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Archive for May 2009
May 21, 2009
posted by Josh Haney at 11:02 AM
To the envy of writers across the state, the University of Texas and the Texas Institute of Letters announced the recipients of the 2010 Dobie Paisano Writing Fellowships last week. We're just getting around to mentioning it now because we're been eating chocolate ice cream all week to assuage our jealously. Not that the fellowships could have gone to more deserving writers.
Austin author and Texas Monthly columnist Sarah Bird won the Johnson Fellowship, which is generally awarded to established writers, which Bird certainly is. How Perfect Is That, Bird’s most recent of seven novels, follows a divorcee as she struggles to maintain her status as an Austin blue-blood despite being blocked from the trough by matrimony gone wrong. Robert Leleux, reviewing the book recently in the Observer, thought it was a hoot and a half
Diane Wilson, activist and author of Holy Roller: Growing Up in the Church of Knock Down, Drag Out; or, How I Quit Loving a Blue-Eyed Jesus, won the Jesse Jones Fellowship for up-and-coming writers. Observer contributing writer Emily DePrang talked to Wilson here.
Both fellowships include an extended stay at the J. Frank Dobie House, on 250 bucolic acres just west of Austin, as well as a handsome stipend.
Recent Dobie Paisano fellows include Observer contributing writer Michael Erard, who wrote this column about his experience on the ranch, and Mary Specht, whose musings about her time at the Dobie homestead are scheduled to appear in our July 10 Summer Books issue.
Congrats y'all.
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May 18, 2009
posted by Brad Tyer at 03:58 PM
Because he doesn't have enough accolades yet, erstwhile Texan, Pulitzer Prize-winner and MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Cormac McCarthy was awarded the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for lifetime achievement in American literature earlier this month. He's only the second writer, after Philip Roth, to be so honored.
Also, this week marks the grand opening of an entire reading room dedicated to the study of that very lifetime's achievement (so far).
The Southwestern Writers Collection, part of the Wittliff Gallery at Texas State University-San Marcos, acquired McCarthy’s papers in January 2008 (read the Observer's acquisition-pegged feature on the Witliff Collection here) and has since been constructing a space to hold the collection on the seventh floor of the university's Alkek Library.
The McCarthy collection archives the writer's entire career to date, and includes such gems as the hand-edited page proofs of each of McCarthy’s 10 novels, the draft of an unfinished novel from early in his career, and the original 1984 screenplay for No Country for Old Men, which was adapted as a novel 20 years later and back into a screenplay for the Academy Award-winning 2007 movie.
Doors to the McCarthy collection opened to its first scheduled researcher May 18 (appointments are required; call 512-245-2313).
So, what's up with you this month?
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May 08, 2009
posted by Brad Tyer at 02:55 PM
If you live in Houston — or happen to be visiting mom in H-Town this Sunday, May 10 — make sure to stop by DOMY BOOKS for the 2nd annual Houston Indie Book Festival. I went last year and couldn't help walking out with another shelf's worth of discounted titles to haul home.
Local indie booksellers including Domy, Brazos Bookstore, Kaboom Books, Sedition Books, Dark Matter Books, and the Menil Museum Bookstore will be hawking their wares, and little magazines including NANO Fiction, Bat City Review, Art Lies, Glass Mountain Review will be showing off their latest alongside Gulf Coast, the University of Houston quality-lit mag that just published its Summer/Fall 09 issue.
DOMY BOOKS is at 1709 Westheimer Road in the heart of the Montrose. There's more information here.
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May 08, 2009
posted by Brad Tyer at 10:17 AM
This morning's e-mail brings the not unexpected but unhappy news that Texas literary icon Edwin "Bud" Shrake died early this morning at St. David's Medical Center in Austin. He was 77, and had been diagnosed with lung cancer. Shrake's most recent publication in a long career was Land of the Permanent Wave: An Edwin "Bud" Shrake Reader, which the Observer reviewed here.
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May 05, 2009
posted by Brad Tyer at 11:27 AM
Back of the Book readers may recall that when Hearst Corp.‘s Houston Chronicle laid off 90 journalists last month, one of the casualties was 16-year-veteran books editor and columnist Fritz Lanham. Being from Houston myself, that layoff hit close to home. Having contributed a dozen or so book reviews to the Chronicle under Fritz’ skilled editorship, it hit even closer. A good editor, as too many writers of any stripe can confirm, is hard to find.
This week, at least, you’ll be able to find Fritz at Houston’s Brazos Bookstore, one of the best independendent booksellers in the country and a frequent recipient — along with the rest of Houston’s homegrown literary scene — of Lanham’s careful attentions.
Brazos is hosting a tribute to Lanham on Thursday, May 7, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the store’s 2421 Bissonnet location. Drop by, drown book journalism’s sorrows in a glass of cheap wine, and thank Fritz for helping make Houston such a great book town. Call 713-523-0701 for info.
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