{"id":757,"date":"2018-12-31T13:49:29","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T13:49:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=757"},"modified":"2018-12-31T13:49:29","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T13:49:29","slug":"lone-star-reviewsmichelle-newby-nbcc-50","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=757","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>HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY<\/a><\/p>\n

Karl Jacoby<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The Strange Career of William Ellis, The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

W.W. Norton & Company<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-0-393-23925-6, 336 pages, $27.95, June 2016<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Si Dunn<\/p>\n

William Henry Ellis was a toddler in a slave family<\/span> on a cotton plantation near Victoria, Texas, when Union soldiers brought news in 1865 that the Civil War was over and slaves were free.<\/p>\n

Most of the newly liberated slaves would end up working as sharecroppers or laborers and living in poverty amid growing racial tensions. Yet, within just a few decades, William Henry Ellis would be both a millionaire and a trickster who was pulling cons against racial prejudices within the United States and Mexico.<\/p>\n

Karl Jacoby\u2019s<\/span> excellent book explains how Ellis became fluent in Mexican Spanish as a child and later figured out a way he could move across tightly enforced racial lines. >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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

>> archive<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n

Texas songwriters featured in new books<\/h1>\n

Fans of Texas music have several new books<\/span> to choose from this fall. All involve, in one way or another, the art of songwriting. Three of the titles are non-fiction, while the other one is a novel based on an actual song.<\/p>\n

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First, the novel. More than fifty years ago, Willie Nelson<\/span> wrote a melancholy song, \u201cPretty Paper,\u201d about a street vendor selling wrapping paper and ribbons while busy shoppers pass by without noticing him. It was recorded by Roy Orbison<\/span> and became a holiday hit. Nelson penned the lyrics after seeing a legless man on a cart in front of a downtown Fort Worth department store. But he always wondered about the man\u2019s real life. Who was he? How had his life come to this?<\/p>\n

Pretty Paper: A Christmas Tale<\/span><\/a><\/span> by Willie Nelson<\/span> (Blue Rider Press, $23 hardcover) offers an inspiring, fictionalized account of the man behind the lyrics. With the help of co-author David Ritz,<\/span> Nelson spins a fast-paced story that is hard to put down. I literally read it in one evening.<\/p>\n

Texas A&M University Press has published three hardcover volumes in its Texas music series sponsored by the Center for Texas Music History at Texas State University. Without Getting Killed or Caught: The Life and Music of Guy Clark<\/span> by Tamara Saviano<\/span> ($29.95) is the definitive biography of the late, beloved Clark, who grew up in Texas and became a guru to dozens, if not hundreds, of aspiring songwriters in Texas and Nashville.<\/p>\n

Saviano, a Nashville music journalist, began working on the biography in 2008, spending numerous hours interviewing him as well as about a hundr3ed of his friends and fellow musicians.\u00a0 \u201cFrom the first interview,\u201d she writes, \u201cGuy surprised me. The moment I turned on the recorder, Guy opened his mouth and spilled stories that many of his closest friends hadn\u2019t heard.\u201d She finished the book shortly before Clark passed away last spring.<\/p>\n

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Saviano also has a piece on Clark in a new collection of essays, Pickers and Poets: The Ruthlessly Poetic Singer-Songwriters of Texas<\/span><\/a><\/span> ($29.95). Edited by Craig Clifford<\/span> and Craig Hillis,<\/span> Pickers and Poets includes more than thirty stories about such noted Texas songwriters as Townes Van Zandt, Kris Kristofferson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Kinky Friedman, Billy Joe Shaver, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Willie Nelson, Robert Earl Keen, Rodney Crowell,<\/span> and Miranda Lambert.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kent Finlay, Dreamer: The Musical Legend Behind Cheatham Street Warehouse<\/span><\/a><\/span> by Brian Atkinson<\/span> and Jenni Finlay<\/span> (Eight 30 records, $25.95) tells the story of a songwriter\/dance hall proprietor who helped launch a number of aspiring musicians\u2019 careers through his San Marcos venue. George Strait<\/span> was one of them, and he writes about Finlay in a foreword: \u201cHe and his great little honky-tonk with indoor toilets gave me and a whole host of others a place to learn our craft.\u201d Finlay died in 2015.<\/p>\n

Glenn Dromgoole\u2019s<\/span> latest book is West Texas Stories<\/span><\/a><\/span>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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Alfred A. Knopf<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-0-3075-9411-2 (also available as an ebook and on Audible), 400 pgs., $27.95<\/p>\n

