LONE STAR LISTENS interviews   >> archive

Kay Ellington, Editor and Publisher

4.23.2017  Poet Chen Chen on arriving and belonging, the craft of writing, and Texas

Lubbock poet Chen Chen has been featured on the PBS Newshour and in OUT magazine. He is the author of When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize from BOA Editions, and a Kundiman and Lambda Literary Fellow. His work has appeared in publications such as Poetry, The Massachusetts Review, The Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, Best of the Net, and The Best American Poetry. He spoke with us via email last week. Chen’s poem “Things Stuck in Other Things Where They Don’t Belong” is reprinted following this interview, with the author’s permission.

LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: Chen, you were born in China, and raised in China until you were three. What brought you to the U.S., and how has being an immigrant affected your life?

CHEN CHEN: My father decided he wanted to study in the States. He started off as a graduate student in religion at Texas Christian University and then eventually switched to education. He lived in Texas on his own for a bit, before my mother and I came. It was a difficult decision for my mother, since she loved the big network of family and friends she had in China—coming to the United States meant leaving behind a whole life. As for the second question, I can say that being an immigrant has deeply affected my sense of family structure…most of my extended family still lives in China. But really, I’m not sure I can answer that question in any satisfying way here; I think I wrote my first book in order to answer that question. I’m still answering that question. Basically, being an immigrant has affected every aspect of my life. Understanding the specifics of different stories of immigration is so important. I wish the phrase “the immigrant experience” didn’t exist, because it seems silly to me, this idea that there’s some general or monolithic experience of something so complicated.  >>READ MORE

Texas’s only statewide, weekly calendar of book events

Bookish Texas event highlights  4.23.2017
>> GO this week   Michelle Newby, Contributing Editor

News Briefs 4.23.17

Texas Library Association 2017 Highlights

by Kristine Hall

Lone Star Book Blog Tour coordinator Kristine Hall has been in San Antonio this week at the Texas Library Association conference. (Left:: Kristine Hall scores a copy of DiAnn Mills’s newest, Deep Extraction.) Check out her full photo gallery here: >>READ MORE

San Antonio Book Festival 2017 Highlights

by Michelle Newby

Lone Star Book Reviews coordinator Michelle Newby covered the San Antonio Book Festival earlier this month (Left: Poets Jenny Browne, Laurie Ann Guerrero, and Naomi Shihab Nye). Check out her full photo gallery here: >>READ MORE

Right: authors Jeff Guinn, Craig Johnson, and Bill Witliff at the San Antonio Book Festival.

It’s Back! Vote for your Favorite Texas Bookstore

Lone Star Lit’s second annual Texas Readers’ Favorite Bookstores voting will be held May 1 through May 18, 2017. Readers, vote as often as you wish for your Favorite Texas Bookstore.

We’ll announce the Top 40 finalists on May 7; then, the Top 20 finalists on May 14. Voting begins May 1, 2017! >>READ MORE

Texas Book Festival Announces 2017 Library Grant Recipients

Organization Awards Largest Amount to Date to 44 Public Libraries Across Texas

AUSTIN —  The Texas Book Festival announced the winners of its 2016-17 Texas Library Grants at the Texas Library Association conference in San Antonio today. Forty-four public libraries across 35 Texas counties received grants totaling $100,450 — the largest amount the organization has awarded in its 21-year history of giving. >>READ MORE

he Long Center, Austin, Presents An Evening with Neil Gaiman July 6

AUSTIN—The Long Center for the Performing Arts will host internationally acclaimed author Neil Gaiman at the Long Center stage for one night only, July 6 at 8 pm in Dell Hall.

“I make things up and write them down” is the way Neil Gaiman describes his varied art. Today, as one of the most celebrated, best-selling writers of our time, Gaiman bends genres while reaching audiences of all ages. In this live event, “An Evening with Neil Gaiman,” he will tell stories and read stories, answer questions, and in his own words “amaze, befuddle and generally delight. It will be fun and odd and not like any other evening with Neil Gaiman.” >>READ MORE

Half Price Books to match donations of children’s books in April

The Half Pint Library program is a book drive hosted each year by Texas-based Half Price Books to collect and distribute children’s books to those in need. Books donated through the program provide an escape from the challenges faced by children, while helping to boost literacy skills outside of school. In many cases, children are getting their first book through the Half Pint Library program. The drive accepts any type of children’s book, including Spanish language books, as long as they are in good condition. The program is celebrating its nineteenth year in 2017 and has collected more than 2 million books for pediatric patients, community centers, special schools and many more children in need. >>READ MORE

Texas Mountain Trail Writers to hold 25th annual retreat, Sat., April 29, at historic Indian Lodge

The Texas Mountain Trail Writers group invites both beginning to advanced authors to join them for a one-day retreat at the Indian Lodge in the historicDavis Mountain State Park in scenic Big Bend area, Sat., April 29, 2017. It will mark the group’s twenty-fifth year of hosting the retreat.

Presenters of this year’s retreat are Barbara Brannon and Kay Ellington of Lubbock, Texas, editors of Lone Star Literary Life and coauthors of the Paragraph Ranch series of novels. The novels have been praised by readers for realistic characters, authentic West Texas settings, and interesting plots.  >>READ MORE

TOP BOOKISH DESTINATIONS 2017

From the spur of Texas’s boot-heel to the tip of the toe, we’ve traveled the state in search of some delectable destinations for book lovers. Check out all ten on the map as you plan your literary travels!  >>READ MORE

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 • Chad S. Conine • Sarah  Cortez • Elizabeth  Crook • Nan  Cuba • Carol  Dawson • Patrick  Dearen • Jim Donovan • Mac Engel • Sanderia  Faye • Carlos Nicolás Flores • Ben Fountain • Jeff  Guinn • Stephen  Harrigan • Cliff  Hudder • Stephen Graham Jones • Kathleen Kent • Joe R. Lansdale • Melissa Lenhardt • 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 • Ann  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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