Stayton Bonner
Writing the Wave
Anthologies are usually released after the end of a writer’s creative heyday, but the project is complicated in the case of Austin’s Bud Shrake, who perhaps more than any other Texas writer has continued through the years to reinvent himself, … Read More
Golden Days and Olden Ways
There’s no Chisos Basin, no Santa Elena Canyon, no Mule Ears in Texas’ Big Thicket National Preserve. Unlike Big Bend National Park, the only other United Nations International Biosphere Reserve in Texas, the Thicket entertains few visitors. Blackwater swamps, hardwood … Read More
Playing For Tips
The last time I played Fort Worth, the bartender showed me a naked picture of himself. He stood in front of a run-down venue, his large pale body intermingled with falling snow in a Rorschach blot that wasn’t blotted enough. … Read More
The Serendipity Wrangler
Bill Wittliff and the Southwestern Writers Collection
The Southwestern Writers Collection is located on the top floor of the Alkek Library on the Texas State University campus in San Marcos. White walls, wooden doors, Saltillo tile floors and Indian rugs give its exhibit halls and conference rooms … Read More
Bound and Determined
Imagination helps small bookstores survive
Hidden deep behind the East Texas pine curtain, Beauty and the Book is almost certainly the world’s only beauty salon-bookshop, where visiting authors are treated to a facial and perm before talking about their books. “The funny thing is that … Read More
A Statewide Investigation
If squinting survivors straggling across the Lone Star state years after some manmade apocalypse wanted to learn about the Texans that came before, they would be fortunate to stumble upon Lone Star Sleuths: An Anthology of Texas Crime Fiction. Far … Read More
Leaves of Gold
As a new market for carbon credits takes root, East Texans wonder if they really can get paid just for owning trees
They stood lined up against the wall, some beckoning with lusty promises of easy riches. Just sign on the dotted line, they said, and the money’s yours. “Guess What? Now Money DOES grow on trees,” read one of their printed … Read More
Fear and Doping in Iraq
In April 1775, villagers in Lexington, Massachusetts, watched from the road as British soldiers fired on Captain John Parker’s militiamen. Eighty-six years later, crowds of spectators in Charleston, South Carolina, observed from Battery Park as Confederate cannon fire rained down … Read More
Heartbreak Hotel
American Furies: Crime, Punishment, and Vengeance in the Age of Mass Imprisonment Sasha Abramsky is angry about how many people are locked up in this country, and how much money is spent keeping them behind bars. He recoils at a … Read More