Lone Star ReviewsMichelle Newby, NBCC,

Contributing Editor

Texas ReadsGlenn Dromgoole

>> archive

Baron creates quite a stir in Fort Griffin novel

When Baron Jerome Manchester Paget, claiming to be a fifth cousin to the Queen of England, steps off the stagecoach in Fort Griffin carrying a satchel full of money, life in the frontier town will never be the same.

Nearly everyone in town — and some who haven’t even arrived yet — start trying to figure how to get their hands on the $25,000 the baron proudly announces he has brought with him to start a buffalo ranch. A buffalo ranch? In a town where buffalo hides drive the local economy? The town residents hoot with laughter.

San Angelo author Preston Lewis spins quite a yarn with his comic western novel, The Fleecing of Fort Griffin (Wild Horse Press, $19.95 paperback). The novel recently won the Elmer Kelton Award from the West Texas Historical Association for best creative work on West Texas.

Creative, indeed. Colorful characters abound — a traveling evangelist huckster, his “crippled” accomplice, a woman who has already buried five husbands, an unscrupulous buffalo-hide buyer, a couple who run a seduction racket, a one-eyed gunslinger, a disenchanted colonel, a professional gambler — all trying to figure out how to bilk the baron of his fortune. But the baron proves remarkably able to take care of himself, thanks to his guard rooster and an orphan he befriended on arriving in Fort Griffin. If you’re looking for a delightful tale, check out The Fleecing of Fort Griffin.

Lewis is the author of about thirty books, mostly western novels, and has won the Elmer Kelton Award twice before and two Spur Awards. He has written under several pseudonyms, including Will Camp and Stephen Calder. Lewis’s series of innovative western novels — the Memoirs of H. H. Lomax — are being reissued by Wild Horse Press. I have read the first book in that series, The Demise of Billy the Kid, and can’t wait to get into the second one, The Redemption of Jesse James. Writing as Lomax, Lewis tosses around colorful similes and metaphors like a three-handed juggler at a Shrine circus.

Now in paperback: All of Leila Meacham’s Texas epic novels are now available in paperback. The latest, Titans, is $15.99 in trade paperback. If you haven’t read Roses or Somerset or Titans, treat yourself to a Meacham novel. They are all in the 500- to 600-page range, but the pages just fly by.

Titans is set in North Texas in 1900, six years after oil was discovered in Corsicana and a year before the first big boom would blow in at Spindletop, near Beaumont. As oil begins to be a factor in the Texas economy, ranchers face a new set of opportunities and challenges in how to deal with change and its consequences. Twins, adopted by different families shortly after birth, are now twenty years old and figure prominently into the drama.

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Glenn Dromgoole’s latest book is West Texas StoriesContact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.

>> Check out his previous Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life

LONE STAR LISTENS interviews >> archive

Kay Ellington, Editor and Publisher

5.21.2017 Wernersbach and Tracy head into the great wide open — inviting travelers to chill out in Texas’ favorite swimming spots

A writer/photographer duo is making a splash with their latest book. The Swimming Holes of Texas,a collaboration between Julie WernersbachCarolyn Tracy, has released this week—just in time for our readers’ Memorial Day and summertime adventures.

If those names jog a memory, we’ll fill in the details. Wernersbach was for years the marketing director at BookPeople, and now’s she’s literary director of the Texas Book Festival, held each fall in Austin. The guidebook to Texas dive-ins is the second co-authored title from Wernersbach and Tracy, a former BookPeople colleague; their previous volume was Vegan Survival Guide to Austin. The team talked with us last week via email about their latest book and gave us some tips on their favorite cooling-off spots and what to take on a swimming-hole road trip.

LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: Basic first question for you both, Carolyn and Julie — how long have you lived in Austin, and what brought you there?

CAROLYN TRACY: I’ve lived in Austin for about eleven years. I grew up in the suburbs of Houston, and I think it’s a pretty natural trajectory for young people to escape from Houston to Austin. I specifically moved to Austin after applying, on a whim, for a job at BookPeople, which they hired me for. I had a brief two-year stint in Galveston where I opened a juice bar and then returned home to Austin.

JULIE WERNERSBACH: Books brought me to Texas. I moved to Austin six years ago from Long Island, where I was the publicist and events coordinator for an independent bookstore, to work as publicist and then marketing director at BookPeople, the largest independent bookstore in Texas. I love Austin. I’m never going back.>>READ MORE

Texas’s only statewide, weekly calendar of book events

Bookish Texas event highlights 5.21.2017
>> GO this week Michelle Newby, Contributing Editor

SPECIAL EVENTS THIS WEEK: Houston, Austin, San Antonio, LubbockSAN ANTONIO Sun., May 21 B&N – La Cantera, Camille Di Maio signing Before the Rain Falls, 2PMDALLAS Mon., May 22 The Wild Detectives, Women Galore Literary Festival: Deb Olin Unferth reading from her latest collection of stories, Wait Till You See Me Dance, followed by a conversation with Ben Fountain, 7:30PM
(Note other events throughout the week)

