{"id":1221,"date":"2018-12-31T16:17:07","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1221"},"modified":"2018-12-31T16:17:07","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:17:07","slug":"introducing-lone-star-lits-newest-feature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1221","title":{"rendered":"introducing LONE STAR LIT\u2019S NEWEST FEATURE"},"content":{"rendered":"
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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

2.11.2018\u00a0 Byrds of a feather publish together: Lee Merrill Byrd and Bobby Byrd on the origins of El Paso\u2019s Cinco Puntos Press, and books they love<\/h1>\n

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Lone Star Listens typically focuses on interviews with Texas\u2013related writers,<\/span> but it\u2019s a distinct pleasure this week to interview two El Paso authors (and 2017 Texas Institute of Letters inductees) who have contributed as significantly to publishing books as to writing them. <\/span>Bobby Byrd<\/span> of Cinco Puntos Press wants readers to know that even though he wrote most of the interview responses this week via email (wife <\/span>Lee Merrill Byrd<\/span> being in Denver for the American Library Association Mid-Winter Conference), she did \u201ctoss in her two cents here and there.\u201d Thanks to both of these literary love-Byrds for taking the time out of a busy week for some bookish conversation.<\/span><\/p>\n

LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: <\/span>Lee and Bobby, since it\u2019s Valentine\u2019s week, why don\u2019t you start by telling us how you met, and how long have you been married?<\/span><\/p>\n

BOBBY BYRD:<\/span> Well, that\u2019s complicated. Sometime in the summer of 1966, during a rather boisterous night, a friend of mine pushed me through the window of Lee\u2019s motel room. We were both at the Aspen Writers\u2019 Workshop organized by Robert Vas Dias<\/span> and Toby Olson.<\/span> Paul Blackburn<\/span> was the poet in residence. Lee graduated the next spring from Beaver College (I promise you, that was its name) outside Philly, and we\u2019ve been together ever since, marrying in 1973 in Alamosa, Colorado, honored to have our wonderful twenty-month-old daughter Susannah Mississippi Byrd carrying the ring down the aisle for us.<\/p>\n

When did you start Cinco Puntos Press \u2014 and what motivated you?<\/p>\n

LEE AND BOBBY:<\/span> The official date is 1985.\u00a0 >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Texas’s only statewide, weekly calendar of book events<\/span><\/a><\/span>Bookish Texas<\/span> event highlights\u00a0 2.11.2018 <\/span>>> GO this week\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Michelle Newby, Contributing Editor<\/span><\/h1>\n

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