Literary Austin, Edited by Don Graham

Don Graham brings together the history, color, and character of Texas's capital city since 1839 when it was selected, on the advice of Mirabeau B. Lamar, as the site for a new capital of the then-Republic of Texas. Essays, fiction, and poetry reveal the variety of literary responses to Austin through the decades and are organized in a roughly chronological fashion to reveal the themes, places, and personalities that have defined the life of the city. Austin was always about three things-natural beauty, government, and education-and thus many of the pieces in this volume dwell upon one and sometimes all of these themes. Besides O. Henry, the other most important figures in the city's history were J. Frank Dobie, Roy Bedichek, and Walter P. Webb: folklorist, naturalist, historian. During their heyday, from the 1930s through the early 1960s, they were the face of literary culture in the city. They remain a source of interest, pride, and sometimes controversy. Austin is a well-known haven of liberal political activism, represented by such well-known figures as Lyndon B. Johnson, Ralph Yarborough, Ann and David Richards, Liz Carpenter, Willie Morris, John Henry Faulk, and Molly Ivins. The city is also a haven for literary writers, many of whom appear in these pages: Carolyn Osborn, Rolando Hinojosa-Smith, Dagoberto Gilb, Stephen Harrigan, and Lawrence Wright, to name a few. Among the poets, Thomas Whitbread, Dave Oliphant, David Wevill, and Christopher Middleton have long been on the scene. Certain sites recur-the University Tower, Barton Springs, various watering holes of another kind-so that for anybody who has ever spent time in Austin will experience twinges of nostalgia for vanished icons, closed-down venues, long-gone sites of pleasure brought to life once again, in these pages.

Read the reviews for Literary Austin: Literary Austin reviews

 

The Imaginary Line: A History of the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey, 1848-1857, by Joseph Richard Werne

The line dividing the United States and Mexico is invisible, “imaginary,” drawn through shifting sands and changeable rivers. The economic, social, and political issues surrounding this line, however, are all too real, and the line snakes its way through a history of conflict, through questions of definition, maps and claims of ownership, and personal and political gerrymandering. In The Imaginary Line: A History of the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey, 1848-1857, Joseph Richard Werne sets out to explore this border and the men who drew it. Using a variety of sources, including manuscripts, government documents, contemporary accounts and memoirs, he creates a map of his own, one that charts the intersection of individual lives, politics, and geography. Werne proposes to revise the common view of the U.S.-Mexican Boundary Survey Commission as directed and funded almost entirely by the United States; the recent release of documents and archived files from the Mexican Boundary Commission allows further study of the Mexican commission's role, and demands recognition of the equal Mexican contribution to the commission's immense task. The diverse group of military and civilian surveyors, engineers, and politicians that composed the Joint Commission had to reconcile disparate personal interests and backgrounds, as well as different maps and equipment. Their efforts were of “epic quality” and represent the coinciding cooperation and conflict that describes border relations today. Werne's study describes their lives and work, their survival of the hostile environment, and their struggles with inadequate funding and government corruption, tying their stories into the approaching civil war in the United States, the rapidly lengthening transcontinental railroad, and political instability in Mexico.

 

Alexander Campbell, Adventurer in Freedom: A Literary Biography, Vol. 2, by Eva Jean Wrather, edited by D. Duane Cummins

Eva Jean Wrather devoted seventy years to writing an 800,000-word biography of Alexander Campbell, founder of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a monumental literary biography described by D. Duane Cummins as “a creative and skillful blend of history and superb literary writing skills.” In the early 1990s, Cummins was asked to assist Ms. Wrather in revising her manuscript. Their work together makes up Volume One of Campbell's biography, (TCU Press, 2005). Volume Two follows Campbell's life from 1823-1830, years filled with the storm of opinions in the pages of his successful magazine, The Christian Baptist, which won mixed hostility and support in Baptist and Presbyterian communities. Wrather records Campbell's experience as a politician and delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention in 1829, where Campbell brushed shoulders with some of America's most famous politicians and rhetoricians. Wrather believed these years were a crucial chapter in Campbell's life, confirming his power as a thinker, speaker and writer.. A project of TCU Press and the Disciple of Christ Historical Society.