October 2016<\/p>\n

Every Austinite, every Texan, knows the basic facts of this horrific crime.<\/span> On Friday, December 6, 1991, the Austin Fire Department responded to a report of a fire at an I Can\u2019t Believe It\u2019s Yogurt! shop in northwest Austin. Inside the shop, they discovered the bodies of Eliza Hope Thomas (17), sisters Jennifer Ann Harbison (17) and Sarah Louise Harbison (15), and Amy Leigh Ayers (13).<\/p>\n

Finally, in 1999, four young men (\u201cthree aimless dudes, one troublemaker with firepower and wheels\u201d) were arrested, despite the complete lack of physical evidence. Two were never brought to trial because the case against one was dismissed, and a grand jury twice refused to indict the other; but two confessed, later recanting confessions that ultimately turned out to be false (\u201cI\u2019m scared I have information and don\u2019t know I have information\u201d). They were convicted, but those convictions were reversed and the cases remanded by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. In 2008, DNA results, thanks to more sophisticated testing than was previously available, excluded all four suspects.\u00a0 >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W.W. Norton & Company<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-1-6314-9224-2 (also available as an ebook and on Audible), 496 pgs., $27.95<\/p>\n

October 4, 2016<\/p>\n

In 1916, Arthur Shaughnessy is a vice president<\/span> and general manager of New England & Pacific Railroad Company, which was won by his father, \u201cColonel\u201d Shaughnessy, in a card game. The railroad is in financial trouble due to the Colonel\u2019s profligate ways. The Colonel appreciates the finer things: yachts, summer houses, his cattle ranch in the northern Mexico state of Chihuahua.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Pancho Villa is poaching cattle to feed his Great Northern Army in furtherance of the Mexican Revolution of 1916. The Colonel decides to drive his cattle herd from the ranch in Mexico to El Paso, both to save the valuable herd from Villa and to sell the cattle at auction to meet the railroad\u2019s payroll. Disaster ensues when the Colonel takes the whole family along and his grandchildren are kidnapped for ransom by an equally cash-strapped Villa.\u00a0 >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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

Kay Ellington, Editor and Publisher<\/span><\/h1>\n

12.4.2016\u00a0 Dobie Paisano fellow and San Antonio author Nan Cuba on bringing out the best in herself \u2014 and other writers<\/h1>\n

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If you follow Texas letters for any length of time, <\/span>you\u2019ll run into <\/span>Nan Cuba<\/span> either literally or figuratively, and we have done both. Whether she is supporting an aspiring author event or receiving notice for her latest accolade\u2014member of the Texas Institute of Letters, 2016 Dobie Paisano Fellow, and the like \u2014 the San Antonio author is seemingly everywhere. She took time from her busy schedule to be interviewed by email for this week\u2019s Lone Star Listens.<\/span><\/p>\n

LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: <\/span>Nan, you\u2019ve just completed your Dobie Paisano fellowship sponsored by the Texas Institute of Letters. I don\u2019t think it would be hyperbole to call this experience Texas\u2019s literary rite of passage. What was it like for you?<\/span><\/p>\n

NAN CUBA:<\/span> The Paisano fellowship is a major international award. My husband calls it the Texas Pulitzer, but no other award anywhere in the world gives a writer a healthy stipend and invites her to live by herself for six months on 264 acres of natural wilderness.<\/p>\n

Barton Creek and its surrounding bluffs were visible from my office window in Dobie\u2019s ranch house. Daily walks revealed the iconic roadrunner skittering beside a fence, white-tailed deer galloping across the road, Charlie the blue heron (a former fellow\u2019s spiritual manifestation of her father) swooping from the creek bank toward the horizon, coyotes howling from what seemed like the front door, and jackrabbits munching grass each morning as I watched from the covered porch. Once one ran across the yard then dove into the brush, and when I turned, a cougar watched me from a few yards away. The next week, a large black racer snake curled into a hall corner in the house. For six weeks, I was marooned while the creek flooded its low-water crossing. Animal noises and earth smells, like the night\u2019s stars, intensified, but best was the quiet, the solitude. I woke earlier; meditated; assessed. I wrote every day, an exhilarating ritual that almost allowed me to finish my second book. >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Texas’s only statewide, weekly calendar of book events<\/h1>\n

