Lone Star ReviewsMichelle Newby, NBCC,
Contributing Editor
Touchstone
Hardcover, 978-1-5011-5386-0 (also available as an e-book and audio-book), 320 pgs., $26.00
August 21, 2018
“Later, in the glove box, the police found a folder of notes. It said: Notes for the police.”
Troy Alan Falconer hasn’t been home to the fictional Texas Panhandle town of New Cona in six years. Despite his trepidation, Troy returns, answering a summons from his younger brother, Harlan, whose wife, Bettie, has absconded with all the money he had in the world. The two set out to find Bettie, but the task veers awry when Troy steals a station wagon from a Tahoka grocery-store parking lot. Unbeknownst to the brothers, an eleven-year-old Mennonite girl named Martha is hiding in the back. When they discover her the next morning, Martha has an agenda of her own, demanding the brothers return her to her father in Juárez. An inadvertent kidnapping being degrees of magnitude worse than advertent grand theft auto, the three head for México by way of Presidio.
Presidio: A Novel is debut fiction from Randy Kennedy, who grew up in Plains on the Llano Estacado. Kennedy decamped for New York City, where he wrote for the New York Times for twenty-five years, first as a city reporter and then covering the art world. Kennedy’s prose about the large hold of small places, the people as weather-beaten as the landscape, grabs you and refuses to relinquish its grip. Original and enthralling, Presidio is American realism in the vein of John Steinbeck and Stephen Crane. >> READ MORE
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Hardcover, 978-1-5344-0896-8 (also available as an e-book and audio-book), 400 pgs., $17.99
March 27, 2018
Penny is eighteen, beginning her freshman year at UT Austin. She’s funny, smart, and curious (in both senses of that word). She’s an anxious introvert who “would rather eat a pound of hair than reveal her true emotions,” highly organized, and a bit of a germaphobe. Penny, “living in books until the exciting part of her life could begin,” can’t wait to get away from her mother and her hometown boyfriend and begin her life as a science-fiction writer.
Sam is twenty-one with “irresponsible hair,” managing the Coffee House where he’s famous for his mad baking skills. He wants to be a documentary filmmaker but had to drop out of college because he couldn’t afford it. A bit adrift, Sam is lonely, lives on a mattress upstairs at the coffee shop, trying to remain sober in the face of despair and “gutted” by a broken heart. Penny discovers Sam as he’s in the middle of a panic attack on 6th Street (“a Disneyland Main Street for day drinkers”), and they exchange phone numbers in case of emergency. >>READ MORE
TEXAS SPORTS
Jeff Fisher
High School Football in Texas: Amazing Football Stories from the Greatest Players of Texas
Sports Publishing
Hardcover, 978-1-6835-8181-9, (also available as an e-book), 256 pgs., $19.99; September 4, 2018
If you’re new to Texas, it won’t take you long to understand that high school football games are a statewide religion, as well as a billion-dollar-plus industry.
On fall Friday nights, stadium lights snap on across the Lone Star State. Bleachers fill, often to overflowing. And opposing teams charge onto the fields with much more at stake than winning their game or getting dates with cheerleaders.
As Jeff Fisher’s enjoyable new book, High School Football in Texas: Amazing Football Stories from the Greatest Players of Texas, makes clear, many high-school players suit up also for the slim chance that they will get recruited by top-rated university teams and later drafted to play for professional teams in the National Football League. >>READ MORE
Texas ReadsGlenn Dromgoole
>> archive
Middle-school boys set off on great adventure
Lubbock author Nathan Dahlstrom writes outdoor adventure stories for middle grade boys under the pen name S. J. Dahlstrom. Black Rock Brothers (Paul Dry Books, $9.95 paperback) is the fifth book in “The Adventures of Wilder Good” series.
Wilder, now 13, dreams of taking a summer camping trip into the wild by himself, living off the land for maybe a month or even longer.
