The most popular feature of Lone Star Lit’s first year is back!

Just days after we launched Lone Star Literary Life, something happened to reaffirm our faith in the concept of a weekly newspaper about Texas books and authors. We announced that we’d be counting down the top ten literary destinations in our fair state, just in time for spring break travel. With the first email explaining this feature, our emails exploded and our cell phones started vibrating nonstop.

Anyone who’s involved with selling books, attracting tourists, cultivating readers, and marketing their store, venue, festival, or museum could see the value in this coverage, and the economic potential of the visitors and patrons it could attract.

According to the Pew Center for Research, as of January 2014, some 76% of American adults ages 18 and older said that they read at least one book in the past year. Almost seven in ten adults (69%) read a book in print in the past 12 months, while 28% read an e-book, and 14% listened to an audiobook. The typical American reads five books a year, and of individuals making $75,000+ they read 16 books a year.

Affluent, educated visitors are desirable to every business and locale.

Most of the readers and writers we know, far from being the sort to only haunt the recesses of their town’s library or curl up on the couch when the sun’s shining, like to get out and visit the places they’ve read about. Or the places that inspire them.

If you read last year’s installment, you’ll recognize how highly subjective our writeups and rankings were. The book scene is ever-changing, and we have to own up to not always being able to mention every recent development, or to acknowledge every worthy author, publisher, or bookstore in our pages. Though we concentrated primarily on those aspects of literary life that make a place “visitable,” we attempted to capture the bookish flavor and fabric of each place that depended on the ongoing products of its writers, or the experiences shared by locals that visitors can only occasionally tap into.

That’s why this year, we’re accepting self-nominations by cities, chambers of commerce, convention and visitor bureaus, libraries and librarians, booksellers, authors, and readers. Tell us what makes your city a Top Ten bookish destination in the Lone Star State. If your city is routinely paired with a sister city—such as one of last year’s winners, the Permian Basin, which paired Midland and Odessa—feel free to nominate the duo, or the region.

We’ll end up making the final selections based upon a cross-section of data—and nominations will be a factor.

So, visit our nomination page and fill out the form to put your city in the running of Texas’s Top Ten Literary Destinations.

DEADLINE FOR NOMINATIONS

FRIDAY, FEB. 5, 2016, AT NOON

TO NOMINATE

Simply name the community, and tell us in 250 words or less why you think it deserves this honor: info@LoneStarLiterary.com.

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