International Edible Book Festival delights foodies and bookies, April 2018
Events this week in Austin, Denton
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Starting in the year 2000, bibliophiles, book artists and food lovers around the world have gathered to celebrate the art of books through food. Participants create an “edible book,” which is a culinary interpretation of any book, character, literary pun, or plot.
The International Edible Book Festival, scheduled each year on or after April 1 (the birthday of 18th-century French gastronome Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin), has been observed at libraries, bookstores, and cultural venues around the world. Here’s a roundup of Texas participants that we’ve found for 2018.
16th Annual Austin Edible Bookfest set for April 1, 2018
From Do512
A literary smorgasbord of favorite books, presented as food!
The time has come to combine your love of books with the totally normal desire to eat them. Participants add a food pun to a book’s title, then create the dish that represents their idea. Entries are displayed, attendees vote on their faves, prizes are awarded, then everything gets eaten.
Past winners include a massive cookie chess board with pastry game pieces (“Game of Scones”); A clam-shaped cake decked out like a leatherbound Good Book (“The Holy Bivalve”); and an herb-essenced meringue, piped into a rippled script (“A Wrinkle in Thyme.”)
Get creative and combine your culinary abilities with your “dad joke” skills. Prizes are contributed from local businesses, and awarded for Most Appetizing, Least Appetizing, Funniest, Best Construction, and Best in Show. Event doubles as a food drive for Central Texas Food Bank, so bring non-perishable donations to help feed local families.
Half Price Books
5555 N Lamar Blvd Austin, TX
Sun., April 1, 6– 8 p.m.
15th Annual Edible Books Festival at University of North Texas at Denton
From UNT
Help kick off National Library Week with us at the annual Edible Books Festival on Mon., April 9 in Willis Library. Members of the Denton community and UNT faculty, staff members, and students may enter their creations into the festival for free, and they are also invited to judge the entries and then eat them. Since 2003, Willis Library has held an Edible Books Festival as part of the observance of the International Edible Book Festival, which is scheduled each year on or after April 1, the birthday of 18th-century French gastronome Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. The Edible Book Festival is observed by many university and community libraries.
Mon., April 2
1506 W Highland St.
Denton, TX
For information call (940) 565-2411
Schreiner University celebrates Texas literature on April 11
KERRVILLE — Overcoming writing obstacles, journaling as a means of exploration, and learning more about Mexican American writers in Texas will be some of the topics discussed during the day-long 2018 Texas Writers Conference Wednesday, April 11 at Schreiner University.
The English Department at the university will host the 28th annual conference for free for community members, aspiring writers, literature lovers, students, and educators.
Workshops and readings are slated for 2:30 p.m., 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. April 11, at Schreiner University’s Cailloux Student Center, 2100 Memorial Blvd., in the River Room. The event is free and open to the public. Seating is first-come, first-served.
Texas writers Skye Alexander and Rhonda Wiley-Jones will offer writing workshops at 2:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. respectively. Writer and Schreiner University faculty member Christine Granados will discuss Mexican American literature and read from her books at 7:30 p.m. Students will read from their work and there will be an open mic.
Professor Kathleen Hudson started the conference 1990 with the Whitehurst Creative Teaching award. “This conference gives community members and students opportunities to hear new ideas, share stories of writers, and create responses,” said Hudson, the event organizer. “That fulfills my own personal mission in life: Stories and songs make a difference in the world.”
Skye Alexander is the author of more than forty fiction and nonfiction books. Her stories have appeared in numerous anthologies internationally, and her books have been translated into more than a dozen languages. She has also authored more than 2,000 articles for newspapers and magazines, and written for television, radio, and online sites. Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked in the book publishing industry as an editor, publicist, marketing manager, special sales director, and copywriter, and in 2002 co-founded the publishing company Level Best Books. She serves on the board of the Friends of the Butt-Holdsworth Memorial Library. www.skyealexander.com
Rhonda Wiley-Jones (M.Ed.), author of At Home in the World: Travel Stories of Growing Up and Growing Away, is currently writing fiction. She facilitates workshops in the U.S. and Mexico on travel writing, journal writing, the craft of writing, and memoir writing. https://rhondawiley-jones.com/2018/01/17/research-settings-for-your-fiction/
Christine Granados was born and raised in El Paso, Texas. She has been a Spur Award finalist and winner of the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation Award from the Macondo Foundation. Granados’ fiction and nonfiction has appeared in Texas Monthly, NPR’s Latino USA, People Magazine, Texas Observer and numerous journals and her work has been anthologized in several college textbooks. She has been a journalist with the El Paso Times and the Austin American-Statesman. She is a reporter at the Fredericksburg Standard-Radio Post and teaches writing at Schreiner University and the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her second book of fiction, Fight Like a Man and Other Stories We Tell Our Children, was published by the University of New Mexico Press in 2017.
www.christinegranados.com
Contact Kathleen Hudson at khudson@schreiner.edu or 830-377-3186 for more information.
