Texas Literary Hall of Fame

I’m in danger of the big head tonight. I just got home from the biennial induction ceremony for the Texas Literary Hall of Fame, sponsored by the Friends of the Fort Worth Public Library. Hors d’oevres, wine, and the presentation ceremony.

It was my great privilege to accept for Susan Wittig Albert, who was unable to attend because back problems make it difficult for her to get around. As I lugged my walker to the podium, I joked about the lame helping the lame. Susan is perhaps best known for the China Bayles herbal mysteries, which she has been writing for thirty years. She also wrote the Beatrix Potter series and still writes the Darling Dahlias Mysteries. But she also has to her credit several historical nonfiction titles – A Wilder Rose, about Rose Wilder Lane, daughter and co-author with Laura Ingalls Wilder of Little House on the Prairie fame; Loving Eleanor, highlighting the relationship between Eleanor Roosevelt and political reporter Lorena Hickok; The General’s Women, exploring the relationship between Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower, his wartime driver and lover, Kay Summersby, and, to a lesser extent, Mamie Eisenhower.

Susan is a consummate professional, and it was a great honor for me to accept in her place. She sent me the words to say—clever, funny, and blessedly brief. They were well received.

There were five other honorees, and I proudly say I was instrumental at one point or another in getting three of them published, and the other two are old friends/acquaintances. For a brief moment there, I was back in the world of literary Texas and oh so delighted to be there. In addition to the honorees, I saw several people I was glad to see, made some good connections, and generally had a good time.

The Texas Literary Hall of Fame began in 2003, and I was part of an advisory panel that first year when inductees included John Graves, Elmer Kelton, Katharine Anne Porter, J.Frank Dobie, Shelby Hearon, Larry McMurtry, Horton Foote, and Walter Prescott Webb. I myself was inducted in 2010 and feel honored to be in such stellar company.

From the sublime to—well, if not the ridiculous, at least the mundane. We have a new fence. What’s remarkable about that is how wonderful it looks and how it emphasizes that we were overdue for that fence. The old one was gray, haphazard, and missing a board of two. Wooden fences don’t necessarily have a long life in Texas.

And I’m still on my unusual foods kick—mushrooms on toast for breakfast. So yummy.

So now comes the weekend. I intend to spend it working. How about you?

Author in search of a topic

This is going to sound like blatant self-promotion but I am so excited about the April 18 launch of my new historical novel, The Gilded Cage, that I can hardly contain myself. I had fun, over a stretch of many years, writing, rewriting, changing the point of view, always, I hope, making it better. In recent months, figuring out promotion sites and plans has been equally fun, including leaping at random opportunities as they arise, especially when they’re not part of my plan. Are you tired of seeing the cover and hearing about it? I hope not but if so, maybe it means I’ve covered social media pretty well. The only part that wasn’t fun was production, and I’m still struggling with getting the cover uploaded.

I haven’t published a historical novel since 2002, having turned my attention as most of you know to cozy mysteries. But I am so pleased with and proud of The Gilded Cage that I am searching about for another historical topic. I’ve done books on Libbie Custer, Jessie Benton Frémont, Etta Place, and one loosely based on Lucille Mulhall, first Wild West Show Cowgirl (she was a trick roper). So a woman of the American West seems a logical place for me to look for my next topic, since women of the West was for years my area of special interest. Does it have to be a “celebrity,” a recognizable name? I’m not sure.

I’m inspired by Susan Wittig Albert who did a book on Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter, Rose, more recently has published Loving Eleanor, about Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok, and is already deep into writing yet another historical. I’ll wait for her to reveal the subject, but she has a talent for picking people with drama and tension in their lives.

I’ve toyed with and discarded a few ideas—Henriette Wyeth Hurd, for instance. I am fascinated by the Wyeth-Hurd artistic legacy, but while I suspect there’s more to the story, surface resources don’t indicate any tension or drama in her personal or artistic life. Years ago TCU Press encouraged an art historian to develop a biographical project but we were never able to raise research money, and the historian ran into what was almost a stone wall—which leads to my suspicion there’s more to the story. I met a relative who was pleased about the project, but it never went anywhere.

I’ve thought of a couple of other women but no one strikes me as just the right subject. After all, if I begin a new project of this kind, I’ll be living with the woman for a year. So it has to be the right person. The problem is always in the back of my mind, but meanwhile I’ve gone back to a half-finished mystery—with determination to find out how it all works out.