Well, his parents are not too keen on that idea. They want to nurture his interest in outdoor exploration — much better than sitting around playing video games, after all — but they’re not about to let their son go off on a trip into the Colorado wilderness by himself. He can go, but he must take his best friend, Big, and a satellite phone so they can stay in touch.
Wilder’s mother requests that he also take the new foster kid in school who goes by the name of Corndog. Wilder doesn’t want to, but out of respect for his mother he reluctantly agrees.
Wilder, Big and Corndog set off on their adventure, and what a time it turns out to be as they have to rely on their knowledge, instincts, and courage to overcome one challenge after another.
Along the way, Wilder and Big realize there is a lot more to Corndog’s story than they ever imagined, and his newly acquired Boy Scout skills also come in handy. Two friends become three.
Dahlstrom’s Wilder Good books — a sixth is in the works — are wholesome, action-oriented stories that encourage boys to learn about their environment, respect others, and read good books. Dahlstrom, a Lubbock middle-school teacher who ran a boys ranch for several years, says the Wilder Good character is based to some extent on his own thoughts and experiences as a 12-year-old
“Hopefully these books relate gentle learning experiences in the outdoors and with animals and with older people that formed the basis of my upbringing,” he says. “I hope kids discover that real adventure is waiting for them outside their front door and that they are not dumb or uncool for saving up for a new saddle, knife, or fishing pole instead of the latest iPhone.”
The other four books in the series have garnered awards and high praise — and each can be read as a standalone. Books one and three are set in Colorado, where Wilder lives with his parents and sister. Books two and four take place in Texas, on his grandfather’s ranch. Book four, The Green Colt, won the 2017 Wrangler Western Heritage Award for Juvenile Book and was a finalist for the Spur Award.
Black Rock Brothers, in my opinion, is the best one yet.
* * * * *
Glenn Dromgoole writes about Texas books and authors. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.
>> Check out his previous Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life
4th Annual Permian Basin Writers’ Workshop set for Oct. 13-14
Now in its fourth year, the Permian Basin Writers’ Workshop annual event will feature writing coaches, agents, and publishers from around the country, October 13-14, 2018.
The two-day workshop event will be held in Midland, at the Marie Hall Academic Building at Midland College.
The workshop will feature ten speakers, including Margie Lawson, Christie Craig, Manning Wolfe, David Farland, Reavis Z. Wortham, Kristen Marten, Stephen Graham Jones, Donna M. Johnson, B. Alan Bourgeois and Arlene Gale. >>READ MORE
2018 Kids’ Summer Reading DOZENS OF GREAT PICKS
sponsored by Blue Wilow Bookshop
From read-to-me books to early readers, chapter books to middle readers to YA, you’ll find these terrific new titles at your neighborhood bookshop or online. >>READ MORE
Twig’s Top Ten Bestsellers
July 2018
What are Texans reading these days, you ask? Lone Star Lit’s newest regular feature is a monthly list of trending titles at the Twig Book Shop, a leading independent bookseller in San Antonio. Click on any title for the Buy link. And we’ll also include a hotlink to related content in Lone Star Literary Life.
Claudia Guerra & Char Miller,300 Years of San Antonio & Bexar County 978-1-595348494
Michael CirlosHumans of San Antonio978-1-595347930
David Sedaris,Calypso 978-0-316392389
HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself 978-1-422157992
HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Mental Toughness 978-1633694361
Min Jin Lee,Pachinko 978-1-455563920
Amor Towles,A Gentleman in Moscow 978-0-670026197
Andy Weir,Artemis 978-0-553448146
Robert Wright,Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment 978-1-439195468
Jesmyn Ward,Sing, Unburied, Sing 978-1-501126079
LONE STAR CLASSIFIED LISTINGS
FEATURED: CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS
8.19.18 Fort Worth Poetry Society seeks submissions from poets and visual artists for an anthology on classical music, proceeds from which will benefit the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. No cost to enter; accepted submitters receive a free copy of the anthology. This link to the FWPS website provides complete details: https://fortworthpoetrysociety.wordpress.com/2018/07/23/call-for-submissions/.
