1:00 pm Sat., Feb. 24, 2018, in Austin. The finals, graciously hosted by the Bullock Texas State History Museum, will be open to the public and free to attend. 27 students will represent their schools in the competition. The event will be hosted by internationally renowned Texas poet Naomi Shihab Nye. >>READ MORE
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
————— 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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