Shame the Stars by Guadalupe García McCall chosen for 2018 Texas’ Great Read
The Texas Center for the Book at the Texas State Library and Archives Commission has chosen Shame the Stars by Guadalupe García McCall as Texas’ Great Read for 2018. Every year, the Library of Congress asks each state to select a book that represents the state’s literary landscape to highlight at the National Book Festival.
Texas Center for the Book invites Texans to read Shame the Stars and to take part in a statewide book club by using the hashtag #TXGreatRead. For more information on the 2018 Texas Great Read program, visit www.tsl.texas.gov/greatreadtexas.
About the Book
Shame the Stars is a reimagining of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet set in South Texas. Joaquin del Toro is 18 years old and set to inherit his family’s ranch. The woman he loves, Dulceña, feels the same way about him. But it is 1915, and with the Mexican Revolution on the south side of the border and the Tejano insurgents clashing with the Texas Rangers, relationships in the community become more complicated. Joaquin’s family comes to be at odds with Dulceña’s, and Joaquin finds himself at a turning point where he must decide where his loyalties lie.
About the Author
Guadalupe García McCall is the author of Under the Mesquite (Lee & Low Books), a novel in verse. Under the Mesquite received the prestigious Pura Belpre Author Award, was a William C. Morris Finalist, received the Lee Bennett Hopkins/International Literacy Promising Poet Award, the Tomas Rivera Children’s Book Award, and was included in Kirkus Review’s Best Teen Books of 2011, among many other accolades. Her second novel, Summer of the Mariposas (Tu Books, an imprint of Lee & Low Books), won a Westchester Young Adult Fiction award, was a finalist for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, and was included in the 2013 Amelia Bloomer Project List, the Texas Lone Star Reading List, and the 2012 School Library Journal’s Best Books of the Year. Her third novel, Shame the Stars, is a Junior Library Guild Selection and was included in the 2016 Kirkus Best Books of the Year as well as the Américas Book Award Commended List. Her poems for children have appeared in The Poetry Friday Anthology, The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School, The Poetry Friday Anthology for Science, Poems Are Teachers, and World Make Way.
McCall was born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico. She immigrated with her family to the United States when she was six years old and grew up in Eagle Pass, Texas (the setting of both her novels and most of her poems). She is currently an assistant professor of English at George Fox University.
The Texas Center for the Book is one of 50 state centers affiliated with the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. Under the direction of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, TCFB promotes books, literacy, and reading through various activities. For more information, visit www.tsl.texas.gov/centerforthebook.
(Information from organization’s press release and website)
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
Nonfiction
Winner: The Road to Jonestown by Jeff Guinn
Finalists:
Spineless by Juli Berwald
American Wolf by Nate Blakeslee
The Boy Who Loved Too Much by Jennifer Latson
No Apparent Distress by Rachel Pearson, MD
Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud by Anne Helen Petersen
Discovery Prize Winner: House Built on Ashes by José Antonio Rodríguez
Poetry
Winner: When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen
Finalists:
American Purgatory by Rebecca Gayle Howell
For Want of Water by Sasha Pimentel
Madness by Sam Sax
Wolfe and Other Poems by Donald Mace Williams
Discovery Prize Winner: The Language We Cry In by Delicia Daniels
Middle Grade/Young Adult
Winner: The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily by Laura Creedle
Finalists:
by Cora Carmack
Wait for Me by Caroline Leech
Fault Lines in the Constitution by Cynthia Levinson and Sanford Levinson
All The Wind in the World by Samantha Mabry
Discovery Prize Winner: Broken Circle by J.L. Powers and M.A. Powers
Picture Book
Winner: Dazzle Ships by Chris Barton
Finalists:
Whobert Whover, Owl Detective by Jason Gallaher
The Cloud Artist by Sherri Maret
The Survivor Tree by Gaye Sanders
Another Way to Climb a Tree by Liz Garton Scanlon
Strong As Sandow by Don Tate
Discovery Prize Winner: Dream Big by Kat Kronenberg
(Information from organization’s press release)
“Greatest Literary Show on Earth” makes Texas debut
The Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) will come to Houston September 14–15 with a theme of “Shared Narratives.”
This is the first Texas visit for the JLF, described as “the greatest literary show on Earth.” The JLF began in India a little over a decade ago, with the intention of “bringing together the world’s greatest writers, thinkers, humanitarians, politicians, business leaders, sports people and entertainers on one stage to champion the freedom to express and engage in thoughtful debate and dialogue.”
The 2018 JLF will visit Australia and England before arriving in the United States. The Asia Society Texas Center is bringing JLF to Houston, then it will move on to New York and Boulder, Colorado.
“Engaging our diverse city in an array of international topics and speakers aligns perfectly with our deep commitment to promoting cultural understanding,” said Bonna Kol, president of Asia Society Texas Center.
Participating writers include Jay Aiyer, Omar El Akkad, Robin Davidson, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Namita Gokhale, Kurt Heinzelman, Lacy M. Johnson, McKenna Jordan, Rich Levy, Rubén Martinez, Sonal Mansingh, Jovan Mays, Jasminne Mendez, Marcus Moench, Rajesh Parameswaran, Sharad Paul, Daniel Peña, Shobha Rao, Kathy Reichs, Navtej Sarna, Anis Shivani, Mimi Swartz, Shashi Tharoor, Marina Tristán, Roberto Tejada, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, and Milan Vaishnav.
The Jaipur Literature Festival will be held at Asia Society Texas Center, 1370 Southmore, Houston.
Tickets are $10 for Asia Society members and patrons of Inprint; general admission for all others is $20.
For more information, visit https://jaipurliteraturefestival.org/houston.
(Compiled from press reports)
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.
Widely acknowledged as a major contribution to Dallas’s cultural life, Arts & Letters Live has been a sellout at the Dallas Museum of Art since its inception in 1992. Audiences estimated at over 200,000 have attended more than 500 series programs. Arts & Letters Live has showcased over 300 regional, national, and international writers.
Texas Bound® features readings by Texas actors of short fiction by Texas writers. Well-known actors participating in Texas Bound have included Tommy Lee Jones, Kathy Bates, Larry Hagman, Marcia Gay Harden, Barry Corbin, and Doris Roberts.
Unless otherwise specified, Arts & Letters Live events are held in Horchow Auditorium at the Dallas Museum of Art, 1717 North Harwood Street. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Monday, August 13, at 10 a.m., and will be available online or buy calling (214) 922-1818. Anyone interested in becoming a Season Supporter should call (214) 922-1280.
For more information and the entire author lineup, visit www.dma.org/ALL.
(Information from DMA website)
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.
Twenty-one workshop topics will be covered, including deep editing techniques, character building, writing a thriller, how to launch your writing career quickly and marketing, renegade style.
The Permian Basin Writers’ Workshop is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and is organized by the Permian Basin Bookies in collaboration Midland College.
For more information, visit www.permianbasinwritersworkshop.org
(Information from organization’s press release)
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