Friday, October 19, 2012

Hobnobbing with the literati-Texas style

Tonight was the biennial induction into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame sponsored by the Friends of the Fort Worth Public Library. It was a grand event--hors d'oevres and plentiful wine aside, the best part was that I saw and got to hug a lot of people I really like. It felt like being home--and then I realized how lucky I was to feel at home among so many accomplished authors.
My favorite mystery writer, Deborah Crombie, was the master of ceremonies--but we chatted mostly about dogs, not books. The honorees were Sarah Bird, who is a good friend and once stayed in my garage apartment; Carole Nelson Douglas, another good friend that I see once a month at Book Ladies breakfast; Robert Flynn--he and his wife are special to me and I'm proud that while I was at TCU Press we reprinted and published several of his novels; Leon Hale, whose wife is a good Facebook friend and a former publishing colleague (we both got out of the business to a certain extent)--Leon was not able to be there and Jim Lee accepted for him; Stephen Harrigan, a Texas Institute of Letters colleague who we honored once with the TCU Texas Book Award and whose Gates of the Alamo is a book I much admire; Joe Lansdale, who I used to know a lifetime ago in Western Writers of America--it was fun to say hello, tell each other it's been a long time, and how are you doing now?; Rosalyn Story, whom I"m sorry to say I don't know and didn't meet tonight; and Jane Roberts Wood, another special person.
There were others there--a friend who hugged me and said she loved my blog (are you reading this, Gay?), another member of the Book Ladies, and a former Book Lady I haven't seen in forever. I'm not in such a mass of authors and readers often and it was a real treat. Fran and Ross Vick, who are special people in my sphere of friends for lots of reasons; Bob Compton, once book editor of the Dallas Morning News--now we keep in touch through Facebook. I'm sure I'm missing others. Thanks to Jim Lee for chaffeuring me.
Lovely evening.

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