Cortez, Vanishing Points garner prestigious awards
The National Federation of Press Women recently awarded First Place for Editing to Houston poet Sarah Cortez for Vanishing Points: Poems and Photographs of Texas Roadside Memorials (Texas Review Press, 2016). The annual NFPW National Communications contest encourages and rewards excellence in communication in a wide range of categories, with entries judged by leaders in their fields of expertise. Prior to winning at the national level, Cortez won the Press Women of Texas 2016 Award for Editing, which qualified her for the national contest.
Vanishing Points was also named finalist in the poetry anthology category for the International Latino Book Awards (ILBA), the largest awards in the U.S. celebrating achievements in Latino literature.
Vanishing Points is one of the 2016 Southwest Books of the Year, an award sponsored by the Pima County Library in Arizona. Vanishing Points is edited by Sarah Cortez with original poems by Larry D. Thomas, Jack B. Bedell, Cortez, and Loueva Smith. The driving force behind Vanishing Points is the photography of roadside memorials taken over a ten-year period in Central Texas by Dan Streck, whose photographs capture breathtaking landscapes and skyscapes of the Southwest.
Cortez, a councilor of the Texas Institute of Letters and fellow of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, has poems, essays, book reviews, and short stories anthologized and published in journals such as Texas Monthly, Rattle, The Sun, Pennsylvania English, The Texas Review, Arcadia, The Midwest Quarterly, and Post Road. She is featured for her popular TED talk on Spiritual Legacy.
For more information on Sarah Cortez and Vanishing Points, visit www.poetacortez.com.
Information from author’s press release
Marfa to host first Poetry Festival Aug. 9–13, 2017
The first annual Marfa Poetry Festival—organized by Canarium Books and friends and hosted by Marfa Book Company and Hotel Saint George—will begin the evening of August 9 and end the afternoon of August 13, 2017. There will be readings, a book fair, film screenings, exhibitions, conversations, live music, and more. All events are free and open to the public. For details, visit www.marfapoetryfestival.org.
Highlights include:
Thurs., Aug. 10
Table Tennis Book Fair
Noon–4:00 pm
Saint George Hall
Table tennis book fair, at the Saint George Hall (corner of South Highland and East El Paso). Books by attending presses will also be available for the duration of the festival at Marfa Book Company.
Short Films
7:00–8:30pm
Crowley Theater
A program of short films related to poetry curated by Nick Twemlow, at the Crowley Theater.
Fri., Aug. 11
Talk by Kyle Schlesinger
2:00–3:00 pm
Crowley Theater
Poet, bookmaker, and scholar Kyle Schlesinger delivers a talk at the Crowley Theater.
Sat., August 12
and Binder Reading/Launch
11:30 am–1:00 pm
An issue launch for two great publications, Marfa’s own NECK, and Binder, from Galveston. There will be a reading and a showcase of photographs and various printed matter by contributors.
Translation Reading
3:00–4:00 pm
Saint George Hall
A multilingual reading by translators, in the front room of Saint George Hall
Canarium Books Reading
4:00–5:00 pm
Saint George Hall
A reading by Canarium Books authors and editors, in the front room of Saint George Hall
Sun., Aug. 13
Artist Talk
2:00–3:00 pm
Artist Ester Partegàs talks about poetic interventions.
From organization’s press release
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Texas authors, performers featured at Texas Plains Trail Region Roundup, July 19–21, in Plainview
PLAINVIEW—The 9th annual Tourism & Preservation Roundup, a heritage tourism conference presented by the Texas Plains Trail Region, will feature authors Joe W. Specht on West Texas music history and Ryann Ford, creator and photographer of The Last Stop, during its three days of programming, July 19–21, 2017, in Plainview.
This year’s conference, which helps prepare tourism and historic preservation professionals and volunteers with ideas they can use to attract visitors to sites and events, will focus on the newly designated Texas Music Trail, historic highways, and other angles for incorporate cultural heritage into tourism initiatives and local economic development. It will also serve as a launching pad for celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Texas Heritage Trails Program, which began in 1968 as the Texas Travel Trails in connection with HemisFair ’68.
Destination marketers, museum workers, parks personnel, elected officials, and followers of Texas history are all welcome. Registration for the full conference, which includes:
• Wednesday afternoon tour of the Jimmy Dean Museum and other museums on the Wayland Baptist University campus, 400–5:30 pm;
• Wednesday evening reception (cash bar) and barbecue banquet at the Plainview Country Club, with a talk on West Texas music heritage by historian Dr. Joe W. Specht, author of The Roots of Texas Music and The Women There Don’t Treat You Mean: Abilene in Song, preceded by Texas piano stylings of Lucy Dean Record and cowboy poetry performances by students of Boys Ranch, beginning at 5:30 pm;
• Thursday morning and afternoon sessions on museums, historic highways, trails, and more, including a presentation by Ryann Ford on The Last Stop: Vanishing Rest Stops of the American Roadside;
• Thursday lunch with a program on the new Texas Music Trail;
• Thursday evening performance at the Fair Theatre, with actress Zoe Kirkpatrick of Post as Cynthia Ann Parker in the late Marybeth Little Weston’s one-woman show “The Comanche with Blue Eyes”, 7:00 pm;
• Friday hands-on session on publicizing your community’s music heritage, 9:00–11:00 am.
• Vicki Hamblen, author of the revised edition of E. Hamblen’s The Rim to Rim Road: Will Hamblen and the Crossing of Texas’ Palo Duro Canyon, will also be on hand to sign copies of her book, publishedin 2014 by Texas Plains Trail Books.
The all-inclusive registration fee (dinner and lunch included) is only $99.00. Tickets to “The Comanche with Blue Eyes” are only $10 ($15 at the door). Special hotel rates are available at the Comfort Suites for overnight guests.
A full schedule of all presentations, sessions, and activities is at /www.TexasPlainsTrail/Roundup, along with online reservation and ticket reservations.
The event is made possible with the generous sponsorship of Main Street Plainview and the Plainview Chamber of Commerce, with sponsorships by the Post Chamber of Commerce and Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch.
The Texas Plains Trail Region (TPTR), an award-winning heritage tourism initiative of the Texas Historical Commission, is a nonprofit organization committed to increasing heritage tourism to the 52 counties of the Texas Plains and Panhandle.
For more information, call TPTR at 806.747.1997 (mobile 806.252.6544).
From organization’s press release
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