Kenneth L. Teegarden: The Man, The Church, The Time , by D. Duane Cummins

D. Duane Cummins describes this book as “an appreciative biography”; Cummins' approach combines the warmth of personal acquaintance with a lucid and well-researched account of Teegarden's life. Kenneth Teegarden was born in Cushing, Oklahoma, in 1921, “a fourth-generation Oklahoman and a sixth-generation Disciple,” and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) never lost its importance in his life. Teegarden served as general minister and president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) for many years. He was a central figure in planning and explaining the new “design” of the church through the Commission for Brotherhood Restructure and was “a powerful and constant advocate of peace with justice,” working toward the passage of peace resolutions and encouraging racial integration in the battle for civil rights. Kenneth Teegarden was minister in residence at the Brite Divinity School after he resigned as general minister and president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and he continued to teach and mentor students, parishioners, friends, and family until his death in 2002.

 

 

TCU Texas Poets Laureate Series

Texas has honored its Poets Laureate for seventy-three years, but much of their work has gone unpublished and unrecognized. In a significant step toward recognizing their achievements, TCU Press will publish a series of the work of the Poets Laureate, beginning with the 2005 and 2006 honorees, Alan Birkelbach and Red Steagall, and continuing through the next five appointments. While a single volume may stand alone as a valuable selection of a poet's work, the series as a whole will draw their different voices together into a singular poetic expression of Texas.

Alan Birkelbach: New and Selected Poems

Birkelbach writes of the Texas landscape and its people with conversational ease, making his vivid descriptions shimmer through each poem. He balances the ordinary and the phenomenal, the factual and the suppositional, the temporal and the eternal in poems remarkable for their depth of insight. As Billy Bob Hill writes in his introduction to the volume, “Birkelbach can disguise a mosaic of word music in plain sight hidden in conversational English.”

Red Steagall: New and Selected Poems

Red Steagall brings the cowboy way of life to the public through many different media, including poetry. His poetry speaks in its own right, possessing a musical, songlike quality. His lilting rhythms carry the reader through the journey that each poem represents. Steagall's poems chart the changing of the land and the passing of generations, but they rest on the solid ground of a steady faith.

 

Souvenirs from Space, by Judy Alter

This book, written for young people ages eight to twelve, tells readers in clear terms what meteorites are, where they come from, what kinds there are, how to look for them, what to look for if you find a rock you think might be a meteorite. It encourages scientific exploration, because the truth is anyone can find a meteorite. Souvenirs from Space also tells the story of Fort Worth lawyer Oscar Monnig who became known as the "Meteorite Man from Texas." He spent many years searching for meteorites in Texas and Oklahoma, following stories of meteorites sightings, often running into dead ends, but just as often finding another gem for his collection. In his lifetime he collected almost 400 meteorites. He donated his collection to the geology department at TCU and provided for the establishment of the Monnig Meteorite Gallery, which is open to the public. Fort Worth school children frequently tour the gallery as part of their science study. Souvenirs from Space is designed for children who visit the gallery, to give them a lasting souvenir of their lesson about meteorites. But it's also for any child interested in astronomy or meteorites. It will make them, too, want to visit the gallery.

Mary Martha Overstreet, M.D., by Mary Penson

Fourteen-year-old Martha Mary Overstreet only dreams of becoming a doctor until she writes an essay about "women having a say in their own lives, like choosing whether or not to get married or have children"-and begins to realize that she can have "a say" in her own life. She doesn't win the DAR essay contest, but she comes to the attention of Dr. Klinefelder, the Mayfield physician. In 1888 in Mayfield, Texas, a girl lived in her parents' home until she married or became a teacher. But Marty, the oldest of six children, has seen her mother exhausted by child-bearing and the unpredictability of cotton farming, and Marty won't begin that life without fighting for an education and the chance to be a doctor. Dr. Klinefelder encourages her to attend a nursing school opening in Galveston, but Marty is determined not to settle for anything less than her dream-until Billy Washburn kisses her, and Marty feels "everything inside of me tighten up and go hot." Marty's life is further complicated by her relationships with her family and friends-the people who can help her most but discourage her from leaving the people she loves.

Mary Martha Overstreet, M.D., is a Chaparral Book for Young Readers. Click here for the entire list of Chaparral Books published by TCU Press.