“We walk, or I do, to pay attention, to see the streets, the buildings that
surround us, to immerse ourselves in a world that might otherwise slip by.”
David Ulin in Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles [Read more…] about Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles
Michener Center for Writers
Ransom Center staff to contribute to new Texas-themed UT Press book series
The University of Texas Press recently announced the undertaking of the publishing project The Texas Bookshelf, a series of 16 books, with an accompanying website, focusing on all things Texan. All books are to be written by faculty and staff at The University of Texas at Austin. The inaugural book, to be released in 2017, will be a history of Texas written by Stephen Harrigan, faculty member at the Michener Center for Writers. The subsequent books will focus on Texas history, business, culture, art, music, film, politics, and more.
Of the contributors, two are affiliated with the Harry Ransom Center.
Greg Curtis, Humanities Coordinator at the Ransom Center and Senior Lecturer at The University of Texas at Austin, plans to write a book on the history of Texas literature, with profiles of the lives of Texas writers and critical responses to their work.
Roy Flukinger, Senior Research Curator at the Ransom Center, will be writing and compiling a volume about the evolution and expansion of twentieth-century photography in Texas, which will feature hundreds of significant images created by important photographers and artists who worked throughout the state during that century.
Image: Photo of contributors to UT Press series The Texas Bookshelf by Michael O’Brien.
Win a signed copy of a T. C. Boyle book
The University of Texas at Austin’s Michener Center for Writers hosts a reading by novelist and short-story writer T. C. Boyle this Thursday, March 21, at 7:30 p.m. in the University’s Avaya Auditorium (ACES 2.302).
Boyle is the author of more than 23 novels and short story collections and a Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California.
The Ransom Center recently acquired Boyle’s archive, which covers the breadth of his prolific career. In honor of the event, the Ransom Center will give away two signed copies of Boyle’s novel The Tortilla Curtain (1995). Email hrcgiveaway@gmail.com with “Boyle” in the subject line by midnight CST Wednesday to be entered in a drawing for the book. [Update: The winner has been drawn an notified.]
Related content:
“Boxing Up,” an essay by T. C. Boyle about his archive
Driftwood in an archive
Writer Jim Crace, author of Continent (1986), Arcadia (1992), Quarantine (1997), Being Dead (1999), and The Pesthouse (2007), speaks about ephermera in archives and the narratives and stories they provide.
Crace elaborates about a piece of driftwood found in his archive that contains a note that was later incorporated into his novel Signals of Distress (1996).
Enter by July 13 for a chance to win a signed copy of Crace’s Continent by visiting the Ransom Center’s Facebook page.
Crace will be in residence this fall at the Michener Center for Writers at The University of Texas at Austin. He will give a public reading on December 6.