6.3.18 The 2018 Chester B. Himes Memorial Short Fiction Prize
A prize of $750.00 and publication in The Ocotillo Review Winter 2019 will be awarded for a short story up to 4,200 words. Antonio Ruiz-Camacho will judge. Revenue generated will be donated to Parkinson’s research. Details: www.kallistogaiapress.org
>>READ MORE CLASSIFIED LISTINGS
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COMING UP ON TOUR: AUTOBIOGRAPHY
THE GRAND DUKE OF BOYS RANCH by Bill Sarpalius
Visit with Bill August 21–30, 2018
8/21/18 Notable Quotable Hall Ways Blog
8/22/18 Review Missus Gonzo
8/23/18 Excerpt StoreyBook Reviews
8/24/18 Video Interview, Part 1 The Clueless Gent
8/25/18 Review Max Knight
8/26/18 Excerpt Texas Book Lover
8/27/18 Scrapbook Page Reading by Moonlight
8/28/18 Review Forgotten Winds
8/29/18 Video Interview, Part 2 The Love of a Bibliophile
8/30/18 Review Kelly Well Read
COMING UP ON TOUR: FICTION
THE THEORY OF HAPPILY EVER AFTER by Kristin Billerbeck
Visit with Kristin August 22–31, 2018
8/22/18 Excerpt, Part 1 Chapter Break Book Blog
8/23/18 Excerpt, Part 2 Forgotten Winds
8/24/18 Review Momma on the Rocks
8/25/18 Playlist All the Ups and Downs
8/26/18 Review Missus Gonzo
8/27/18 Scrapbook Page Story Schmoozing Book Reviews
8/28/18 Review The Love of a Bibliophile
8/29/18 Author Interview Texas Book Lover
8/30/18 Review Syd Savvy
8/31/18 Review Book Fidelity
CONTINUING ON TOUR: FICTION
THAT ONE MOMENT by Patty Wiseman
Visit with Patty through August 23, 2018
8/19/18 Author Interview Books and Broomsticks
8/20/18 Review A Page Before Bedtime
8/20/18 Review Chapter Break Book Blog
8/21/18 Scrapbook Page Story Schmoozing Book Reviews
8/22/18 Review Dressed to Read
8/23/18 Character Interview Carpe Diem Chronicles
8/23/18 Review The Love of a Bibliophile
CONTINUING ON TOUR: FICTION
JUSTICE BETRAYED by Patricia Bradley
Visit with Patricia through August 24, 2018
8/19/18 Review Reading by Moonlight
8/20/18 Character Interview Books in the Garden
8/21/18 Review The Clueless Gent
8/22/18 Excerpt Part 3 StoreyBook Reviews
8/23/18 Excerpt Part 4 Book Fidelity
8/24/18 Review That’s What She’s Reading
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WHAT TEXANS ARE READING
LONE STAR LISTENS interviews >> archive
Author interviews by Lone Star Lit staff
8.19.2018 Jay Brandon on courthouses as great settings for fiction, the company of San Antonio’s literary community, and stretching your writing muscles
Jay Brandon is the award-winning author of many novels and short stories acclaimed both critically and by readers. His first novel, Deadbolt, was awarded Booklist magazine’s Editor’s Choice Award, after a starred review. His first legal thriller, Fade the Heat, was short-listed for the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award for Best Novel, was optioned by Amblin Entertainment, and has been published around the world. Local Rules was a selection of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books.
In all, Brandon’s novels have been published by more than a dozen foreign publishers with worldwide distribution. He is a practicing attorney and many of his novels are legal thrillers. As an attorney, Brandon has practiced at the Court of Criminal Appeals, which is the highest criminal court in Texas, as well as at the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office and the San Antonio Court of Appeals.
