How Perfect Is That - Sarah Bird - Interview

Dallas Morning News Joy Tipping's

inteview with Sarah Bird on her new novel

http://www.guidelive.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/books/stories/DN-sarahbird_0617gl.ART0.State.Edition1.4dcf127.html

Read an excerpt on life in Austin

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780307268280.html

Getting Mother's Body - Susan-Lori Parks

Susan-Lori Parks acknowledges West Texas

in
VG: Voices from the Gaps: Women Artists and Writers of Color, An International Website
http://voices.cla.umn.edu/vg/Bios/entries/parks_suzanlori.html

“In 2003, [Susan-Lori] Parks returned to fiction writing, publishing her first novel, Getting Mother's Body. A twist on Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, the novel follows the quest of a pregnant teenager who sets off with a small group of accomplices for Arizona, where she plans to exhume her mother's body in order to retrieve the jewels supposedly hidden in the coffin. She is pursued by her mother's former lover, who vows to keep her promise that the jewels remain with the body.
Parks says that the novel and its characters are grounded in the landscape of West Texas, where she had lived during her father's army days: "I love the big sky and arid landscape of that place. The characters came out of that landscape and the story came out of those characters. Then there was Faulkner's novel, which I had read eight years before" (Marshall).”

Evacuation Plans - Joe O'Connell

Evacuation Plan:

A Novel from the Hospice.

Joe M. O’Connell. Foreword by Joe Holley. Austin: Dalton Publishing, 2007. http://www.daltonpublishing.com/ 192 Pages, Paperback, ISBN 978-0-9740703-8-4 $13.95

Joe O’Connell’s short works have The G.W. Review, Other Voice, Confrontation, Lullwater Review and many other journals. He’s taken first prize at both the Deep South Writers Conference and in the Louzelle Rose Barclay Awards. Now he teaches at St. Edward’s University and Austin Community College. In the Evacuation Plan, Matt, a fledgling screenwriter, finds himself as a volunteer working with the terminally ill in search of his next movie. Everyone there is, of course, evacuating, and Matt finds the intimacy and serendipity in such cases. The volume proceeds in an episodic fashion or the “novel-in-stories style.” As you go with him from bed, to wheel chair, to hallway the personal stories unfold. The broken, the hopeful, the frustrated, the clueless, and the forgiving touch one another with words, remembrances, and hands.

Inevitably, readers will quietly wonder about their own evacuation plan. Will yours include a Hawaiian shirt or Girl Scout Cookies or stories of drunken gambling?
http://www.joemoconnell.com/

Road to a Hanging - Kearby

The Road to a Hanging.

By Mike Kearby. Austin: Trail’s End Books, 2007. pkb. 188 p. $18.00. ISBN 978-0-9788422-6-0 http://www.mikekearby.com/

Elmer Kelton and James Ward Lee have Kearby in their sights and have fired off comments confirming Kearby’s work is an action packed Western. And it is. Kearby, a Mineral Wells native, former school teacher, and holder of irrigation patents, turned to writing and his Texas legacy is clear and he stakes out a fresh path. Freedom Anderson, the principal character, escapes his 1860s slavery as the Civil War rages, joins the Union Army, and, after action at Palmetto and the war’s end, finds his way back to Texas but old racial habits of another war veteran place him on the road to a handing. Freedom finds himself captured by the hatred of the sheriff, subject to false allegations. Parks Scott, Freedom’s pal, hears the news. But will it be too late? Pick up the book and find yourself moving at a fast clip to find out.

It’s good reading. Good values, loyalty, hard work, and daring to boot. The volume is marketed as a YA novel is some quarters, and it is fit for the public school set. (Thanks to publicist Stephanie Barko for the copy.)