She's short, round, and pushing forty, but Julia Kalas is a damned good criminal. For 17 years she renovated historic California buildings as a laundry front for her husband's illegal arms business. Then the Aryan Brotherhood made her a widow, and witness protection shipped her off to the tiny town of Azula, Texas. Also known as the Middle of Nowhere. The Lone Star sticks are lousy with vintage architecture begging to be rehabbed. Julia figures she'll pick up where she left off, but she's got a federal watchdog now: police chief Teresa Hallstedt, who is none too happy to have another felon in her jurisdiction. Teresa wants Julia where she can keep an eye on her, which turns out to be behind the bar at the local watering hole.
Alive and pulsating with the events of our history, TRUE WOMEN tells the story of two dynastic family lines in Texas, the Kings and the Woodses. Euphemia Texas Ashby King could ride and shoot like any man, and she was there when Sam Houston's rag-tag army routed Santa Anna at San Jacinto . . . . Though she risked her plantation running the Yankee cotton blockade during the Civil War, Georgia Virginia Lawshe Woods still had to defend her family from a corrupt Yankee officer . . . . Bettie Moss King survived wolves, storms, and the Ku Klux Klan to steer her family through the turbulent birth of modern times.
"Sarah Bird is a true eccentric, but one with a straightforward gift for explaining the human heart. . . . A Lone Star girl-legend." What is it that distinguishes Texas women--the famous Yellow Rose and her descendants? Is it that combination of graciousness and grit that we revere in First Ladies Laura Bush and Lady Bird Johnson? The rapier-sharp wit that Ann Richards and Molly Ivins used to skewer the good ole boy establishment? The moral righteousness with which Barbara Jordan defended the US constitution? An unnatural fondness for Dr Pepper and queso? In her inimitable style, Sarah Bird pays tribute to the Texas Woman in all her glory and all her contradictions. She humorously recalls her own early bewildered attempts to understand Lone Star gals, from the big-haired, perfectly made-up ladies at the Hyde Park Beauty Salon to her intellectual, quinoa-eating roommates at Seneca House Co-op for Graduate Women.
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD "The stories in Black Light are grimy and weird, surprising, utterly lush. . . . I loved every moment of this book." --Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties With raw, poetic ferocity, Kimberly King Parsons exposes desire's darkest hollows--those hidden places where most of us are afraid to look. In this debut collection of enormously perceptive and brutally unsentimental short stories, Parsons illuminates the ache of first love, the banality of self-loathing, the scourge of addiction, the myth of marriage, and the magic and inevitable disillusionment of childhood. Taking us from hot Texas highways to cold family kitchens, from the freedom of pay-by-the-hour motels to the claustrophobia of private school dorms, these stories erupt off the page with a primal howl--sharp-voiced, acerbic, and wise.
"You would think that a book about speechwriting, speechmaking, and speeches would put you to sleep. On the contrary, it is laugh-out-loud funny with a few tears thrown in, in addition to being very instructional. It also covers fifty-odd years of Liz's association with American political figures, background on some important historical events, and a wealth of personal anecdotes about her life. But what I love most is that she is not ashamed to say that she is an active crusader for women's rights."-Anonymous Amazon Review (April 15, 2008)
A moving account of a little-known period of state-sponsored racial terror inflicted on ethnic Mexicans in the Texas-Mexico borderlands. Between 1910 and 1920, vigilantes and law enforcement-including the renowned Texas Rangers-killed Mexican residents with impunity. The full extent of the violence was known only to the relatives of the victims. Monica Muñoz Martinez turns to the keepers of this history to tell this riveting and disturbing untold story. Operating in remote rural areas enabled the perpetrators to do their worst: hanging, shooting, burning, and beating victims to death without scrutiny. Families scoured the brush to retrieve the bodies of loved ones. Survivors suffered segregation and fierce intimidation, and yet fought back. They confronted assailants in court, worked with Mexican diplomats to investigate the crimes, pressured local police to arrest the perpetrators, spoke to journalists, and petitioned politicians for change.
New York Times bestselling author Jen Hatmaker, with playful hilarity, shameless honesty, and refreshing insight, assures readers they have all the pluck they need for vibrant, courageous, grace-filled lives. Jen Hatmaker believes backbone is the birthright of every woman. Women have been demonstrating resiliency and resolve since forever. They have incredibly strong shoulders to bear loss, hope, grief, and vision. She laughs at the days to come is how the ancient wisdom writings put it. But somehow women have gotten the message that pain and failure mean they must be doing things wrong, that they messed up the rules or tricks for a seamless life. As it turns out, every last woman faces confusion and loss, missteps and catastrophic malfunctions, no matter how much she is doing "right." Struggle doesn't mean they're weak; it means they're alive.
