Lone Star ReviewsMichelle Newby, NBCC,

Contributing Editor

MEMOIR/TEXAS MUSIC

Eddie Wilson, with Jesse Sublett; foreword by Dave Marsh

Armadillo World Headquarters

406 pp., 978-1-4773-1382-4, $29.95 cloth

TSSI Publishing; distributed by University of Texas Press

April 2017

Reviewed by Rod Davis

The Incubator of Austin

A very good case could be made that the Armadillo World Headquarters (1970–81) was the most influential single element in Austin’s musical ascendancy. Eddie Wilson does just that in his valuable new memoir, Armadillo World Headquarters, appropriately titled because it really isn’t about his life, but about the colossus he birthed. Almost every page is a witness to history, an invaluable reference to the all-but-unbelievable chain of famous acts that took to the Armadillo stage, from blues to country to rock to punk. I mean, really, name a storied musician and there’s a damn good chance Eddie booked him or her. >>READ MORE

Texas ReadsGlenn Dromgoole

>> archive

Mahon served forty-four years as West Texas congressman

Lubbock author Janet M. Neugebauer has written a comprehensive political biography of longtime U.S. Rep. George H. Mahon, who represented West Texas in Congress for 44 years before retiring in 1978.

A Witness to History: George H. Mahon, West Texas Congressman (Texas Tech University Press, $45 hardcover) is a 480-page account of Mahon’s life from 1900 until his death in 1985, focusing primarily on his congressional service, eventually chairing the influential House Appropriations Committee and, before that, its military appropriations subcommittee.

Neugebauer is deputy director of the Southwest Collection at Texas Tech, where Mahon’s papers are archived, so she had access to a wealth of information stored there. She quickly gets to the point, not spending too many pages on Mahon’s early years — graduating from high school in Loraine, Simmons College in Abilene, and University of Texas Law School. He was serving as district attorney in Colorado City when he ran for Congress in 1934 and won in a runoff.

On his first day in Congress — Jan. 3, 1935 — Mahon made it a point to write his first letter — a letter of appreciation — to Judge W.R. Ely of Abilene, who had loaned him money to attend Simmons College. Mahon would go on to be one of the most powerful leaders in Congress and a close friend of several presidents. But at his funeral in 1985, House Minority Leader Jim Wright eulogized him as “a gentle man.”

“The word honorable was not just a title for George Mahon,” Wright said. “It was a way of life.”

Kent Hance, who succeeded Mahon as congressman in 1979, concurred in the book’s foreword, noting, “No doubt George Mahon would be appalled at the lack of civility in national politics in this day and time, and would attribute this lack of congeniality to the logjam that now prevails in Washington.”

Wildflowers: Texas photographers Rob Greebon and Richard Reynolds have teamed up to produce a gorgeous, full-color and very affordable 80-page book, Texas Wildflowers Impressions (Far Country Press, $12.95 paperback). This one will look good on your coffee table and you’ll enjoy thumbing through the pages and looking at the beautiful photographs. It also makes a nice gift to someone visiting here from another state or country.

Bluebonnets take center stage, of course, but there are plenty of sunflowers, Indian blankets, corn poppies, brown-eyed susans, yucca, milkweed, cactus and more. The book includes a brief look at what kinds of wildflowers can be found in different regions of the state, and don’t skip over the captions because they are informative and enlightening.For example, Greebon tells about a photograph he took of a longhorn and her calf grazing in a field of flowers. He was driving by and he stopped and took the picture. “I’ve learned from experience,” he writes, “I’d rather stop and take the shot, rather than wish later that I’d stopped!” A good rule of thumb for any aspiring photographer.

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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

Dallas Author Expo announced for June 24; registration is now open for free event

Dallas — The Dallas Author Expo has been announced for Sat., June 24, 2017, at the Holiday Inn Plano–The Colony, 4301 Paige Road in The Colony, Texas, from 1 pm to 6 pm. Registration is now open, and admission is free with advance registration. The expo will feature several interactive speaker panels, free food, networking, free prize drawings, and much more. >>READ MORE

LONE STAR LISTENS interviews >> archive

Kay Ellington, Editor and Publisher

5.28.2017 Travel Texas back roads, quirky places, and ghost towns this summer with Tui Snider

On Memorial Day weekend—the traditional kickoff to summer vacation season—we wanted to share with you a profile of a Texas travel book and its author. After a bit of Googling and bookstore combing, we landed on an unexpected choice. Unexpected Texas was written and published by freelancer Tui Snider in 2014 and has been a favorite with Lone Star readers ever since. Snider visited with us via email last week.

LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: Tui, you grew up in Washington state and came to Texas from the Port Townsend, Washington area—which is a beautiful region of islands and ferries, and is a very literary area with Copper Canyon Press and plenty of bookstores. What brought you to Texas, and when?

TUI SNIDER: What brought me to Texas? A man! And no one was more surprised than me. After moving something like sixteen times in ten years, and living in far-flung places (including Belgium and Italy) I decided to settle down for good.

I also decided to give up on men.

Well, along came Larry! We met online and he courted me from afar. We used to have dinner dates via Skype. He’s a great cook and I’d see him eating all these wonderful meals, while I’d be eating cheese and crackers.

Long story short, a couple years later we were married at Scarborough Renaissance Fair in Waxahachie, Texas. Cheesy as it sounds, I finally found my handsome prince! To top it off, our house has a turret and gargoyles, so it looks like a little castle.>>READ MORE

Texas’s only statewide, weekly calendar of book events

Bookish Texas event highlights 5.28.2017
>> GO this week Michelle Newby, Contributing Editor

SPECIAL EVENTS THIS WEEK: Houston, Dallas, McKinneySAN ANTONIO Tues., May 30 McGonigel’s Mucky Duck, Craig Clifford, Craig D. Hillis, and Bob Livingston discuss, sign, and perform songs from Pickers and Poets: The Ruthlessly Poetic Singer-Songwriters of Texas (followed by a concert with The Lost Austin Band), 6PMAUSTIN Wed., May 31 Austin Public Library – Terrazas, Aural Literature featuring Austin Barrio Writers, 7PMAUSTIN Wed., May 31 Thompson Conference Center, Travis Audubon Society book launch: Victor Emanuel discusses One More Warbler: A Life with Birds with Stephen Harrigan, followed by a book signing, 6:30PMHOUSTON Thurs, June 1 Murder By the Book, Lori Rader-Day will sign and discuss The Day I Died, and Melissa Lenhardt will sign and discuss Blood Oath and Sawbones, 6:30PM

SAN ANTONIO Thurs., June 1 The Twig Book Shop, Suzi Weinert discusses and signs the Garage Sale Mysteries (coming soon to the Hallmark Channel), 5PMLUBBOCK Fri., June 2 Texas Tech University Press Bookstore, Frank Sikes signs West Texas Middleweight: The Story of LaVern Roach, 6PMEL PASO Sat., June 3 El Paso Public Library – Memorial Park, Tumblewords Project workshop: “Reclaiming Early Memories: The Sights, Smells, and Sounds of Smeltertown Nights” with Carolyn Rhea Drapes, 12:45PMHOUSTON Sat., June 3 William Reaves | Sarah Foltz Fine Art, The Texas Aesthetic XI: The Summer Soiree Series featuring River of Contrasts: The Texas Colorado and The Nueces River: Rio Escondido by Margie Crisp, 1PMSOUTH PADRE ISLAND Sat., June 3 Paragraphs on Padre, Meet the Author: Elliott Turner discusses and signs The Night of the Virgin, 1PMALSO SIGNING HOUSTON Thurs., June 1, Brazos Bookstore, 6PMAUSTIN Sun., June 4 BookPeople, EDDIE WILSON speaking & signing Armadillo World Headquarters, 5PM

News Briefs 5.28.17

2017 Top ELEVEN Readers’ Favorite Texas Bookstores

Texas readers have spoken. Nearly 2,500 of Lone Star Literary Life’s readers have cast ballots in 3 rounds of our statewide contest during May 2017 to recognize Texas’s favorite bookstores. Their final selections are as diverse as the state itself, and honorees include big indies, small indies, chain stores, used bookstores, and new bookstores in every corner of the state. And in the process, we were pleased to learn about places to buy books that we hadn’t even known before.

From the major cities of Dallas and Houston, to our state’s capitol city, from the historic Hill Country to the Piney Woods of East Texas, from the burbs to the beach, Texas bookshops are connecting with their communities. (Note that there was a tie for #6!) We are thrilled to showcase them in our second annual Lone Star Literary Life Readers’ Favorite Texas Bookstores — all 11 of them. >>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.

Bush, Khan, Luna present books to students as part of Texas Book Festival’s 2017 Reading Rock Stars

Photo by Grant Miller Photography

DALLAS — In May 2017, the Texas Book Festival presented its Reading Rock Stars program at Thomas Tolbert Elementary School in Dallas. >>READ MORE

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

>>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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