HOUSTON Mon., May 22 River Oaks Bookstore, Leroy Chiao discusses and signs One Orbit, 6PMAUSTIN Tues, May 23 University of Texas Press offices, Stephen Harrigan discusses and signs They Came From the Sky, 6:30PMHOUSTON Tues., May 23 Brazos Bookstore, Deb Olin Unferth reads and signs WAIT TILL YOU SEE ME DANCE, 7PMSAN ANTONIO Wed.., May 24 Witte Museum, Helen Kleberg Groves will sign her new book Bob and Helen Kleberg of King Ranch, 6:30pm (Cocktails 6pm)DALLAS Thurs., May 25 South Dallas Cultural Center, author Sanderia Faye hosts African Diaspora: New Dialogues with poet Douglas Kearney (plus Candy and Dallas Poetry Slam), 7:30PMLUBBOCK Fri., May 26 B&N, Why the Raven Calls the Canyon book signing with E. Dan Klepper, 7PM

SAN ANTONIO Sat., May 27 The Twig Book Shop, Michael Corcoran discusses and signs All Over the Map: True Heroes of Texas Music, 2PMDALLAS Sat., May 27 Dallas Public Library, Interabang Books hosts Edward McPherson discussing and signing The History of the Future, 2PM

News Briefs 5.21.17

Vote for your Favorite Texas Bookstore: Finalist Round through midnight Sat., 5.27

Lone Star Lit’s second annual Texas Readers’ Favorite Bookstores voting continues through May 27, 2017.

In Round 2, book lovers in Texas and beyond narrowed the list: from among the state’s nearly 300 independent, chain, and specialty bookstores, your top 20 favorites are listed below, in alphabetical order by city, with store website in case you’d like to check them out. We received 444 votes for favorite bookstores in every corner of Texas, with top top 10 receiving vote counts in the double or triple digits and the second 10 making the list even with single-digit totals.

After this week’s Finalist Round, we’ll tally your favorite top 10 in order. We’ll announce your final Top 10 picks on May 28. So bookstores, rally your followers, and encourage them to vote online — one vote per reader per day, please. Here’s the link to share: www.lonestarpublicity.com/favorite-tx-bookstores-17-

Readers’ Favortite Texas Bookstores 20 FINALISTS

>>READ MORE

————— A D V E R T I S E M E N T —————

Win BREAKFAST IN TEXAS

Terry Thompson-Anderson, with photos by Sandy Wilson

Breakfast in Texas: Recipes for Elegant Brunches, Down Home Classics, and Local Favorites

Hardcover, 978-1-4773-1044-1

311 pages, 8 x 10, 123 color photos

Texans love the morning meal, whether it’s bacon and eggs (often eaten in a breakfast taco) or something as distinctively nontraditional as saag paneer omelets, pon haus, or goat curry. A Lone Star breakfast can be a time for eating healthy, or for indulging in decadent food and drink. And with Texas’s rich regional and cultural diversity, an amazing variety of dishes graces the state’s breakfast and brunch tables. The first Texas cookbook dedicated exclusively to the morning meal, Breakfast in Texas gathers nearly one hundred recipes that range from perfectly prepared classics to the breakfast foods of our regional cuisines (Southern, Mexican, German, Czech, Indian, and Asian among them) to stand-out dishes from the state’s established and rising chefs and restaurants.

Enter to win here, courtesy of the University of Texas Press.

National Federation of State Poetry Societies 2017 to convene in Fort Worth June 29–July 2, celebrate “The Art and Soul of Poetry”

Hosted by the Poetry Society of Texas, with entertainment, meals, open readings, contests, workshops, music, fun

FORT WORTH — At the 2017 convention of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, there will be music, poems, art, words, and more, as the organization celebrates “The Art and Soul of Poetry.” Convention headquarters will be the historic Hilton hotel, located in downtown Fort Worth, Texas.

The convention will feature an impressive lineup of speakers, including Urania Fung, instructor at Tarrant County College; Anne McCrady, poet and storyteller; Pat Stodghill, poet laureate of Texas, past president of PST, and NFSPS; Dr. Nathan Brown, poet laureate of Oklahoma—who now lives in Texas; Karla K. Morton, poet laureate of Texas; Beth and Mark Ayers, Magic Lantern enthusiasts; Scott Wiggerman of Dos Gatos Press; and keynote speaker Carmen Tafolla, poet laureate of Texas. >>READ MORE

Texas teen book festival reveals 2017 keynote authors

Young Adult book festival will feature bestselling authors Marie Lu and Jason Reynolds, and star of The Big Bang Theory Mayim Bialik

AUSTIN — The Texas Teen Book Festival has announced the keynote authors for the 9th edition of the annual festival, which will feature New York Times bestselling authors Marie Lu and Jason Reynolds, and actress Mayim Bialik from the popular series The Big Bang Theory. The 2017 festival will take place on Sat., Oct. 7, at St. Edward’s University. >>READ MORE

First annual Texas Sports Hall of Fame Book Festival announces lineup for July 15 in Waco

WACO — The Texas Sports Hall of Fame announces its first Book Festival, to be held Sat., July 15, 2017, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in Waco. Admission is free.

Sponsored by Texas A&M University Press, Texas Tech University Press, and Waco City Cable Channel, the one day event will showcase the best in books devoted to Texas sports, and many legendary authors and athletes will be on hand for the event. >>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 31 and will ship around Aug. 1.
Examination and review copies will be available May 31 in watermarked pdf format.

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LONE STAR CLASSIFIED LISTINGS

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