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 is now underway; Round 1 closes midnight May 13, 2017!
Countdown to Readers’ Favorite Bookstores, May 21 and May 28
Like our claim-to-fame feature, Top Ten Bookish Destinations , Texas’s Top Ten Favorite Bookstores counts down Number Ten through Number Six on May 21, and Number Five through Number One on May 28.
The Texas Readers’ Favorite Bookstores winners will be determined by reader vote via:
• Our website
• Our e-mail newsletter
• Our social media
• Direct ballots upon request
More than 1,000 readers voted in the 2016 Texas’s Top Ten Favorite Bookstores contest, and last year’s winners were:
#10 Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Lubbock
South Plains Mall, 6002 Slide Road Lubbock
Wade Whatley, Manager
Community relations manager: Terry Handley
Date store opened: Nov. 4, 2009
#9 Gladewater Books, Gladewater
109 E. Pacific, Gladewater
Owners: Peter Adams and Elizabeth DeRieux
Date store opened: March 2007
#8 River Oaks Bookstore, Houston
3270 Westheimer Rd., Houston
Owners: Michael and Josie Jones; Michael’s mother Jeanne Jard
Community relations manager: Whitney Corson
Date store opened- 1976
#7 Recycled Books, Records, CDs, Denton
200 N. Locust, Denton
Owner: Don Foster
Community relations managers: Lacey Richins and Miles Foster
Date store opened: 1983
#6 BookPeople, Austin
603 N.Lamar Blvd., Austin
Owned locally by BookPeople, Inc.; Steven Bercu is president of company and operates the store
Marketing director: Abby Feenewald
Opened in November, 1970
#5 Barnes & Noble Dallas: Lincoln Park
7700 West Northwest Highway, Dallas, TX 75225
Manager: Craig Schlabs
Community relations manager: Cody McMahan
Opened September 1998
#4 Texas Star Trading Company, Abilene
174 Cypress St., downtown Abilene
Owners: Carol and Glenn Dromgoole
Opened July 22, 2004
#3 Paragraphs on Padre Boulevard, South Padre Island
5505 Padre Boulevard, South Padre Island, TX (3 miles north of the Queen Isabella Causeway)
Owners: Joni Montover and Griff Mangan
Opened February 9, 2009
#2 Barnes & Noble at Stonebriar Centre, Frisco
2601 Preston Rd., Suite 1204, Frisco
Store Manager: Jamie Lockhart
Community Business Development Manager: Nicole Caliro
Opened August 2000
#1 40 Acre Wood, Lexington
521 3rd Street/ Lexington
Owner: Heidi Frazier
Opened 2010
Bess Whitehead Scott Scholarship fund announces 2017 winners
AUSTIN—The Bess Whitehead Scott Scholarship Fund has awarded scholarships to two budding journalists and one creative writer — all students at Texas State University. The awards mark twenty-seven years of supporting journalists and writers. Since 1990 the Fund has distributed more than $65,000 to up-and-coming reporters, writers and authors. Each year $1,500 scholarships go to student journalists and to writers who are age 40 or older.
The fund’s namesake, Bess W. Scott, is known for blazing a trail for women in journalism by writing hard news and screenplays and working in public relations. In 1915, she persuaded a reluctant editor to hire her as the first woman news reporter at the Houston Post. At age 99, she published her autobiography, You Meet Such Interesting People. The Bess W. Scott Fund is affiliated with the Austin Community Foundation.
The 2017 winners are:
Scott Journalism Scholarships
Denver Donchez, 27, of San Marcos is a senior at Texas State University, majoring in journalism and minoring in women’s studies. She has worked two full-time jobs while putting herself through school—all while maintaining at 4.0 grade average. Donchez says her goal is “to be an advocate for the socially marginalized individuals who feel that they have no voice.”
Darcy Sprague, 20, has known since high school she wanted a career as a writer. The junior at Texas State University has had several journalism internships, including Austin Woman magazine, and this year traveled to Nicaragua to cover poverty and health issues as part of a study abroad program. Sprague says she would like to work for a nonprofit and cover humanitarian crises. She is from Elgin.
