{"id":1259,"date":"2018-12-31T16:27:08","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1259"},"modified":"2018-12-31T16:27:08","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:27:08","slug":"lone-star-reviewsmichelle-newby-nbcc-102","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1259","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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LITERARY FICTION<\/p>\n

J. Reeder Archuleta<\/span><\/p>\n

The El Paso Red Flame Gas Station and Other Stories<\/span><\/p>\n

Dog Ear Publishing<\/p>\n

Paperback, 978-1-4575-5919-8 (also available as an e-book), 132 pages, $9.99; December 2017<\/p>\n

Where most of us might see only dry, windy, hardscrabble land,<\/span> Far West Texas native J. Reeder Archuleta<\/span> can see beauty. Of course, it’s beauty that can turn harsh and unforgiving if you forget to pay much attention to the vast sky sweeping overhead.<\/p>\n

Likewise, we might notice a few weathered, seemingly nondescript people if we stopped for gas in a small town near the Texas\u2013New Mexico border. Archuleta, however, would see human stories spanning much of life\u2019s emotions and experiences.<\/p>\n

The El Paso Red Flame Gas Station and Other Stories,<\/span> Archuleta’s second book, is an absorbing coming-of-age tale that unfolds within a collection of eight short stories. Set in the 1950s and \u201960s, in a small town that is not named, the stories have changing viewpoints and changing casts of interconnected characters. Yet one figure is present in each story \u2014 an abandoned child named Josh, who grows into manhood over the course of this well-written collection.\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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New biography profiles Pearl Harbor hero Doris Miller<\/h1>\n

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Doris Miller was an \u201cimprobable American hero,\u201d<\/span> write authors Thomas W. Cutrer<\/span> and T. Michael Parrish<\/span> in Doris Miller: Pearl Harbor and the Birth of the Civil Rights Movement<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Texas A&M University Press, $24.95 hardcover). Because of racial segregation, Miller was assigned to the Navy\u2019s mess branch, as a waiter for white officers. And that\u2019s what he was doing on Dec. 7, 1941, when Japanese bombers attacked Pearl Harbor.<\/p>\n

Miller \u201cstepped onto the bridge of his ship, the USS West Virginia,<\/span>\u201d they write, \u201cwhere he moved his mortally wounded captain to a place of greater safety and then manned a Browning .50-caliber gun, a weapon in which he \u2014 in common with all of his fellow messmen \u2014 had no training. He continued firing at the swarming bombers and torpedo planes until he was out of ammunition and ordered to abandon the sinking ship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller\u2019s heroics earned him the Navy Cross, \u201cthe first black sailor ever so decorated.\u201d After a speaking and bond promotion tour in the U.S., Miller returned to active duty and was killed in action on Nov. 23, 1943, when his ship was torpedoed and sunk.<\/p>\n

Cutrer and Parrish tell Miller\u2019s life story in about 100 pages plus footnotes and point out that Miller\u2019s true story, while certainly heroic, was not quite as dramatic as the way he was portrayed in the 2001 movie Pearl Harbor,<\/span> starring Cuba Gooding Jr. as Miller shooting down enemy planes from the USS Arizona. Movie critic Jess Caigle,<\/span> formerly of Abilene and now editor of People<\/span> magazine, wrote at the time that the movie \u201creaches for historical accuracy \u2014 at least until it gets in the way of the main story.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, the authors note, Miller\u2019s actions and resulting fame \u201cdeveloped in Congress and in the armed services a greater awareness and sensitivity to the attitudes, talents, aspirations, and loyalties of black men and women to their country,\u201d which helped launch the Civil Rights movement.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/span><\/span>Vietnam era novel:<\/span> Lubbock screenwriter and author C. David Stephens<\/span> keeps the action flowing in his novel, Every Mother\u2019s Son<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Llano Estacado Publishing, $15.99 paperback), set in 1969 in the small fictional West Texas town of Preston.<\/p>\n

The story revolves around three principal characters. Kevin Frazier has just returned from combat in Vietnam. Meanwhile, his best friend and fellow football star Bobby Dalton is about to be shipped out. Bobby\u2019s steady girlfriend, Amy Evans, decides to give her beau a special going-away present, and Kevin promises to take care of her while Bobby is in Vietnam.<\/p>\n

But, of course, things get complicated, and Amy and Kevin \u2014 and their friends and families -\u2014 are caught up in the fallout.<\/p>\n