Bookish Texas<\/span> event highlights\u00a0 12.4.2016
<\/span>>><\/span><\/a><\/span> GO this week\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Michelle Newby, Contributing Editor<\/span><\/h1>\n
LUBBOCK Mon., Dec. 5\u00a0 Groves Branch Library, Jodi Thomas discusses and signs her Ransom Canyon series, 7PM. Also appearing in AMARILLO, Sat., Dec. 10, Washington Avenue Christian Church, 11:30AM<\/span><\/span><\/span>AUSTIN\u00a0 Tues., Dec. 6\u00a0 BookPeople, CAROL DAWSON & ROGER ALLEN POLSON speaking & signing Miles and Miles of Texas: 100 Years of the Texas Highway Department, 7PM<\/span><\/span><\/span>AUSTIN\u00a0\u00a0 Wed., Dec. 7\u00a0 Austin Public Library – Cepeda Branch, Holiday Open House: Choctaw storyteller and author Tim Tingle tells Christmas stories, 5:30PM<\/span><\/span><\/span>BURNET\u00a0 Thurs., Dec. 8, Herman Brown Free Library, Kay Ellington and Barbara Brannon read and sign The Paragraph Ranch, 1:30PM<\/span><\/span><\/span>DALLAS Thurs., Dec, 8\u00a0 The Wild Detectives, First Hearings Series from Wordspace Dallas: Christopher Carmona reads and signs The Road to Llorona Park, 7:30PM<\/span><\/span><\/span>HOUSTON\u00a0 Thurs., Dec.. 8, Architecture Center Houston, Authors in Architecture: Robert C. Trumpbour and Kenneth Womack present The Eighth Wonder of the World: The Life of Houston’s Iconic Astrodome, 5:30PM<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>LUBBOCK\u00a0 Fri. Dec. 9 and Sat., Dec. 10\u00a0 National Ranching Heritage Center – Cogdell\u2019s General Store, As part of “Candlelight at the Ranch,” Texas State Photographer Wyman Meinzer will sell and sign Horses to Ride, Cattle to Cut,<\/span> and Nathan Dahlstrom will sell and sign The Green Colt,<\/span> 6:30PM<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Visit our annual catalog of great Texas reads in these gift categories!<\/p>\n

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News Briefs 12.4.16<\/h1>\n

Reading Rock Stars rock it at Crockett Dec. 1<\/h1>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span>The Texas Book Festival <\/span>hosted one of its annual Reading Rock Stars presentations last week at Crockett Elementary School in Houston. Beginning at 8:15 a.m., the school hosted three authors \u2014 nationally recognized author Kathi Appelt<\/span> (right, with her book Counting Crows<\/span>), NFL veteran and Pro Bowl player from Dallas Wade Smith<\/span>, and New York Times<\/span> bestselling author Nathan Hal<\/span>e\u2014to present their books for students.<\/p>\n

\u00a0>>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Writers in Performance to host 26th annual Emily Dickinson Birthday Celebration with poets at The Woodlands, Dec. 8<\/h1>\n

<\/a><\/span><\/span>Writers in Performance will hold its annual Gathering of Poets <\/span>at 7 pm Thurs., Dec. 8, at the Black Walnut Caf\u00e9 in The Woodlands. The event will feature some twenty published poets. Each will read a favorite Dickinson poem as well as one of their own. Featured poets include Michael Anania, Alan Ainsworth, Mary Margaret Carlisle, Sarah Cortez, Carolyn Dahl, Houston Poet Laureate Robin Davidson, Sybil Estess, Lyman Grant,\u00a0 Dede Fox,\u00a0 John Gorman, Ken Jones, Sharon Klander, Janet Lowery, Deseree Probasco, Kevin Prufer, Kathryn Lane, John Milkereit, Daniel Rifenburgh, Melissa Studdard, Randall Watson, <\/span>and Mick Lowell White<\/span>. The readings will be led by 2011 Texas Poet Laureate Dave Parsons<\/span>.\u00a0 >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Lone Star Lit\u2019s Literary Tour of Texas: Austin<\/h1>\n

Members of the Lone Star Lit team<\/span> are just now unpacking from trips to Austin (and more exotic places, like India) and downloading loads of digital photos. Here are a few highlights from our visit during Texas Book Festival week earlier this month \u2014 before we head off to Burnet, Kyle, San Antonio, and other bookish destinations in a few days.<\/p>\n