(From organization’s press release)
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San Antonio names Octavio Quintanilla as new poet laureate
Investiture Ceremony slated for April 3 in San Antonio
Local author and professor Octavio Quintanilla will serve as San Antonio’s fourth poet laureate, for a two-year term from 2018–20, the city announced recently.
The first male to hold the position, Quintanilla is tasked with “[generating] public interest in and preserving the art of poetry, while celebrating the culture and history of San Antonio,” the first major city in Texas to recognize and appoint a Poet Laureate.
“Since I’ve been here all I have done is my best to promote the literary community and that writers that live here,” Quintanilla told the Rivard Report. “[As Poet Laureate] I am planning to do what I do now, which is promoting literacy, promoting community, and promoting poetry.”
Quintanilla, who is a native of Harlingen and lived in Mexico until he was 9, has lived in San Antonio for five years and declares himself “a proud San Antonian now.” He has been an assistant professor at Our Lady of the Lake University since 2013, where he currently teaches masters-level literature and creative writing, and has served on advisory committees for the San Antonio Book Festival, Luminaria, and Zoeglossia: Retreat for Writers with Disabilities.
He is also the South Texas regional editor for Texas Books in Review and serves on the peer review board for the Southwestern American Literature publication from the Center for the Study of the Southwest, both initiatives out of Texas State University in San Marcos.
He earned his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in English from the University of Texas Pan American in Edinburg, and graduated in 2010 with a doctorate degree in literature and creative writing from the University of North Texas in Denton.
Quintanilla said that people get excited about poetry because it is “something that is in us all,” and “something we all grew up with,” by way of listening to stories told by parents and grandparents. “Hearing someone talk, hearing someone tell their story – that is poetry.”
Quintanilla joins previous poets laureate Carmen Tafolla, Laurie Ann Guerrero, and Jenny Browne, who all went on to become poets laureate of Texas after serving their posts in San Antonio.
“I feel honored to follow in the footsteps of three women who are amazing people, amazing writers, and amazing poets,” Quintanilla said. “I am excited about continuing aspects of the work that they have done, which is celebrating poetry and bringing it to the tables of others.”
While Quintanilla says it is too soon to speak to specific projects or initiatives that might take place during his tenure, his ultimate goal will be to make poetry more visible to communities that have less access, including schools and juvenile detention centers.
The poet laureate program was established in 2012 under then mayor Julián Castro. A panel of U.S. writers reviews the nominations, then recommends one for appointment by the mayor.
“As a world class city, San Antonio supports and fosters its creative and artistic communities – especially the many individuals who have committed their lives and work to preserving our city’s cultural legacy,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg said in a press release Tuesday. “Octavio is one of those committed individuals, and the City of San Antonio is proud to have him serve as our new Poet Laureate and promote the importance of literary arts in the community.”
San Antonio will join communities across the U.S. in celebrating National Poetry Month in April. Nirenberg and the City’s Department of Arts and Culture will host an Investiture Ceremony in City Council chambers to make the official appointment at City Council chambers, 6:30PM, Tues., Apr. 3, 2018. The event is open to the public.
(From the Rivard Report)
Eight authors featured at Dallas Book Festival April 7, including MUDBOUND author
Eight nationally known authors will be featured at the 2018 Dallas Book Festival Saturday, Apr. 7 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Central Library in Downtown Dallas, including Highland Park High alum Hillary Jordan, the author of Mudbound.
Jordan’s first novel, Mudbound, was published in 2008 by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, HarperCollins Canada, and Random House UK. It won the Bellwether Prize, founded by Barbara Kingsolver and awarded biennially to an unpublished debut novel that addresses issues of social justice, and an Alex Award from the American Library Association. Mudbound was also the NAIBA Fiction Book of the Year and was longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. It was one of 30 titles chosen for the 2013 World Book Night book giveaway. Paste Magazine named it one of the Top Ten Debut Novels of the Decade.
Jordan’s second novel, When She Woke, was published in 2011 by Algonquin and HarperCollins Canada and in 2012 by HarperCollins UK. It was longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. Jordan’s novels have been translated into ten languages and counting, with seven new translations of Mudbound forthcoming.
In early 2017, the film adaptation of Mudbound premiered at Sundance, earning praise for its cast and production. Directed by Dee Rees and starring Carey Mulligan, Garrett Hedlund, Mary J. Blige, and Jason Clarke, it hit theaters in November 2017. Rolling Stone called it “a stunning achievement”: “A fiercely intimate epic about poverty, racism, violence and a divided America, Mudbound scorchingly reflects the Trump era without being a part of it.” The Atlantic echoed the sentiment, writing, “In a year when fissures in American race relations continue to be at the forefront of national discussion, Mudbound feels like a worthy antidote to the pop culture that has struggled to reflect this current reality.” Jordan is also working on a sequel to Mudbound, to be published in 2019
When she’s not writing, Jordan speaks at colleges, literary festivals, and community libraries, and teaches the occasional workshop. Jordan grew up in Dallas, Texas, and Muskogee, Oklahoma. She lives in Brooklyn. For more information on Hillary Jordan, visit www.hillaryjordan.com.
(From Dallas Public Library website)
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