2.5.2017  Lone Star Literary Life kicks off our third year of book news, reviews, interviews, and more

Two years ago this week a band of Texans launched Lone Star Literary Life with one key goal: to help Texas readers (and the world beyond) discover Texas authors.

The world of books had changed so much in recent years that it was growing more difficult for readers to discover authors—especially Texas authors.

• Only six metro newspapers (and a handful of alternative papers) in Texas published a weekly books section, whose content was generally available only to paid subscribers.
• Even those book features were as likely to cover non-Texas books and authors as in-state ones. In short, 93% of Texas daily newspapers carried no regular books coverage.
• The number of bookstores, despite occasional additions, was declining. The closing of 126 Hastings stores in 2016 left many sizable Texas markets without a trade bookstore.
• Texas book festivals showcased a shrinking number of Texas authors in proportion to the whole. As the third largest book market in the country, Texas could attract authors of national and international stature, but on the flip side fewer opportunities remained for in-state authors to connect with readers.

Here’s how Lone Star Literary has worked, since Ground Hog Day 2015, to enhance the world of Texas letters:

• Weekly reviews of Texas books. Every week we publish at least one review of Texas-related title. We also offer publishers and authors to opportunity to sponsor reviews of books not slated for our editorial calendar. We’ve shone a spotlight on more than 125 books since 2015.
• Lone Star Listens interviews with authors provide insights into the daily challenges and victories of Texas lives in letters—more than 100 of them to date.
• Top Ten Bookish Destinations. On March 6 you’ll hear Michelle Newby, National Book Critics Circle reviewer and contributing editor of LSLL, on the Texas Standard statewide radio broadcast talking about the Third Annual Top Ten Bookish Destinations. Every year our editors analyze destinations across the state and rank them for their interest and attractions for traveling book lovers. (You may have seen a story about this in the November 2016 edition of Texas Highways.) Or you may have the seen the print-edition Literary Texas guidebook, available at fine Texas bookstores and online retailers.
• Texas’s Favorite Bookstores. Last summer our readers voted on their Top Ten Favorite Bookstores, and there were quite a few surprises in the results. The second annual vote is scheduled for this June. This statewide readers’ choice vote gives booksellers—wherever they’re located—introduction to a statewide market.
• Texas’s only statewide weekly calendar of book events. The weekly GO Calendar is LSLL’s most popular feature. Week in and week out, we provide listings for every book-and-author event in the state, in most weeks than 100 events from Beaumont to Borger, Texarkana to Terlingua. Many of our readers tell us it’s the first item they read every week. They want to know what kinds of book events on going on near them—and they know we have the scoop.
• Lone Star Book Blog Tours. Our cohort of Texas book bloggers—more than twenty-five readers, fans, librarians, and reviewers—participate in paid social-media tours focusing exclusively on Texas-related authors. (LSBBT logo)
• Lone Star Literary Life online directory. Our and Write reference pages provide current, hotlinked directories to indie and chain bookselling outlets; book clubs and writing groups; Texas-based publishers; and more. If you don’t see your group or organization listed, email us and let us know.
• Email newsletter updates. Librarians and booksellers, and other industry professionals are a major part of the LSLL audience, and we provide a Sunday/Wednesday opt-in email newsletter that reaches every Texas library, bookstore, publisher, as well as thousands of general interest readers. We also showcase library events.
• COMING EARLY FALL 2017: An ambitious collection of words of wisdom from Texas authors, excerpted and arranged from two years’ worth of weekly interviews. See details above—and email us if you’d like to be on the mailing list for ordering.

We appreciate your two years of support, and we ask you to help spread the word to your fellow Texas readers. We want to continue to grow and to serve the Texas reading community for a long, long time. Happy reading, happy writing.

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Lone Star Listens compilation available Aug. 1, 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 Fall 2017

360 pages, with b/w illustrations and index

Featuring novelists, poets, memoirists, editors, and publishers, including:

Rachel  Caine • Chris  Cander • Katherine  Center • Sarah  Cortez • Elizabeth  Crook • Nan  Cuba • Carol  Dawson • Patrick  Dearen • Mac Engel • Sanderia  Faye • Carlos Nicolás Flores • Ben Fountain • Jeff  Guinn • Stephen  Harrigan • Cliff  Hudder • Stephen Graham Jones • Kathleen Kent • Joe R. Lansdale • 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 • Anne  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.

• Lone Star Listens will be available for preorder May 1 and will ship around Aug. 1.
• Examination and review copies will be available May 1 in watermarked pdf format.

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