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WHAT TEXANS ARE READING

LONE STAR LISTENS interviews   >> archive

9.23.2018   Banning books silences stories

Banned Books Week 2018 is September 23–29

Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores, and libraries. Typically held during the last week of September, it highlights the value of free and open access to information. Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community—librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types—in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.

By focusing on efforts across the country to remove or restrict access to books, Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship. The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) compiles lists of challenged books as reported in the media and submitted by librarians and teachers across the country.

To view the list of the Top Ten Challenged Books of 2017, and to learn about Banned Books Week events in Texas, read on. >>READ MORE

Texas’s only statewide, weekly calendar of book events
Bookish Texas event highlights  9.23.2018>> GO this weekMichelle Newby, Contributing Editor

SPECIAL EVENTS THIS WEEK

• Banned Books Week, September 23-29
• Texas Association of Creative Writing Teachers Conference, San Antonio, September 27-29
• The 2018 Texas Tribune Festival, Austin, September 27-29
• 7th Annual LibroFest, Houston, September 29
• 3rd Annual Pflugerville Comic Con, September 29

ONGOING EVENTS

• Oliver Jeffers: 15 Years of Picturing Books, Abilene, June 7-September 30
• “Dawoud Bey: Forty Years in Harlem” photography exhibition (from the book Dawoud Bey: Seeing Deeply), Austin, August 29-December 8
• The Texas Liberator: Witness to the Holocaust exhibition (from the book The Texas Liberators: Veteran Narratives from World War II), Houston, September 7-October 28

AUSTIN  Mon., Sept. 24 UT – Mulva Auditorium, The Michener Center for Writers presents a reading with Edward P. Jones, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning 2003 novel The Known World, 7PM

HOUSTON  Mon., Sept. 24  Cullen Performance Hall, Inprint’s Margarett Root Brown Reading Series presents a reading with Esi Edugyan and Meg Wolitzer, 7:30PM

AUSTIN  Tues., Sept. 25 LBJ Library, an evening with Pulitzer Prize-winning author and presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin discussing her new book, Leadership: In Turbulent Times, 6PM

ALSO READING IN DALLAS  Wed., Sept. 26 Temple Emanu-El, 7:30PM

CANYON  Tues., Sept. 25  Panhandle Plains Historical Museum, an evening of poetry about Amarillo and the American West by PEN Southwest Book Award-winning poet Chera Hammons, 7PM

SAN ANTONIO  Tues, Sept. 25  The Twig Book Store, An evening with poets Chip Dameron and Jim LaVilla-Havelin, introduced by San Antonio Poet Laureate Octavio Quintanilla, 6:30PM

DALLAS  Wed., Sept. 26 Dallas Morning News Auditorium, CENSORSHIP SESSION 1: “The History of Censorship, Its Development in the West, and the Phenomenon of Banned Books,” 7PM

HOUSTON  Wed., Sept. 26LSC-Atascocita Center Library, Banned Books Read Out/Speak Out, 12:30PM

WICHITA FALLS  Wed., Sept. 26Midwestern State University – Moffett Library, Millie Gore will discuss censorship and present her new picture book, All is Assuredly Well, 3 pm

SAN ANTONIO  Thurs., Sept. 27  San Antonio

The Twig Book Shop, Sarah Bird reading and signing Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen, 6PM

HOUSTON  Sat., Sept. 28  River Oaks Bookstore, William Dylan Powell discussing and signing 100 Things to Do in Houston Before You Die, 2nd Edition, 3PM

LUBBOCK  Sun., Sept. 28  B&N, Jodi Thomas signing MISTLETOE MIRACLES, 2PM

AUSTIN  Sun., Sept. 29  Malvern Books, International Translation Day Celebration, 5:30PM

News Briefs 9.23.18

Texas Institute of Letters 2018 literary contests open for submissions

The Texas Institute of Letters (TIL) literary contests now open, with prizes totaling more than $22,000.

TIL has named its judges for its literary contests, which are now open for submissions. Judges will select finalists and winners in twelve categories for the best works published in 2018. Winners will be awarded a total of more than $22,000 at TIL’s annual meeting, to be held on April 26–27, 2019, in McAllen, Texas.  >>READ MORE

Boerne Book & Arts Fest Brings Authors, Art, Crafts, Music & More to Boerne Main Plaza

Kinky Friedman to share stories and perform from new album

Another chapter of the Boerne Book & Arts Fest will open October 6 on Boerne’s Main Plaza with a celebration featuring live artist demos, author discussion panels, children’s activities and an appearance by Texas’s beloved singer, songwriter, humorist, and politician Kinky Friedman. Admission is free.

The one-day literary and arts celebration offers a little something for every age group, including seven engaging discussion panels of authors who will cover topics ranging from the Houston Astros’ World Series-winning season to one of Texas’ best Honky Tonks, The Broken Spoke. Kinky Friedman will appear at 3 p.m., performing songs from his new album, Circus of Life, and sharing readings from Heroes of a Texas Childhood in the Main Plaza gazebo. Panels will take place throughout the day at Main Plaza and upstairs at the Dienger Trading Company.  >>READ MORE

IN MEMORIAM  |  TEXAS LITERARY LIGHTS

Debra Winegarten
1958–2018

Debra Lou Winegarten was born in Dallas on December 29, 1957 to Ruthe and Alvin Winegarten, and passed from this life on September 10, 2018, the first day of Rosh Hashanah 5779. Debra was an author, publisher, educator, flutist, and all-around rabble-rousing feminist who delighted in inspiring and challenging others.  >>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.

Texas ReadsGlenn Dromgoole

>> archive

Texas authors offer links between golf, history

Historian Dan K. Utley and Austin preservation architect Stanley O. Graves combine two of their passions — history and golf — in Links to the Past: The Hidden History on Texas Golf Courses (Texas A&M University Press, $26 hardcover).

It’s a fascinating look at 18 golf courses and their connection to history — from dinosaurs to a Comanche raid to Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders to a deadly race riot. They also work in quite a bit of golf history and interesting anecdotes along the way.

Among the courses covered are the Menard Golf Course, the Campus Course at Texas A&M, Brackenridge Park Golf Course in San Antonio, the San Saba River Course, and the Memorial Park Golf Course in Houston.

“Our overarching goal,” the authors write, “is to talk about Texas history in a new way, one that we hope will be fun and enlightening.”

Utley, chief historian for the Center for Texas Public History at Texas State University, has also written books about historic military sites in Texas and some of the more notable roadside historical markers.

Hosting butterflies: Texas A&M University Press has published another one of its noteworthy full-color field guides — this one having to do with plants and butterflies.

Native Host Plants for Texas Butterflies by Jim Weber, Lynne Weber and Roland H. Wauer ($30 flexbound) tells — in mostly layman’s language — about wildflowers, trees, shrubs and vines and the caterpillars and butterflies that are attracted to them.

Color maps indicate the sections of the state where the various plants are prevalent.

On being a cop: Sarah Cortez is an author, a poet, and a cop. She wrote a poetry collection called How to Undress a Cop, and followed that up with Vanishing Points: Poems and Photographs of Texas Roadside Memorials.

Now, after more than two decades in law enforcement in the Houston area, she has produced a book of essays about her experiences, Tired, Hungry, Standing in One Spot for Twelve Hours: Essential Cop Essays (Texas Review Press, $22.95 paperback, 108 pages).

The essays give a nitty-gritty look at what it’s like to be a cop on patrol — the dangers and the harsh realities police face every day, but also the sense of duty and commitment to protecting the public.

* * * * *

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