WHAT TEXANS ARE READING

LONE STAR LISTENS interviews   >> archive

11.25.2018  Bethany Hegedus of The Writing Barn opens up about her literary journey: Midwest to North to South, apprentice-to-teacher, Gandhi to Lee to Carter

BETHANY HEGEDUS PORTRAIT: SAM BOND PHOTOGRAPHY

If you stroll the inspiring, wooded 7.5 acres of the Writing Barn retreat south of Austin, or see founder/author Bethany Hegedus garner accolades and glowing reviews for her books, you would never know how much she has worked to achieve the literary life she now enjoys. In the middle of Thanksgiving weekend, she graciously took time from her holiday to share her inspiring story via email with Lone Star Literary Life.

LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: Where did you grow up, Bethany, and how would you describe those days?

BETHANY HEGEDUS: Ah, my childhood was spent in the Chicago burbs as free-range ’70’s kid, riding bikes, ice skating at the pond, and as a teen sneaking my mom’s cigarettes and smoking them at the creek. I wouldn’t call it carefree, but in comparison to the way we tether our children to ourselves and barely let them in the back yard, where we can see them out the window there was a freedom to grow and explore that I enjoyed. In about 5th grade, I became an avid reader and from them on freedom was found in exploring people and places in fiction.

What brought you to Texas?

I moved to Texas eight years ago to have my author money go further. Austin isn’t inexpensive, but it is compared to New York City, where I had lived and where I wrote the last ten years and crossed the threshold from yet-to-be published writer, to author. My first novel came out in 2009 and my second was under contract. I longed to leave my day job and to have more psychic distance (the literary term can relate to our creation process as well as our character’s journeys) and time for myself. I quit my day job and moved to Austin within three weeks.

My first year here was taxing, emotionally, mentally, and financially. I worked part-time at the Writers’ League of Texas, wrote and wrote, and watched my savings disappear. Moving to Texas was a leap of faith, and after white-knuckling it through that first year, things began to come together. Soon after, I met my husband, and the year after that we began The Writing Barn — but not before I survived a car with a broken A.C. for a year and had my lights turned off as I waited for the Grandfather Gandhi advance to come in. >>READ MORE

Texas’s only statewide, weekly calendar of book events
Bookish Texas event highlights  11.25.2018>> GO this weekMichelle Newby, Contributing Editor

SPECIAL EVENTS THIS WEEK

• 14th Annual Signatures Author Series, The Woodlands, November 30
• 4th Literacy in the Bag Kick Off, Houston, December 1
• 8th Annual Writergrrls Book Fest: A Tribute to Debra Winegarten, Austin, December 2

ONGOING EVENTS

• Literary Frontiers: Historical Fiction & the Creative Imagination, San Marcos, August 1-December 14
• “Dawoud Bey: Forty Years in Harlem” photography exhibition (from the book Dawoud Bey: Seeing Deeply), Austin, August 29-December 8
• Finding Sophie Blackall Exhibition, Abilene, October 11-February 1
• Texas Writers (a Humanities Texas exhibition), Livingston, November 1-30

ABILENE  Mon., Nov. 26 Texas Star Trading Co, Gary McCaleb will sign copies of his new book, Treasured Places: Celebrating the Richness of America’s Cities and Towns, 4PM

AUSTIN  Mon., Nov. 26  BookPeople, H.W. BRANDS speaking & signing Heir of the Founders: The Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun and Daniel Webster, the Second Generation of American Giants, 7PM

DALLAS  Tues., Nov. 26Dallas Museum of Art, Arts & Letters Live presents Mark Lamster, author of The Man in the Glass House: Philip Johnson, Architect of the Modern Center, in conversation with Rick Brettell, 7:30PM

AUSTIN  Wed., Nov. 27   Malvern Books, Pterodáctilo presents: Poetry & Ptamales Party, 6PM

DALLAS  Wed., Nov. 27 Latino Cultural Center, TransNational Impressions Series: Tim Z. Hernandez & friends, 7:30PM

AUSTIN Thurs., Nov. 28 Texas Capitol Rotunda, Andrew Sansom, Rusty Yates, and David K. Langford signing Seasons at Selah: The Legacy of Bamberger Ranch Preserve, 1:30PM

DALLAS  Thurs., Nov. 28 Interabang Books, Mike Marvins discussing and signing THE TEXAS HILL COUNTRY, 7PM

SAN ANTONIO  Thurs., Nov. 28  The Twig Book Shop, Barbara Gonzalez Cigarroa discussing and signing A Mexican Dream and Other Compositions, 5PM

SAN ANTONIO  Fri., Nov. 29Trinity U, Words Matter: Canine Cosmonaut: The True Story of the First Animal to Orbit Earth with author Kurt Caswell, 6:30PM

