20 authors for 20 years: Texas Book Festival announces first set of featured authors for 2015

Margaret Atwood, Sandra Cisneros, Chuck Palahniuk, Wendell Pierce, Adrian Tomine, and more

AUSTIN—In honor of its twentieth anniversary, the Texas Book Festival is announcing twenty authors who will be featured at this year’s Festival weekend, Oct. 17 and 18.

“This year is going to be huge. And it should be, it’s our twentieth anniversary!” said literary director Steph Opitz. “I’m so happy we can finally share a handful of the literary stars and soon-to-be-stars joining us this year. It’s like a holiday gift list of incredible people. Looking for something for that gourmand friend? Check. Angsty tween who loves comics? Check. A twentysomething aspiring poet who’s read it all? Check. The family history buff? Check.”

The 2015 Festival authors and their featured books announced today are:

• Margaret Atwood, The Heart Goes Last
• Chuck Palahniuk, Make Something Up: Stories You Can’t Unread
• Elizabeth Strout, The O. Henry Prize Stories 2015: The Best Stories of the Year
• Sloane Crosley, The Clasp
• Sandra Cisneros, A House of My Own: Stories from My Life
• Chip Kidd, Judge This
• Adrian Tomine, Killing and Dying
• Wendell Pierce, The Wind in the Reeds
• with Brian Floca, Old Wolf
• Raúl Colón, Draw!
• H. W. Brands, Reagan: The Life
• Margo Jefferson, Negroland: A Memoir
• Alejandro Zambra, My Documents
• Attica Locke, Pleasantville
• Saeed Jones, Prelude to a Bruise
• Linda Gray, The Road to Happiness is Always Under Construction
• Aaron Franklin, Franklin Barbecue: A Meat-Smoking Manifesto
• Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely, All American Boys
• Stephen L. Moore, Texas Rising: The Epic True Story of the Lone Star Republic and the Rise of the Texas Rangers, 1836–1846
• Marie Lu, The Rose Society: A Young Elites Novel

The 2015 Festival poster, by artist Fatima Ronquillo, has also been unveiled.

Ronquillo is a self-taught painter whose classical imagery is inspired by literature, theatre, and opera, evoking a world of serenity and charm. Her intimate works play with the style of European old masters coupled with a magical realism rooted in folk and colonial Latin American traditions. The Festival poster image, a boy with a goldfinch perched on his hand, suggests an inner world where art history meets with nostalgia and imagined storybook characters.

Books taught Ronquillo how to paint, says Rachel Stephens of Wally Workman Gallery, which has represented Ronquillo for many years. “Moving to San Antonio from the Philippines, Fatima discovered for the first time the joys of a public library. For a small, foreign, friendless girl, that San Antonio library was a refuge,” Stephens said. “She devoured the work of Gabriel García Márquez, Octavio Paz, and many others. The endless supply of books opened up imaginary places and characters into which she escaped. She began to copy the pages of art history, teaching herself to draw and then to paint, mimicking the sensibility of Titian, Goya, and Renoir.”

The Texas Book Festival is one of the largest and longest-running book festivals in the country. The first Festival took place in November 1996, and since then has grown into one of the nation’s premier literary events, with 250-plus authors, 40,000 attendees, live music, kids’ activities, food trucks, book signings and sales, and 100 exhibitors all in and around the state capitol over two full days. The Festival continues to be free and open to the public. For more information, go to www.texasbookfestival.org.

(Compiled from media reports and press release)

Left: Authors Sandra Cisneros (photo by Alan Goldfarb), Richard Blanco

Cisneros, inaugural poet Blanco to help celebrate Macondo Workshop’s 20th anniversary week

Author Sandra Cisneros and Presidential inaugural poet Richard Blanco will be in San Antonio later this week for two public events that will mark the twentieth anniversary of the Macondo Writers’ Workshop, now run by the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center. Celebrations are planned July 24-25 at The Guadalupe.

Blanco, a poet selected by President Barack Obama to deliver an inaugural poem, was the first Latino, first immigrant, and first gay man to write and deliver an inaugural poem. His books include City of a Hundred Fires and Directions to the Beach of the Dead.

Cisneros, a former resident of San Antonio, is preparing for her workshop by gathering promising creative writers, journalists, and performance artists for discussions about writing. Cisneros now lives in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico.

This year’s Macondo Workshop runs from July 22 to 26, but on that Friday and Saturday the public will be allowed to listen in as various writers, including Blanco, read at the Guadalupe Theater. Friday’s event, beginning at 7 p.m. will feature Macondo writers and is free. Admission to Saturday’s “An Evening with Richard Blanco” is $25. It begins at 7 p.m.

Cisco Writers Club 39th Annual Summer Writing Contest open for submissions

The Cisco Writers Club 39th Annual Summer Writing Contest is now accepting entries. Writers anywhere may enter; membership in the Cisco Writers Club is not required. Six categories are available, with several special prizes offered.

1. Poetry, maximum 30 lines

2. Publication Briefs:

        (a) Anecdotes (as in Reader’s Digest), maximum 200 words;

        (b) Columns), maximum 750 words

3. Articles), maximum 2,000 words

4. Short Stories:

        (a) For Children (12 and under) ), maximum 1,200 words;

        (b) General), maximum 2,500 words

5. Books, submit brief synopsis and first two chapters

6. Children Write! Any genre, maximum 1,000 words (Age limit: 15 or younger)

Enter by mail or online. The deadline for submission is July 31, 2015. Visit www.ciscowritersclub.org/contest for eligibility, formatting guidelines, and entry.

(From organization’s news release)