16th annual West Texas Book Festival announces lineup for Sept. 19-24 in Abilene

Leila Meacham, the national New York Times best-selling author of Roses, Tumbleweeds, Somerset, Titans, and more will be the featured keynote speaker Sat., Sept. 24, at the West Texas Book Festival and will be recognized as this year’s A.C. Greene award winner. The A.C. Greene award is presented annually to a distinguished Texas author for lifetime achievement. The award is named for author, columnist, and Abilene native A.C. Greene.

The sixteenth annual festival, September 19-24, 2016, will also feature panels with the following authors:

• Carl & Pixie Christensen, Lone Star Steeples: Historic Places of Worship in Texas (Texas A&M University Press, 2016);
• Glen Sample Ely, The Texas Frontier & the Butterfield Overland Mail (University of Oklahoma Press, 2016);
• Dennis Roberson, Winning 42: The Strategy and Lore of the National Game of Texas (4th ed., Texas Tech University Press, 2009);
• Chad S. Conine, The Republic of Football (University of Texas Press. 2016);
• Susan Kralovansky, Twelve Cowboys Ropin’ (Pelican Publishing, 2015);
• Marguerite Gray, Hold Me Close: Revolutionary Faith (WestBow Press, 2015).

This year’s featured cookbook authors include

• Jacqueline Cavender, As the Spur Stirs (2016, Cavender’s);
• Jessica Dupuy, The United Tastes of Texas (2016 Oxmoor House); and
• Anthony Head & Laura Samuel Meyn, Meatless in Cowtown (2015, Running Press).

A panel of Texas publishers will have a session Friday afternoon, Sept. 23, about how to get a book published and answer questions from the audience.  The workshop is free and open to anyone interested in the world of publishing and getting published.

For more information, visit the festival website.

(From organization’s website)

East Texas Book Fest takes 2016 off, returning in 2017

After seven years, the East Texas Book Festival is taking a year off in 2016, according to the organization’s website. A new message posted on their site reads, “Thanks, everyone for a great 7th year. East Texas Book Fest is taking a break in 2016, but we plan to return to the Harvey Convention Center in Tyler in August, 2017. Watch here and on our Facebook page for 2017 announcements.” For more information visit their website, www.etxbookfest.org

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CONFERENCES ON THE HORIZON

Gemini Ink debuts conference in San Antonio, July 21–24, with Siebles, Kaplan, Hernandez, Grande, Santos, and others

The 2016 Gemini Ink Writers Conference will include four days of panels, round tables, readings, and workshops at El Tropicano Hotel on the San Antonio Riverwalk from July 21-24.

The theme is the “State of the Book,” with a keynote address by Tom Payton of Trinity University Press. The featured writers are Tim Seibles, Janet Kaplan, Tim Z. Hernandez, Reyna Grande, and John Phillip Santos—who will join more than thirty acclaimed local and regional writers and scholars, including Jan Jarboe Russell, Wendy Barker, and Texas Poet Laureate Laurie Ann Guerrero.

The Gemini Ink Writers Conference will create a space where writers, teachers, students, editors, and publishers can expand their craft, increase their knowledge of publishing in all its forms, explore new creative territories, and make new friends. Like such nationally recognized writer’s conferences as Breadloaf in Vermont and the Taos Conference, the conference founders envision a yearly event that pulls the best of Texas writers together and puts them in conversation with the national literary scene. The conference will also feature a small book fair featuring local and regional small press publishers. Read more at www.geminiink.org.

Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference takes place July 22-23 in Grapevine

Gilbert King (Devil in the Grove) and Sheryl WuDunn (A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity) will give keynote speeches at the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference in Grapevine. Prices include dinner. Advance registration required; for more information visit  www.themayborn.com/registration.

King: 5:30 p.m. July 22 at Austin Ranch banquet hall, 2009 Anderson Gibson Road. $60.

WuDunn: 6 p.m. July 23 at Hilton DFW Lakes Executive Conference Center’s International Ballroom, 1800 State Highway 26 East. $100.

(Information and photos from organization’s press release and website)