Brandon has recently departed from the legal genre. The Jetty, co-written with Joe Labatt, is a ghost story and romance set at the Texas coast. Milagro Lane, a family saga, mystery, and love story, is a novel of Brandon’s home town of San Antonio. His most recent short story, “A Jury of His Peers,” was chosen by Lee Child for inclusion in The Best American Mystery Stories. Brandon lives in San Antonio, Texas.
LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: Mr. Brandon, How did you begin writing? Is writing something you always knew you wanted to do?
JAY BRANDON: I started writing when I was very young, in elementary school. The only consistent ambition I’ve ever had was to be a writer. I was a constant reader as soon as I learned how, and as I read I tried to guess how the stories would turn out. Sometimes I liked my guesses better than the author’s, which is why I started writing myself. I loved creating stories. Still do.
You attended law school in Houston. You were writing before you decided to go to law school. Why law school and how has the practice of law contributed to your writing?
I went to graduate school in writing, graduated, got an agent, and wrote two suspense novels to try to break into publishing. My agent could never sell either of them. So, in the meantime, looking for an alternative way to make a living, I moved to Houston and after a brief stint in a bookstore started working in a law office. I soon realized everyone in the building was making a lot more money than I was, which was why I decided to go to law school. Late in my second year I changed agents, gave my new agent the two suspense novels; she sold them both to the first publisher she tried, after the first agent had tried for three years without success. So, my first novel was published the year I graduated from law school. >>READ MORE
Texas’s only statewide, weekly calendar of book events
Bookish Texas event highlights 8.19.2018>> GO this weekMichelle Newby, Contributing Editor
SPECIAL EVENTS THIS WEEK
- Book Drive for Houston Area Unaccompanied Minors presents Book Drive Benefit & Celebration, August 22
- Friends of the Dallas Public Library Annual Book Sale, August 24-26
- 5th Annual Study Social benefiting Literacy First, Austin, August 24
ONGOING EVENTS
- Oliver Jeffers: 15 Years of Picturing Books, Abilene, June 7-September 30
RICHARDSON Mon., Aug. 20 Richardson Public Library, Writers Guild of Texas workshop: “How Travel Can Inspire” with Leilani Barnett, 7PM
EL PASO Tues., Aug. 21 The Black Orchid Lounge, Barbed Wire Open Mic Series, 8PM
HOUSTON Tues., Aug. 21 Murder By the Book, Joe Lansdale and Kasey Lansdale will sign and discuss Terror Is Our Business, 6:30PM
ALSO READING IN KILGORE Wed., August 22 The Bookstore in Kilgore, (also with Kimberly Fish will read and sign her novels set in WWII Longview, The Big Inch and General Harmon), 4PM
ALSO READING IN AUSTIN Thurs., August 23 BookPeople, 7PM
AUSTIN Wed, Aug. 22 BookPeople, BEN BLUM speaking & signing Ranger Games: A True Story of Soldiers, Family and an Inexplicable Crime (in conversation with Bryan Mealer), 7PM
SAN ANTONIO Wed., Aug. 22 Trinity University, Reading TUgether lecture: Richard Blanco, the first Latino and openly-gay presidential inaugural poet, will speak about his book, The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood, 7PM
AUSTIN Thurs., August 23 REI Gateway, Bob Spain discussing and signing Bob Spain’s Canoeing Guide and Favorite Texas Paddling Trails, 6:30PM
DALLAS Fri., August 24 B&N – Lincoln Park, NFL player and coach Tony Dungy and his wife, early childhood educational specialist Lauren Dungy, will sign Austin Plays Fair and Maria Finds Courage, 7PM
DALLAS Sat., August 25 Interabang Books, Karen Blumenthal reading and signing BONNIE AND CLYDE, 1PM
GALVESTON Sat., August 25Galveston Bookshop, Johnnie Bernhard signing How We Came to Be, 3PM
HOUSTON Sat., August 25 Writespace Workshops: “Technical Writing I” with Andreana Binder, 9:30AM; “Poetry of the Fantastic” with Holly Walrath, 1PM; “Processing Harvey through Writing” with Elizabeth White-Olsen, 2PM
AUSTIN Sun., August 26 Malvern Books, celebrate the launch of Austin: A Poem by Dave Oliphant, who will be joined by Kanya Lyons, who will share her video interview, “Dave Oliphant: Native Texas Poet,” 4PM
News Briefs 8.19.18
Writers’ League of Texas 2017 Book Awards announced
The Writers’ League of Texas has announced their 2017 Texas Book Award winners, finalists, and Discovery Prize winners. Each category includes a winner and several finalists and a Discovery Prize.
