Articles

H. W. Brands

H. W. Brands is the Dickson, Allen, Anderson Centennial Professor of History at The University of Texas at Austin. He writes on American history and politics, with books including Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times, The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, and T. R.: The Last Romantic. Several of his books have been bestsellers; two, Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and The First American, were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.

Though he was a hero of the Revolutionary War, a prominent New York politician, and vice president of the United States, Aaron Burr is today best remembered as the villain who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. But as Brands demonstrates in this fascinating portrait of one of the most compelling politicians in American history, Burr was also a man before his time—a proponent of equality between the sexes well over a century before women were able to vote in the U.S. Through Burr's extensive, witty correspondence with his daughter Theodosia, Brands traces the arc of a scandalous political career and the early years of American politics. The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr not only dramatizes through their words his eventful life, it also tells a touching story of a father's love for his exceptional daughter, which endured through public shame, bankruptcy, and exile, and outlasted even Theodosia's tragic disappearance at sea.

Martha Everhart Braniff

Martha Everhart Braniff is an author, poet, and child advocate based in Houston. After creating the first art program at the Harris County Juvenile Detention Center, in 1984 she founded Child Advocates, a non-profit organization serving abused children. Step Over Rio is a novel about a young Guatemalan boy's triumphant odyssey to find a better life in the United States. Aided by a fearless journalist and federal agent, his journey is woven into a larger quest to bring down the kingpins of a child trafficking ring. The novel, a fictional exploration of very real and timely issues affecting hundreds of thousands of youths every year, is based on actual crimes researched through federal agencies and on Braniff's work with abused and neglected children and child immigrants over the past thirty years.

Shana Burg

Thirteen-year-old Clare Silver is stuck. Stuck in denial about her mother’s recent death. Stuck in the African jungle for sixty-four days without phone reception. Stuck with her father, a doctor who seems able to heal everyone but Clare. She feels like a fish out of water at Mzanga Full Primary School, where she must learn a new language. Soon, though, she becomes immersed in her new surroundings and impressed with her fellow students. When Clare's new friends take her on an outing to see the country, the trip goes horribly wrong, and Clare must face heartbreak head-on. Shana Burg is the author of A Thousand Never Evers. She currently lives in Austin.

David Bush and Jim Parsons

In this book, authors and photographers David Bush and Jim Parsons examine and record the artistic elements and original economic purposes of Art Deco buildings in San Antonio, Austin, and the Hill Country, offering insights into architectural preservation while providing an appreciative view of sometimes overlooked corners of Central Texas. Some buildings are obscured and hardly recognizable due to unsympathetic remodeling or neglect, while others have had their Deco designs maintained through the decades or restored as new appreciation for the style has emerged. Hill Country Deco explores how the rich history of these structures intersects with progressive notions of historic preservation. The photographers' images clearly capture the lines and angles of Art Deco and document buildings that were significantly altered from their original forms. David Bush is director of programs and information for the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance. Jim Parsons is a freelance writer, an editor, and a photographer.

Sarah Cortez

This groundbreaking, mixed-genre memoir journeys from the soil of Texas farmland near Floresville to the shrimpers' nets of the Gulf Coast, near Matagorda, and the twentieth-century metropolis of Houston. Memoirist Sarah Cortez views three generations of Hispanic families through the lens of their dreams both fulfilled and unfulfilled. Cortez broadens the definition of memoir to include the literary space of faith and the function of deep belief. Cortez is a teacher, poet, and police officer who was born in Houston.

Gilbert Garcia

In this book, Gilbert Garcia describes the dramatic turning point when Ronald Reagan found his voice as a presidential contender and overcame the Republican establishment. Reagan's Comeback is the story of how one state, one man, and one month changed national politics forever. Chronicling how Reagan's political career nearly ended, this turnabout story is told by those who made it happen: campaign volunteers, financiers, political activists, and media observers. Positioning Reagan to win in 1980, the birth of the "Reagan Democrat" transformed Texas from Democratic stronghold to the reliably Republican powerhouse it is today, since producing five Republican presidential candidates and two Republican presidents.