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Where better to begin a literary tour of the capital city than with the good people of BookPeople<\/span><\/a><\/span> Kay and Barbara visited with marketing director Abby Fennewald<\/span> and enjoyed a welcome cup of coffee on a rainy Austin day.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>Another must-see destination for lovers of letters is the Harry Ransom Center<\/span><\/a><\/span> situated in the heart of the University of Texas campus. The Ransom Center (or HRC, as many of us have long known it) will celebrate 60 years of collecting with a \u201cWorld of Wonders\u201d gala April 22, 2017.<\/span> While the Ransom Center is primarily a research archive and museum, and its Hazel Ransom Reading Room is open only to registered users, its dramatic public spaces offer glimpses into the repository\u2019s treasures through rotating exhibitions year-round.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>We had a delightful tour and visit with Jennifer Tisdale<\/span> and Suzanne Krause<\/span> of the Public Affairs office \u2014 and we\u2019ll look forward to coming back and spending even more time!<\/p>\n

We rounded out our Austin trip with another engine of scholarly and literary production, the University of Texas Press<\/span><\/a><\/span>. Moving last year to spacious new headquarters at the university\u2019s Lake Austin campus, the Press now boasts ample space for producing some 100 new books and ten journals annually \u2014 and displaying highlights from its backlist of more than 3,000 titles from more than six decades of publishing. Staff members Brady Dyer<\/span> and Colleen Ellis, <\/span>along with visitor Kathryn Marguy<\/span> from Johns Hopkins University Press, welcomed us to come see the new digs for ourselves.\u00a0\u00a0 >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/span><\/span><\/span>WHERE IN TEXAS?<\/span><\/h1>\n

Don’t miss a reading or a good read! Sign up for our FREE weekly
e-newsletter<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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COMING UP ON TOUR: FICTION<\/h1>\n

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THE WEST TEXAS PILGRIMAGE
by Matt Wolthoff<\/h1>\n

Visit with Matt December 5\u201314<\/p>\n

12\/5 Guest Post 1 Reading By Moonlight<\/p>\n

12\/6 Review Syd Savvy<\/p>\n

12\/7 Promo Country Girl Bookaholic<\/p>\n

12\/8 Author Interview 1 Kara The Redhead<\/p>\n

12\/9 Review Forgotten Winds<\/p>\n

12\/10 Guest Post 2 Byers Editing Reviews & Blog<\/p>\n

12\/11 Promo Blogging for the Love of Authors and Their Books<\/p>\n

12\/12 Review StoreyBook Reviews<\/p>\n

12\/13 Author Interview 2 The Page Unbound<\/p>\n

12\/14 Review Missus Gonzo<\/p>\n

CONTINUING ON TOUR: FICTION<\/h1>\n

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FOR THE RECORD by Regina Jennings<\/h1>\n

Visit with Regina through December 10<\/p>\n

12\/4 Promo Kara The Redhead<\/p>\n

12\/5 Review The Page Unbound<\/p>\n

12\/6 Guest Post Margie’s Must Reads<\/p>\n

12\/7 Author Interview 2 StoreyBook Reviews<\/p>\n

12\/8 Review Byers Editing Reviews & Blog<\/p>\n

12\/9 Excerpt 2 Reading By Moonlight<\/p>\n

12\/10 Review Chapter Break Book Blog<\/p>\n

CONTINUING ON TOUR: FICTION<\/h1>\n

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MOVED, LEFT NO ADDRESS
by Vickie Phelps<\/h1>\n

Visit with Vickie through December 7<\/p>\n

12\/4 Blogging for the Love of Authors and Their Books<\/p>\n

12\/5 Country Girl Bookaholic<\/p>\n

12\/6 Missus Gonzo<\/p>\n

12\/7 The Page Unbound<\/p>\n

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Lone Star Literary Life Facts and FAQs<\/span><\/h1>\n

\u2022 Editorial policies<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Review policies<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Advertising policies<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Event and resource list policies<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Lone Star Literary Archives<\/span><\/h1>\n

\u2022 Weekly issues<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Lone Star Listens Interviews<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Lone Star Book Reviews<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Texas Reads<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Events<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Announcement: LSLL Launches<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lone Star ReviewsMichelle Newby, NBCC, Contributing Editor HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY Karl Jacoby The Strange Career of William Ellis, The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire W.W. Norton & Company Hardcover, 978-0-393-23925-6, 336 pages, $27.95, June 2016 Reviewed by Si Dunn William Henry Ellis was a toddler in a slave family on a cotton plantation near […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}