From the author of The House on Mango Street, a richly illustrated compilation of true stories and nonfiction pieces that, taken together, form a jigsaw autobiography--an intimate album of a beloved literary legend. From the Chicago neighborhoods where she grew up and set her groundbreaking The House on Mango Street to her abode in Mexico in a region where "my ancestors lived for centuries," the places Sandra Cisneros has lived have provided inspiration for her now-classic works of fiction and poetry. But a house of her own, where she could truly take root, has eluded her. With this collection--spanning three decades, and including never-before-published work--Cisneros has come home at last.
#1New York Timesbestselling author Sandra Brown delivers nonstop suspense and supercharged sexual tension in a thriller about tainted heroism and vengeance without mercy. Kerra Bailey is a TV journalist hot on the trail of a story guaranteed to skyrocket her career to new heights. Twenty-five years ago, Major Franklin Trapper became a national icon when he was photographed leading a handful of survivors to safety after the bombing of a Dallas hotel. For years, he gave frequent speeches and interviews but then suddenly dropped out of the public eye, shunning all media. Now Kerra is willing to use any means necessary to get an exclusive with the Major--even if she has to secure an introduction from his estranged son, former ATF agent John Trapper. Still seething over his break with both the ATF and his father, Trapper wants no association with the bombing or the Major. Yet Kerra's hints that there's more to the story rouse Trapper's interest despite himself. And when the interview goes catastrophically awry--with unknown assailants targeting not only the Major, but also Kerra--Trapper realizes he needs her under wraps if he's going to track down the gunmen . . . and finally discover who was responsible for the Dallas bombing.
A rainy-day ritual--a tea party between three little girls--becomes the framework of not only their friendship, but their lives. Redheaded, curly-haired Zoe is openhearted, kind and free-spirited, and dreams of becoming a famous actor in New York City. Shy Emily struggles with mental health but has the heart and soul of a writer. And Shannon--tall, athletic, strong--has a deep sense of loyalty that will serve her well when she heads off to military college. As Zoe, Emily and Shannon grow into women--forging careers, following dreams and finding love--they'll learn that life doesn't always unfold the way they want it to, but through it all, the one constant is each other, and their regular tea parties. And when the unthinkable happens, the girls must come together to face the greatest test of all. A deeply moving novel about the family that raises us, the hearts that nurture us and the great friendships that define our lives.
Throughout her long career of afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted, the cause closest to Molly Ivins's heart was working to protect the freedoms we all value. Sadly, today we're living in a time when dissent is equated with giving aid to terrorists, when any of us can be held in prison without even knowing the charges against us, and when our constitutional rights are being interpreted by a president who calls himself "The Decider."Ivins got the idea for Bill of Wrongs while touring America to honor her promise to speak out, gratis, at least once a month in defense of free speech. In her travels Ivins met ordinary people going to extraordinary measures to safeguard our most precious liberties, and when she first started writing this book, she intended it to be a joyous celebration of those heroes. But during the Bush years, the project's focus changed. Ivins became concerned about threats to our cherished freedoms among them the Patriot Act and the weakening of habeas corpus and she observed with anger how dissent in the defense of liberties was being characterized as treason by the Bush administration and its enablers.
Texas socialite Claire Massey is living the dream. Her world is filled with designer clothes, luxury cars, and stunning homes. But her Neiman-Marcus lifestyle comes crashing down when her charming cattle broker husband is arrested for fraud. Suddenly, she finds herself facing attorneys, a media frenzy, and a trail of broken hearts. Betrayed and humiliated, Claire must start over against incredible odds to save her family--and discover a life worth living. Poignant and emotionally gripping, A Woman of Fortune reveals the many ways we deceive ourselves and how resilience of the heart is essential to authentic living. Drawing on her experiences as a legal investigator, author Kellie Coates Gilbert delivers emotionally gripping plots and authentic characters. Readers will love Claire's unbending determination as she strives to keep her family from falling apart and learns to embrace the kind of fortune that lasts.
See the list below for books written by or about Texas Women Writers that are held in the TCC Libraries.