ALSO PRESENTING A WORKSHOP  Sat., Nov. 30Trinity U, Writing Workshop with Kurt Caswell, 10AM

ABILENE  Sat., Dec. 1Texas Star Trading Co, author and photographer Bill Wright will sign copies of The Whole Damn Cheese: Maggie Smith Border Legend, 1PM

CORPUS CHRISTI  Sat., Dec. 1Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi Literary Reading Series presents Jeffrey Eugenides, 7PM

HOUSTON  Sun., Dec. 2Brazos Bookstore, Holiday Open House, 5:30PM

News Briefs 11.25.18

OF DARKNESS from Dallas’s Deep Vellum nominated for prestigious International DUBLIN Literary Award

DUBLIN, IRELAND — Of Darkness, the bestselling, award-winning novel by Denmark’s Josefine Klougart (“the Virginia Woolf of Scandinavia”), translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken and published by Deep Vellum in Dallas, Texas, has been nominated for the 2019 International DUBLIN Literary Award.

This is the third nomination for a Deep Vellum book for this prestigious award, following Texas: The Great Theft by Carmen Boullosa (tr. Samantha Schnee) in 2016, and La Superba by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer (tr. Michele Hutchison) in 2018.

Of Darkness is among 141 titles nominated by libraries worldwide for the €100,000 International DUBLIN Literary Award, the world’s most valuable annual literary prize for a single work of fiction published in English.  >>READ MORE

8th Annual Writergrrls Book Fest to pay tribute to the late Debra Winegarten

AUSTIN — Austin writers Cindy Huyser, Peggy Kelsey, Seja Rachel, Polly Hughes, Agnes Savich, Lisa L. Moore, Tina Posner, Desiree Morales, Robin Bradford, Katherine Durham Oldmixon, and Allyson Whipple will be featured at the 8th Annual Austin Writergrrls Book Fest scheduled for December 2 at BookWoman, 5501 N. Lamar Blvd., Austin.

This year, the Writergrrls Book Fest will be a literary reading in tribute to the award-winning author, publisher, and fellow Writergrrl Debra L. Winegarten (pictured above), who died earlier this year. In addition to being a prolific and successful writer herself, Winegarten was a cheerleader for the Writergrrls, championing the work of other women writers in the Austin community.

Winegarten authored a number of books, specializing in biography and poetry, and her work garnered many awards. Her titles include There’s Jews in Texas?; Where Jewish Grandmothers Come From; Oveta Culp Hobby: Colonel, Cabinet Member, Philanthropist; Katherine Stinson: The Flying Schoolgirl, and, with Zvi Yaniv, My Life on the Mysterious Island of Nanotechnology. In June 2018, Winegarten was awarded the Sarah Patton Stipend for nonfiction at The Writer’s Hotel for her memoir-in-progress.  >>READ MORE

Letters About Literature 2018 open for submissions from young readers

AUSTIN — Has a book brought you to laughter or tears, or changed your life? Write a letter to the author.

Letters About Literature is a reading/writing contest for fourth through twelfth graders under the direction of the Library of Congress. Texas submissions for the 2018–19 contest are due to the new online submission platform by December 14, 2018. A permission form is required for all students under the age of 13 on November 1, 2018.

Tens of thousands of students from across the country enter Letters About Literature each year. State winners receive $100 and a trip to the Texas Library Association Conference. National winners receive $2,000 and travel assistance to Washington D.C. for a special awards ceremony.

How to enter

There are three categories for contestants:

Level 1 — Grades 4-6

Level 2 — Grades 7-8

Level 3 — Grades 9-12

Read: Select a fiction or nonfiction book, a poem or play you have read that you feel strongly about. It might be a book that helped you through a difficult time, or it might be a book that simply touched your heart or inspired you.>>READ MORE

Writespace to offer emerging writer fellowships

HOUSTON — According to Writespace Houston’s website, as part of their ongoing commitment to encourage and support exciting new voices, in 2019 Writespace will award Emerging Writer Fellowships to two exceptionally talented writers selected from the Houston community.

Both published and unpublished writers are welcome to apply. Special consideration will be given to outstanding candidates from historically underrepresented populations. Applicants must live within sixty miles of Writespace and provide proof of demonstrated financial need.

Emerging Writer Fellowship Prize

Over the course of one year, each recipient of the Writespace Emerging Writer Fellowship will be eligible to receive at no cost:

• Four multi-week Writespace workshops (four to ten sessions each)

• Six one-day Writespace workshops

• Seven-day pass to Writefest, Writespace’s flagship literary festival

• Four consultation sessions with Writespace director Elizabeth White-Olsen or Writespace associate director Cassandra Rose Clarke (optional)

• One Writespace membership   >>READ MORE

 ——­——— A D V E R T I S E M E N T —————

Lone Star Listens compilation available fall 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.