The Literary Social Calendar
WLT EVENTS
The 2012 WLT Summer Writing Retreat will be held July 22-27 at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, the perfect summer escape.
Classes are Monday, July 23 – Friday, July 27 from 10 am to 4 pm. There’s an orientation on Sunday, July 22 at 6 pm. For more information on the classes, housing or hotel accommodations, you can click the link above. See you there.
There’s a book signing and steelband concert to celebrate the launch of STEEL DRUMS AND STEELBANDS: A HISTORY by Angela Smith (Austin), Executive Director Emeritus of the Writers’ League, will be held Saturday, July 21, at 6 p.m. at McCallum High School. Angela will be signing books and playing pan with the Inside Out Steelband led by CJ Menge. Admission is free.
Publishers Weekly has selected Secret Sex Lives: A Year on the Fringes of American Sexuality by New York Times best-selling author Suzy Spencer(Austin) as one of their notable books for fall 2012. The book will be released October of this year.
Book People Events
SATURDAY JULY 21 11:30AM ~ Reading and Signing
A Very Special Storytime with ANNETTE SIMON
Robot Zombie FrankensteinPerfect for high-energy story times, this cumulative tale is a madcap mash-up featuring robots, shapes in motley amalgamation, and . . . pie!
Squares, rectangles, ovals, triangles, and other colorful shapes are sorted and arranged into – two robots! But why stop there? Shape by shape, costume by costume, Robot and Robot play a game of oneupmanship that zips, zooms, and whirrs from friendly to hilariously out of control in nanoseconds. Robot Zombie? How about Robot Zombie Frankenstein? Can you handle Robot Zombie Frankenstein Pirate? What could be next? Where will it all stop? When the race makes a surprise (and delicious) turn, Robot and Robot are happy to be plain old robots – and buddies – once again.
ANNETTE SIMON was once a pie-loving advertising creative director who wrote and art-directed national print and TV campaigns. Now, she’s a pie-loving author-illustrator who creates picture books, and she blames this particular book on the trickiness of her little sister and the deliciousness of her grandma’s pies! Annette Simon lives in Florida.
SATURDAY JULY 28 AT 5p ~ STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES
Speaking and Signing ~ Growing Up Dead In Texas
We’ll enjoy beverages at this event courtesy of the good folks at Saint Arnold Brewing Company.
It was a fire that could be seen for miles, a fire that split the community, a fire that turned families on each other, a fire that it’s still hard to get a straight answer about. A quarter of a century ago, someone held a match to Greenwood, Texas’s cotton. Stephen Graham Jones was twelve that year. What he remembers best, what’s stuck with him all this time, is that nobody ever came forward to claim that destruction. And nobody was ever caught. Greenwood just leaned forward into next year’s work, and the year after that, pretending that the fire had never happened. But it had. This fire, it didn’t start twenty-five years ago. It had been smoldering for years by then. And everybody knew it. Getting them to say anything about it’s another thing, though. Now Stephen’s going back. His first time back since he graduated high school, and maybe his last. For answers, for closure, for the people who can’t go back. For the ones who never got to leave.
Part mystery, part memoir, Growing Up Dead in Texas is packed with more secrets than your average graveyard. Stephen Graham Jones’ breakout novel is a story about Texas. It’s a story about farming. A story about finally standing up from the dead and walking away.
Though Blackfeet, Stephen was born in 1972 in West Texas. This is often confusing, as most Blackfeet are in Montana and he grew up working from tractors and horses and in all kinds of welding and automotive shops. There was also lots of hunting and basketball and various scrapes with the law. After getting his PhD from Florida State University in a record two years, Stephen, twenty-eight then, went to work in the warehouse at Sear’s (all he ever planned), but injuries forced him into teaching. And it’s not a bad life, being a professor. Stephen made full professor at thirty-six–likely the youngest full prof in the humanities at The University of Colorado at Boulder (and maybe all of Colorado) and is into fiction, comics, film, screenwriting, and anything horror or fantasy, western or science fiction. Or, just anything that tells an interesting story in an interesting way.
For more details on these events and more information of other events this month, visit Book People.
Upcoming Events at Barnes & Noble Arboretum
The Bully Cat Storytime ~ Saturday July 21, 2012 11:00 AM ~ Storytime, Author Signing, Author Reading
Join us as bestselling author Nadia Sahari reads, then signs, her book The Bully Cat. It helps children learn about bullying and what they need to do if they are being bullied. Beautifully illustrated by Olga Rudnitsky and fun to read for all ages.
Nadia Sahari was born in Beirut, Lebanon. She grew up in Dearborn, MI, where she experienced many abuses at home, bullying at school and domestic violence. Nadia hosts a radio show. She has been given the Award of Courage and the Award of Hope.
Saturday, August 4, 11:00 a.m. – Join us as we read ‘Do Super Heroes Have Teddy Bears?’ for Storytime! Follow along as two ragtag, everyday super heroes don capes to play in the mud, save their stuffed animals from certain peril, conquer the vegetables at dinner, and overcome darkness at night. Craft afterwards.
