Authors

One of the perks of being a press director, even at a very small academic press, is that you occasionally rub shoulders with really well known authors. No, I'm not about to give you a list of "Guess who I met in the elevator"--I knew a man who did that--but I will say that some are either full of themselves or oblivious. I've met one of the best known authors of Texas about ten times, and it's a new experience every time--he seems to look slightly over your left shoulder when you're introduced--but if I write him, he knows on paper who I am. But others, like John Graves, Larry L. King, and Elmer Kelton, are wonderful, warm and friendly. Now, I've talked to--and will meet--another friendly author. On the phone Timothy Egan was open, enthusiastic, humorous and sincere in turns, and very friendly. He doesn't brag about the fact that he's won a Pulitzer, a National Book Award, an Oklahoma Book Award, and a Western Heritage (Wrangler) Award from the National Cowboy Museum and Hall of Fame.
Egan is the author of The Worst Hard Time, which has also won the TCU Texas Book Award, to be presented on April 17 at a banquet. The book is a gripping tale of the people who stayed on the land during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. John Steinbeck made famous those who left--the "exodusters"--in The Grapes of Wrath, but Egan has gone back and talked to people who stayed--in West Texas and the Panhandle, the Oklahoma Panhandle, eastern Colorado, and most of Kansas. These people are aging now, and Egan has done history a mighty work by capturing their stories while they're here to tell them. The result is a gripping book that you simply can't put down. I can't recommend it too highly--and I'm really looking forward to meeting Timothy Egan when he comes to Fort Worth. To give you an example of how unpretentious he is, when he returned my call, he said, "Hi, this is Timmy." Floored me for a minute--I couldn't think of who was calling me.