Scott Scribes Scholarship (40 or older)
Audrey Webb, 56, of Pflugerville is a graduate student in dramatic writing at Texas State University. She is working toward a Master of Fine Arts and wants to “apply my artistic abilities to the creation of dramatic works that provide not only entertainment but a fresh look at social situations that affect us all.” One of her plays was selected for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. Webb previously worked as reporter, copy editor, marketing writer, and editor.
(Information from organization’s press release)
Texas cookbook authors featured at San Angelo “Cooking for a Cause” Apr. 25
Cookbook authors Tiffany Harelik (above, left), author of The Big Country Cookbook and The Terlingua Chili Cookbook, and Angelina LaRue (right), with her The Whole Enchilada cookbook featuring Southwestern cuisine, helped support the annual “Cooking for a Cause” fundraiser in San Angelo April 25.
An evening dinner was held at San Angelo Country Club, where Chef Daniel Fredrich (center) served a menu inspired by the Texas authors’ cookbooks.
The fundraiser benefitted the JPW Learning Center, which provides opportunities for alternative educational instruction for children or adults who are experiencing difficulties learning. JPW helps teachers obtain skills necessary to recognize and instruct those with learning differences, and has trained over 480 teachers and countless students in the past thirty-two years.
(Information compiled from media reports)
Texas Mountain Trail Writers holds 25th annual retreat Apr. 29 at historic Indian Lodge
The Texas Mountain Trail Writers group welcomed writers from around over Texas and beyond Sat., April 29, 2017, at Indian Lodge in the historic Davis Mountain State Park, for the group’s twenty-fifth year of hosting the retreat.
Kay Ellington and Barbara Brannon of Lone Star Literary Life and coauthors of the Paragraph Ranch series of novels led multiple sessions focusing on writing craft and the business of editing and publishing.
View full photo album of event
View full photo album of Fort Davis and Indian Lodge
Ely book wins prize at West Texas Historical Association annual meeting; will speak and sign Butterfield-Overland volume May 4 in Fort Davis
At the April 2017 meeting of the West Texas Historical Association in Lubbock, The Texas Frontier and the Butterfield Overland Mail, 1858–1861 by Dr. Glen Sample Ely of Fort Worth was honored with the Rupert N. Richardson Award for Best Book on West Texas History.
At the Fort Davis National Historic Site, Thurs., May 4, Ely will greet friends and sign books starting at 3:00 pm; a lecture and slide presentation will follow at 6:00 pm. The event, sponsored by the Friends of Fort Davis National Historic Site, is open to the public.
(Information from organization’s flyer and media reports}
Brookins to discuss her memoir, Rise, at WTAMU’s summer Roundup event June 5; Thomas, Lewis, Claire, Navarro also featured
CANYON — West Texas A&M University will welcome author and motivational speaker Cara Brookins as the keynote speaker for the West Texas Writers’ Academy Writers’ Roundup dinner on Monday, June 5. Brookins’s memoir, Rise: How a House Built a Family, details how she and her children left a traumatic situation and built a house from the ground up with their own hands.
The event begins at 6 p.m. with a book signing by authors from across the nation who are attending the Writers’ Academy at WTAMU. Authors will include New York Times bestselling author Jodi Thomas, Reader’s Digest Select author Timothy Lewis, USA Today Bestselling author Bethany Claire, and Harlequin author and bestselling hybrid author of contemporary and historical romance Jolene Navarro. Readers will find books of various genres from romance to western to thriller. Authors will sell their books and talk to readers until 7 p.m.
Dinner and remarks from Lewis will begin at 7 p.m. ,with Brookins taking the stage at 7:30 p.m.
After escaping two abusive marriages, Brookins was in desperate need of a home but without the means to buy one. So she did something incredible. Equipped with only YouTube videos and a 9-month bank loan, Brookins built her own house—all 3,500 square feet of it—from the foundation to the roof (and everything in between) with a work crew made up of her kids. The completed house has five bedrooms, a three-car garage, a shop, and even a two-story tree house.
Rise is Brookins first work of nonfiction. Other books by Brookins include Little Boy Blu, Timeshifters triology—Mark of the Centipede, Mark of the Serpent and Mark of the Spider— Gadget Geeks, Doris Free: A Harvest of Friends, Doris Free and Treasure Quest.
The Writers’ Roundup dinner is open to the public. Tickets are $35 per person and can be purchased with advance reservations by calling Education on Demand at 806-651-2037.
(Information from organization’s press release and website)
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