Jacqueline Kelly

Calpurnia Virginia Tate is eleven years old in 1899 when she wonders why the yellow grasshoppers in her Texas backyard are so much bigger than the green ones. With a little help from her notoriously cantankerous grandfather, an avid naturalist, she figures out that the green grasshoppers are easier to see against the yellow grass, so they are eaten before they can get any larger. As Callie explores the natural world around her, she develops a close relationship with her grandfather, navigates the dangers of living with six brothers, and comes up against just what it means to be a girl at the turn of the century. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate is a 2010 Newbery Honor Book and the winner of the 2010 Bank Street Josette Frank Award.

John Kerr

Fell the Angels is based on the well-known, unsolved murder by poisoning of Charles Bravo in Victorian-era London. The victim, re-christened Charles Cranbrook in the novel, died in his bed from poisoning a mere four months after marrying the beautiful and exceptionally wealthy Cecilia Henderson. During the course of the coroner's inquest into the death it emerged that Cecilia had been involved in a scandalous affair with the much older, famous physician Dr. James Gully, whose patients numbered William Gladstone, Lord Tennyson, and Charles Darwin. In Fell the Angels, Cranbrook's mysterious murder is investigated by the brilliant crime detective Duncan Cameron. Kerr, a Humanities Texas board member, published his first novel, Cardigan Bay, in 2008. Kerr also co-authored Only A Khaki Shirt, A Memoir of the Pacific War with his late father, Baine Kerr, which the Admiral Nimitz Foundation published in 2006.

Peter LaSalle

In his new novel Mariposa's Song, Peter LaSalle uses a single book-length sentence to tell of a young Honduran woman, twenty-year-old Mariposa, who is in the U.S. without documentation. She's working as a bar girl in a scruffy East Austin nightclub called El Pájaro Verde in 2005, and her story takes readers into the shadowy world that undocumented workers are too often forced to live in today. LaSalle is Susan Taylor McDaniel Regents Professor in Creative Writing at The University of Texas at Austin, teaching in both the Department of English and the Michener Center for Writers. He is the author of several books of fiction, and his work has appeared in many anthologies, including Best American Short Stories, Best American Mystery Stories, Best American Travel Writing, Sports' Best Short Stories, and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards.

Jenna McEachern

DKR offers an intimate, insider's view of the private life of the legendary University of Texas football coach through an extraordinary collection of never-before-published photographs, letters, newspaper clippings, football ephemera, recollections, and "Royalisms" lovingly preserved by Royal's wife of more than sixty-five years, Edith. This irreplaceable family archive offers revealing snapshots of Royal's entire life, from his impoverished youth in Oklahoma, through his courtship of Edith and his glory days as a player at Oklahoma and a coach at Texas, to his retirement career as a goodwill ambassador for the university. Accompanying the images are moving recollections from fellow coaches and former players, family members, and friends who testify to Royal's honesty and integrity and the transformative effect that his character has had on the legions of people whose lives he has touched. Jenna Hays McEachern is the author of 100 Things Longhorn Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die.

Jan Reid

In Let the People In, Jan Reid draws on his long friendship with Ann Richards, interviews with her family and many of her closest associates, her unpublished correspondence with longtime companion Bud Shrake, and extensive research to tell a very personal, human story of Ann Richards's remarkable rise to power as a liberal Democrat in a conservative Republican state. Reid traces the whole arc of Richards's life, beginning with her youth in Waco, her marriage to attorney David Richards, her frustration and boredom with being a young housewife and mother in Dallas, and her encounters with Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter. He tells the full, inside story of Richards's rise from county office and the state treasurer's office to the governorship, where she championed gun control, prison reform, environmental protection, and school finance reform. Reid goes on to explain why she lost her reelection bid to George W. Bush. His nuanced portrait reveals a complex woman who battled her own frailties and a good-old-boy establishment to claim a place on the national political stage and prove "what can happen in government if we simply open the doors and let the people in."