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Glenn Dromgoole<\/span> has been writing his Texas Reads column since 2002, focusing on 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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<\/span><\/span>2018 TEXAS BOOKISH DESTINATIONS<\/h1>\n

Can you name this literary place in the Lone Star State?<\/h1>\n

Admit it: bookfans love traveling almost as much as they love reading itself.<\/span> Beginning March 4, 2018, Lone Star Literary Life will roll out #10 through #6 in our annual list of Top Texas Bookish Destinations, for readers who want to visit the settings of their favorite books, the birthplaces and haunts of favorite authors, and hot spots for book buying, readings, and other literary activity.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But throughout Texas\u2019s 268,597 square miles, there are also lots of out-of-the-way points of interest that we don\u2019t always have space to cover in our Top Ten pages.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Watch this space each week for a new bookish place that you\u2019ll want to add to your own travel list. Be the first to email us with the correct identification, and win a prize!<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This week, we continue with a bookish place that\u2019s located in 2017\u2019s #2 Top Bookish Destination. There\u2019s plenty of poetry in this literary-rich city, but there\u2019s a Poet Tree, too. Can you name the city? And extra credit for telling our readers the neighborhood or street where they can find it, too.<\/p>\n

Email us at<\/span> info@LoneStarLiterary.com<\/span><\/a><\/span> with the specific right answer,<\/span> and we’ll send you a free copy of Literary Texas.<\/span><\/p>\n

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LAST MONTH\u2019S PHOTO<\/span> (below<\/span>) was correctly identified as the Capitol Gift Shop, inside the state capitol building in Austin. Congratulations \u2014 your prize is on the way!<\/p>\n

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TOP BOOKISH TEXAS DESTINATIONS, MARCH 2018<\/h1>\n

<\/span><\/span>From the spur of Texas\u2019s boot-heel to the tip of the toe, <\/span>we\u2019ve traveled the state in search of some delectable destinations for book lovers. Check out three honorable mentions on our 2018 list this week, as you make your own bookish travel plans. >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

introducing LONE STAR LIT\u2019S NEWEST FEATURE<\/span><\/h1>\n

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

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

3.18.2018\u00a0 TIL 2018 inductee Guadalupe Garcia McCall translates the wonder of the world \u2014 and world literature \u2014\u00a0into stories that resonate with young adult readers <\/p>\n

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Award-winning Latina Young Adult author <\/span>Guadalupe Garcia McCall\u2019s<\/span> fourth book, All the Stars Denied, <\/span>will be published in May 2018, making spring quite busy for the San Antonio\u2013area author \u2014 as she\u2019ll also be inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters the first week of April. Born in Mexico, McCall immigrated to the U.S. with her family when she was six and grew up in Eagle Pass, Texas. Lone Star Lit caught up with McCall over the weekend via email and learned about her life of two cultures, her path to publishing, and the joy of being honored for her work.<\/span><\/p>\n

LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE:<\/span> You were born in Mexico, and then your family moved to Eagle Pass, Texas, when you were six. How would you describe those early days, and what was it like growing up in Eagle Pass?<\/span><\/p>\n

GUADALUPE GARCIA McCALL:<\/span> Those early days were filled with all kinds of sensory images; they echoed my emotions. En los estados unidos, the sights and sounds of children wearing such nice clothes and speaking in a crisp, clear language blended in with the smell of fried chicken, an unknown yet intriguing aroma wafting from the Golden Fried Chicken when we got on the city bus at the corner of Commercial and Main. That scent filtered into the bus and mingled with the sound of my sweaty legs slipping around on the plastic seats on hot summer days.<\/p>\n

I was so young, that my little heart ached with fear and hope and love and hate. I was afraid of not learning \u201cthe English,\u201d as my father called it, but I was also full of the hope that I saw in my mother\u2019s eyes when she registered my sister Alicia and me in school. I loved my parents and siblings, but I hated being separated from my guelita<\/span> and in Mexico. At first, I had a hard time in school because I was mistakenly put in a monolingual class. After a few weeks, the school called a meeting with my parents and it was discovered that I was a Spanish speaker and a recent immigrant, and I needed to go to Ms. Nu\u00f1ez\u2019s class. Everything was good after that. The bilingual program was so strong and I was very studious, so I flourished in school.\u00a0\u00a0\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 3.18.2018<\/span>>> GO this week<\/span><\/a><\/span>Michelle Newby, Contributing Editor<\/span><\/h1>\n

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