Fiction
Winner: Spoils by Brian Van Reet
Finalists:
Disasters in the First World by Olivia Clare
Hollow by Owen Egerton
White Fur by Jardine Libaire
Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke
Wait Till You See Me Dance by Deb Olin Unferth
Discovery Prize Winner: Fight Like A Man and Other Stories We Tell Our Children by Christine Granados >>READ MORE
Odessa Arts receives Big Read grant for coming year
Arts organization one of 79 organizations nationwide to receive an NEA Big Read grant; will read and aelebrate Station 11 from September 11 to November 25
ODESSA — Odessa Arts is a recipient of a grant of $15,000 to host the NEA Big Read in Odessa, Texas, during the coming year. A national initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest, the NEA Big Read broadens our understanding of our world, our communities, and ourselves through the joy of sharing a good book. Odessa Arts is one of 79 nonprofit organizations to receive an NEA Big Read grant to host a community reading program between September 2018 and June 2019.
The NEA Big Read in Odessa Arts will focus on Station 11 by Emily St. John Mandel. Activities will take place September 11 to November 25, 2018. >>READ MORE
Fort Worth BookFest features Latinx authors and books, spoken word events in 2nd year
FORT WORTH — The Fort Worth BookFest’s stated goal is “to raise awareness of the transformative power of literacy.” In its sophomore year, the BookFest will expand its offerings in an effort to embrace differences and celebrate diversity.
One of the new features for the 2018event announced this week is “Nuestros Cuentos/Our Stories & Lucha Libro.” An author panel with Juan Perez, Ofelia Faz-Garza, Virginia Alanis, Sylvana Avila Alonzo, and Maribel Rubio, moderated by Richard J. Gonzales (Raza Rising: Chicanos in North Texas), will explore the Latinx experience. The panel will spotlight culturally contemporary Latinx authors and poets, descendants of the Indigenous Peoples of the pre-Columbus Americas. Authors will read from their published works and participate in a Q&A with the audience. For younger readers there will be Lucha Libro, an initiative to encourage kids to read more. Created especially for Fort Worth BookFest, these luchadores (wrestlers) fight for literacy. >>READ MORE
Dallas’s Arts & Letters Live announces fall 2018 lineup
DALLAS — In its 27th season, Arts & Letters Live has announced tits fall 2018 author lineup. As always, the list is an impressive lineup of award winners and best sellers, including Sarah Bird (Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen, September 20), Doris Kearns Goodwin (Leadership in Turbulent Times, September 26), Andre Dubus III (Gone So Long, October 7), and Jesmyn Ward (Sing, Unburied, Sing, November 1).
Arts & Letters Live is a literary and performing arts series produced by the Dallas Museum of Art that features award-winning authors and performers of regional, national, and international acclaim. The series is recognized for its creative multidisciplinary programming — combining literature with visual arts, music, and film — and for commissioning new work inspired by works of art in the museum’s collection and special exhibitions. >>READ MORE
————— A D V E R T I S E M E N T —————
Lone Star Listens compilation available summer 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 Summer 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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