>> archiveDoctor relates coming-of-age love story

Dallas ophthalmologist Dr. Rob Tenery has written Chasing the Ponytail ($15.95 paperback), a very readable story about his coming of age in the 1950s and early ’60s in Waxahachie as he pursued the love of his life, Janet Forrest, through high school and college.

Rob was almost sixteen when he laid eyes on Janet, just fourteen, at the country club swimming pool and was instantly smitten. He was about to be a high school junior, she a freshman. Their on-again, off-again courtship would eventually lead them to the altar six years later, but Rob found he had a lot of growing-up to do along the way.

The book is listed as non-fiction, though Tenery admits up front that “some of my recollections may be subject to interpretation and even embellishment.” So perhaps Chasing the Ponytail falls into that nebulous category of “creative non-fiction,” in which the writer — while sticking to the larger “truth” — might take a few liberties with the facts. And one would assume that he may have changed a few names to protect the guilty and keep from being sued.

In any case, Tenery doesn’t pull any punches as he relates mischievous episodes about growing up in what was then small-town Waxahachie. Fortunately, the statute of limitations has long since expired on his various juvenile shenanigans, which landed him in jail on at least one occasion and could easily have derailed his plans to become a doctor.

In fact, during his sophomore year in college, his grades and behavior were such that the dean put him on strict academic and social probation. Rob’s dad — the town’s beloved Dr. Mayo Tenery — finally ran out of patience and issued him an ultimatum. Fortunately, Rob got his priorities in order, earned his degree (barely), was accepted into medical school, won the girl (they’ve been married fifty-two years), and has enjoyed a fruitful career in medicine, as his father and grandfather did before him.

Tenery wrote about the three generations of doctors in his family — and the changes in the medical profession — in another book, Dr. Mayo’s Boy: A Century of American Medicine, published in 2009. That same year the Texas Medical Association honored him with its Distinguished Service Award.

Second in series: Austin architect and author Minerva Koenig has followed up her debut novel Nine Days with a second murder mystery, South of Nowhere (MinotaurBooks, $24.99 hardcover). Both novels are set in Texas and feature Julia Kalas, a reformed criminal put in witness protection in a small town known as the Middle of Nowhere.

In South of Nowhere, Kalas has been forced to relocate and takes on a missing persons case on the Texas-Mexico border that promises a huge payday, but soon she is tangling with Mexican drug lords and is a suspect in a murder case.

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Glenn Dromgoole is co-author, with Carlton Stowers, of 101 Essential Texas Books Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.

>> Check out his previous Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Lit

UPCOMING CONFERENCES AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

Austin International Poetry Festival wraps April 10

Two of Texas’s best-known poets will join a group of headliners of internationally, nationally, and locally recognized poets at the 24th Annual Austin International Poetry Festival, April 7-10, 2016, in Austin.

Joaquin Zihuatanejo of Denton (above, right) is an Individual World Poetry Slam champion, a European World Cup of Poetry Slam championn and an HBO Def Poet. In his extensive journey as a poet, Zihuatanejo has shared a stage with Maya Angelou, Billy Collins, E. Lynn Harris, Saul Williams, and Alicia Keys, among others. The passion in his performance style and power of his writing has led many to consider him one of the most entertaining and compelling in the world.

Sarah Frances Moran of Waco (above, left) was born and raised in Houston. Writing, for her, came out of a desire to help others and has evolved into full-blown insistence on changing the world. Her aim is to poetically fight for love and harness the type of tender violence needed to push love forward. She strongly believes that words have immeasurable power. She was recently chosen as the featured poet for the Waco Poets Society and the Word Gallery. Her work has appeared in Catching Calliope, Elephant Journal, eFiction India, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Digital Papercut, and more. >>READ MORE

DFW Writers Conference, April 23-24, announces special guest speakers, classes, agents, editors

DALLAS—The 2016 DFW Writers Conference, to be held April 23-24, 2016m at the Fort Worth Convention Center, has released a partial list of its classes and authors and the lists of agents and editors who will be attending as well. >>READ MORE

Houston Writers Guild presents three-day annual conference April 29–May 1, with authors Ford, Hutchins

The 2016 Houston Writers Guild annual conference will be held April 29–May 1, 2016 at the Marriott Houston Westchase, 2900 Briarpark Drive, Houston, Texas 77042. Registration and event times vary each day.

Friday night, April 29, the HWG Press will hold a Book Launch/Cocktail Reception. Conference attendees will be entertained by guest speaker Jay Asher. Light hors d’oeuvres will be served along with cash bar. The main event on April 30 will begin with keynote speaker Jamie Ford, followed by one-hour breakout sessions. In addition, there will be an opportunity for writers to pitch their work, in ten-minute sessions with agents and editors. >>READ MORE

Dallas Book Festival,
Apr. 30, Expands With
Best-selling Novelists, Award Winners

Several nationally prominent authors — including best-selling novelists and winners of both a Pulitzer and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize —  are headed to the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library for an expanded Dallas Book Festival.

Among those just announced for the free, all-day, April 30, 2016, event:

Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and author of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, which won the 2015 Dayton prize in nonfiction; Lawrence Wright, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower; Jessica Knoll, best-selling author of  Luckiest Girl Alive; Historian/analyst Andrew Bacevich, who is about to release America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History; Adam Mansbach, famous for that picture book that is known in its polite form as Seriously, Just Go to Sleep; Ghostwriter to the stars David Ritz, whose books include Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin, and Curtis Sittenfeld, the American Wife author who is about to release her newest book, Eligible, in April.

Local authors taking part will include Karen Blumenthal, Nancy Churnin, Tim Cowlishaw, AG Ford, Sarah Hepola, Don Tate and Merritt Tierce.  >>READ MORE