Monday, August 6, 6:30 p.m. -Join Jay Lefevers as he signs copies of his new memoir, ‘Cancer on the Brain: One Man’s Journey of Baseball, Business, and Beating the Odds.’ Cancer on the Brain takes you on an emotional roller coaster as you experience the trials of Jay Lefevers, a man who struggles with severe medical conditions, the challenges of a growing business, and a little league baseball team that isn’t supposed to win. A proud Longhorn, Jay Lefevers graduated with a degree in Business Administration from the University of Texas, and has an M.B.A. from Baylor University. In 1992, Jay founded Lefevers Viewpoint Group, a real estate company in Phoenix, Arizona, and in 2008 that company, was named to the Inc. magazine’s Inc. 5000 list of “fastest growing companies in America.”
Barnes & Noble Arboretum is located at 10000 Research Boulevard, Austin, TX 78759. For information on these and other events, click here.
6th Annual Do the Write Thing Writing Workshop is coming August 2012
Are you a published author or interested in becoming a published author? The 2012 Do the Write Thing Writing Workshop promises exciting sessions including 50 Shades of Writing, Poetry Writing Institute, Digital Publishing, and Writing Fantasy Fiction plus manuscript critiques. This year’s featured speakers include award winner Ann Weisgarber, national spoken word artist Michael Guinn, fantasy fiction author Urania Fung and author/conference founder Shewanda Riley.
6th Annual Writers Workshop returns to the Tarrant County College’s Northeast Campus in Hurst, Texas Friday, August 17 and Saturday, August 18, 2012.
Blue Cat Screenwriting Competition
Founded by a writer, the BlueCat Screenplay Competition’s passionate commitment to develop and discover the unknown screenwriter continues to define our work today.
We provide each writer who enters BlueCat two written analyses, ensuring each entry is reviewed by two readers, while supporting screenwriters of all levels and stages of development with the constructive feedback all writers require.
Our Winners and Finalists have been signed by major talent agencies like UTA, CAA and WME, sold their work to studios like Warner Bros., Paramount and Universal, and won major awards at the Sundance, Berlin and Tribeca Film Festivals, all after being discovered by and winning BlueCat. The Winner of the 2013 Competition will receive $10,000. Four Finalists will receive $2000 each. Regular Deadline: Entries must be postmarked or received electronically on or before October 15th, 2012. for more information on rules, guidelines and deadlines, click here.
An Extraordinary Life: The Dominick Dunne Papers
Dolph Briscoe Center for American History ~ The University of Texas at Austin
2313 Red River ~ Sid Richardson Hall, Unit 2 ~ Austin, Texas
Monday through Friday: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Saturday: 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. until December 14, 2012
“All of a sudden it has occurred to me that I lead an extraordinary life.” – Dominick Dunne, 1995
An Extraordinary Life: The Dominick Dunne Papers shares the story of the acclaimed journalist and writer’s life as documented in his personal and professional papers, part of the Briscoe Center’s News Media History collection, one of the most comprehensive journalism history archives in existence. Dunne was widely known for his contributions to Vanity Fair magazine and his work on Court TV. In addition to his coverage of society and celebrities, Dunne was perhaps best known for his distinctive stories on high-profile criminal trials. From remarkable correspondence and photographs to story drafts and notes, the exhibit documents his extraordinary act of reinvention: following the end of his career in the entertainment industry, Dunne embarked upon an ultimately triumphant second act as a journalist and novelist.
An Extraordinary Life includes Dunne’s glamorous Hollywood career; his coverage of such blockbuster criminal cases as the Menendez brothers, O.J. Simpson, Phil Spector and Claus von Bülow; and his voluminous correspondence with political, literary and entertainment figures, including Elizabeth Taylor, Stephen Sondheim, Tina Brown, Graydon Carter and Jane Fonda. The exhibit also gives an inside look at Dunne’s work for Vanity Fair. He wrote for the magazine from 1984 until his death in 2009, and was known for his feature stories, trial coverage, profiles and “Dominick Dunne’s Diary,” a regular column in which Dunne shared his observations on everything from murder trials to Beverly Hills dinner parties.
Whether he was reporting on horrific crimes with the passionate zeal of an avenger, or giving readers special entrée into the world of the powerful and wealthy, Dunne’s writing was deeply personal and revealing, sharing the full scope of his own extraordinary life.
Johnson City Library Events
The Johnson City Library is hosting a local writers workshop on Saturday, August 4, from 10:00am-2:00pm. This is an opportunity to meet and work with writers in our area. The workshop title is: “Idea to Reality- Taking an Idea and Turning it into a Publishable Work.” Panelists for the Event Include: Sally Clark-Poetry, Valerie Gaumont- Fiction, JoAnne MacIntyre- Historical Fiction, and Patti Morgan- Non-fiction. Each writer will discuss an aspect of their genre of writing and/or how to be published in that genre. Participants are encouraged to bring their writings to share or to be critiqued.
The Johnson City Library wants to encourage local writers by forming a community of local writers, creating programming around local authors, and helping local authors keep in contact. Please call 830-868-4469 or email johnsoncitylibrary@verizon.net to register or for more information. The workshop will be held at the Johnson City Library, 501 Nugent Ave, Johnson City, TX. Registration is FREE. Lunch is available for $10 donation.
July 31st Civil War Roundtable 7pm – Be part of this exciting discussion group and learn our American history
Thursday July 26 ~ 5:00-7:00pm: Reception and book Signing featuring Patti McLead. Her new book Tattered Not Torn discusses dealing with tragedy and loss. Patti is from Johnson City and 10% of the sales from this evening will benefit the library.
Visit their website for more information.
Have a great weekend and an amazing time in Alpine for those going on the retreat. Tune in next week for the Friday Filler and let us know how these events turn out.
– WLT
