{"id":1178,"date":"2018-12-31T16:05:09","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1178"},"modified":"2018-12-31T16:05:09","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:05:09","slug":"lone-star-reviewsmichelle-newby-nbcc-94","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1178","title":{"rendered":"Lone Star ReviewsMichelle Newby, NBCC,"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/span><\/span>Lone Star Reviews<\/span>Michelle Newby, NBCC,<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n

Contributing Editor<\/span><\/h1>\n
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<\/span><\/span>FICTION \/ TEXANA<\/p>\n

Heath Dollar<\/span><\/p>\n

Waylon County: Texas Stories<\/span><\/p>\n

Sleeping Panther Press<\/p>\n

Paperback, 978-0-9980661-4-1 (also available as ebook); $14.99<\/p>\n

Waylon County: Texas Stories is a fresh-voiced, well-composed collection<\/span> of thirty-one vignettes and short stories set in a fictional county in the Texas Hill Country.<\/p>\n

Some of its characters include: a woman who fears Texas won\u2019t let her get married a tenth time; a lowly state bureaucrat whose job is to write official letters of congratulation; a man trying to rekindle an old romance while claiming his pet monkey is a \u201ccomfort\u201d animal; a linguist who wants to help keep alive the last remnants of the German dialect originally spoken by early Texas settlers; a young man sneaking beers and cigars into his dying father\u2019s hospital room and pushing him outside in a wheelchair so they can share some final time alone; and a ranch hand hired by an aging, wealthy landowner to also serve as his personal philosopher.\u00a0 >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/span><\/span><\/span>Texas Reads<\/span>Glenn Dromgoole<\/span><\/h1>\n

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\u00a0West Texas writers produce collection of stories<\/h1>\n

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A West Texas writers group, the Permian Basin Bookies, <\/span>has published a handsome hardcover collection of stories titled West Texas Lore & Legend<\/span> (Dust Devil Books, $24.95).<\/p>\n

Proceeds from the project benefit the Recording Library of West Texas, which produces audio recordings for the blind and disabled. Twenty-six writers contributed 38 stories, some fiction, some non-fiction — tall tales, biographical pieces, ghost stories, essays.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe purposefully kept these stories short, to be read in a single sitting,\u201d said Mark S. McDonald,<\/span> who managed the project. \u201cThis is wholesome, PG-rated reading for the whole family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fort Davis writer Lonn Taylor<\/span> wrote about \u201cMarfa Lights: Fact, or Fable?\u201d while Glen Aaron<\/span> told the story of the colorful Midland High football star Wahoo McDaniel. Carlton Stowers<\/span> penned a surprisingly upbeat short story called \u201cThe Plan\u201d about an old man who thought life held no promise anymore. Sally Giddens Stephenson<\/span> offered a history of \u201cThe Avenger Field Fly Girls\u201d of World War II, while husband Tom Stephenson<\/span> chipped in a tale about the \u201cLegend of Barefoot Bob.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few other mentions: David R. King<\/span> on the history of wine in Texas; Joyce Shaughnessy<\/span> on Apache treasure; Sara Bernard<\/span> on a scary tale revolving around the song \u201cDesperado;\u201d Roger W. Manning<\/span> on \u201cMy Life as a Water Criminal in Odessa, Texas.\u201d You can read more about the Permian Basin Bookies and order \u201cWest Texas Lore & Legend\u201d from the group\u2019s website, pbbookies.com<\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Rodeo star: <\/span>Elaine Fields Smith<\/span> has teamed up with Virginia Reger<\/span> to tell Reger\u2019s story, Ridin\u2019 Ropin\u2019 & Jumpin\u2019 Over Cars: The Biography of Virginia Reger, A True Rodeo Star<\/span><\/a><\/span> ($15 paperback). Reger was a top trick rider and roper in the 1950s and was inducted into the Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame in 2007.\u00a0 The book is filled with pictures, articles and memorabilia from her life.<\/p>\n

Lions in Texas:<\/span> Everett J. \u201cEbb\u201d Grindstaff<\/span> of Ballinger, who served as president of Lions Club International in 1982\u201383, has compiled Texas Lions: Celebrating 100 Years, <\/span>covering the second fifty years of Lions activity in the state. An earlier book by Julien C. Hyer<\/span> covered the first fifty years.<\/p>\n

Big names:<\/span> Two best-selling books by Texas-related authors I should have gotten around to this fall, but didn\u2019t, are What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism<\/span> by Dan Rather<\/span> and Elliot Kirschner,<\/span> and Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life<\/span> by Jenna Bush Hager<\/span> and Barbara Pierce Bush.<\/span> I plan to read them early in the new year.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, I\u2019m going to take a short break from the column. I still have a good stack of Texas books to look through, and more will be arriving soon. I\u2019ll be back in a couple of weeks.<\/p>\n

Happy reading in 2018.<\/p>\n

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Glenn Dromgoole<\/span> writes about Texas books and authors. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.<\/p>\n

>> <\/span>Check out his previous Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Lit<\/a><\/span>erary Life<\/span><\/h1>\n

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LONE STAR LISTENS interviews\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>>> archive<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n

Author interviews by Kay Ellington<\/span><\/h1>\n

12.31.2017\u00a0 Dallas writer and NYT best-seller Sarah Hepola tells it like it was, in her breakout memoir BLACKOUT<\/h1>\n

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A new year is always timely for taking a step back<\/span> and looking at what we\u2019d like to change. In today\u2019sedition we talk with Dallas author <\/span>Sarah Hepola,<\/span>New York Times bestselling author of the memoir <\/span>Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget.<\/span> Hepola talks with us about her memoir, her road to recovery, and her newest writing interests.<\/span><\/p>\n

LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: <\/span>Where did you grow up, Sarah, and how did that location influence you?<\/span><\/p>\n

SARAH HEPOLA: <\/span>I grew up in Dallas, Texas. My family moved from the East Coast when I was three, and we were middle-class outsiders in an upper-class neighborhood, and probably one of the most influential aspects of my childhood was that I became an observer, someone living in her own mind and watching the party from the sidelines. That\u2019s part of why alcohol called to me so powerfully \u2014 booze pulls you into the center of the action. But Dallas shaped me in other ways. Take a look at my makeup collection and hair products, for example. Dallas is a city of constant real-estate development, and you see a similar spirit in women\u2019s attitude toward beauty: renovation, reshaping, fixing.<\/p>\n

When did you know that you wanted to be a writer?<\/p>\n

When I was in second grade, I won a writing contest. We were given the class period to write some Christmas story, and somehow mine was three times as long as everyone else\u2019s, and it got me all this attention, so of course I kept writing.\u00a0 >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Texas’s only statewide, weekly calendar of book events
<\/span>Bookish Texas<\/span> event highlights\u00a0 12.31.2017 <\/span>>><\/span><\/a><\/span> GO this week\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Michelle Newby, Contributing Editor<\/span><\/h1>\n

SPECIAL EVENTS THIS WEEK<\/span><\/p>\n