UT Press at the San Antonio Book Festival

On Saturday, April 6, the University of Texas Press and five of our authors will enjoy the 7th annual San Antonio Book Festival at the Central Library (600 Soledad) and Southwest School of Art in beautiful downtown San Antonio. The Festival runs from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. We'll have a booth in the Exhibitor Tent with tons of titles for sale at a great discount. There are a lot of fantastic authors in attendance (Tayari Jones! Elizabeth McCracken! Melissa Febos! Joe R. Lansdale! Lawrence Wright!), so we’ve distilled our authors' appearances into a single UT Press schedule.

A Mile Above Texas with Jay B. Sauceda

11:00 AM - 11:45 AM

Signing at 12:00 PM

Panel Location: Festival Room
Signing location: Southwest School of Art Parking Lot
Sauceda is a photographer, entrepreneur, and author of Y’all: The Definitive Guide to Being a Texan, and most recently, A Mile Above Texas. His aerial photographs of Texas were first published in a photo essay in Texas Monthly.

The Golden Ages of Television with Barbara Morgan & Maya Perez

3:15 PM - 4:00 PM
Signing at 4:15 PM

Location: Festival Room
Signing location: Southwest School of Art Parking Lot
Barbara Morgan Morgan co-founded the Austin Film Festival in 1993 and has served as the sole executive director since 1999. She developed and produces the TV and radio series Austin Film Festival’s On Story, currently airing on PBS stations nationally as well as on Public Radio International. She also coedited the previous volumes of On Story.

Maya Perez Perez is a writer and producer who coedited the previous volumes of On Story. She produces the television series Austin Film Festival’s On Story, currently in its seventh season on PBS, which won a Lone Star EMMY Award® for Best Arts/Entertainment Program in 2014 and was nominated for an EMMY Award® in 2016.

Billy Lee Brammer: Great Texas Writer, Wayward American Son with Tracy Daugherty

3:45 PM - 4:45 PM

Signing at 5:00 PM

Location: West Terrace
Signing location: Southwest School of Art Parking Lot

Daugherty has written biographies of Joan Didion, Joseph Heller, and Donald Barthelme, as well as four novels, six short story collections, a book of personal essays, and a collection of essays on literature and writing. His stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Paris Review online, McSweeney’s, Boulevard, Chelsea, The Georgia Review, Triquarterly, The Southern Review, and many other journals. Daugherty has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Bread Loaf, Artsmith, and the Vermont Studio Center. A member of PEN and the Texas Institute of Letters, he is a five-time winner of the Oregon Book Award. At Oregon State University, Daugherty helped found the Masters of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing and is now Distinguished Professor of English and Creative Writing, Emeritus.

Obsessed with Texas with Sarah Bird, David Norman & Mimi Swartz

3:30 PM - 4:30 PM

Signing at 4:45 PM

Location: West Terrace
Signing Location: Southwest School of Art Parking Lot
Sarah Bird’s previous novel, Above the East China Sea, was long-listed for the Dublin International Literary Award. Sarah has been selected for the Meryl Streep Screenwriting Lab, the B&N Discover Great Writers program, NPR’s Moth Radio series, the Texas Literary Hall of Fame, and New York Libraries Books to Remember list. Her latest novel is titled Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen, which is the compelling, hidden story of Cathy Williams, a former slave and the only woman to ever serve with the legendary Buffalo Soldiers. She first heard Cathy Williams’ story in the late seventies while researching African-American rodeos. Her forthcoming nonfiction collection, Recent Studies Indicate: The Best of Sarah Bird, will publish April 2.

www.utexaspress.com

UT Press at the San Antonio Book Festival

On Saturday, April 8, the University of Texas Press and seven of our authors will enjoy the 5th annual San Antonio Book Festival at the Central Library and environs in downtown San Antonio. We'll have a booth in the Exhibitor Tent with tons of titles for sale at a great discount. There are a lot of fantastic authors in attendance (Ann Patchett! Lawrence Wright! Laini Taylor!), so we’ve distilled our authors' appearances into a single UT Press schedule.

More info

Terry Thompson-Anderson

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM

Signing at 11:15 AM

Wake up to “Breakfast in Texas!” Terry Thompson-Anderson demos from her new cookbook

Location: Central Market Cooking Tent
Signing Location: Augusta Street

Thompson-Anderson is the author of nine previous cookbooks, including Texas on the Table: People, Places, and Recipes Celebrating the Flavors of the Lone Star State, which was a finalist for the 2015 James Beard Book Award for American Cooking.

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Jarod Neece and Mando Rayo

11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Signing at 12:45 PM

“The Tacos of Texas” with Mando Rayo and Jarod Neece

Location: Central Market Cooking Tent
Signing Location: Augusta Street

Jarod Neece is the co-founder and editor of the popular Austin food blog, TacoJournalism.com, the Senior Film Programmer at SXSW, co-writer of the Austin bestselling book, Austin Breakfast Tacos: The Story of the Most Important Taco of the Day and co-author of the new book, The Tacos of Texas. 

Mando Rayo is an author, taco expert, blogger and CEO & Engagement Strategist at Mando Rayo + Collective, a multicultural digital agency based in Austin, TX. Mando is the co-author of the new book, The Tacos of Texas, published by The University of Texas Press and Austin Breakfast Tacos: The Story of the Most Important Taco of the Day. Mando’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Bon Appetit Magazine, NPR, Paste Magazine, Texas Standard, Texas Monthly, and the Food Network.

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Frederick Luis Aldama

12:00 PM to 1:00 PM

Signing at 1:15 PM

One Place, Many Voices: New Fiction & Poetry About the Border with Frederick Luis Aldama, Edmundo Paz Soldán, & Emmy Perez

Location: West Terrace
Signing Location: Augusta Street

Frederick Luis Aldama is Arts and Humanities Distinguished Professor of English and University Distinguished Scholar at Ohio State University. He is founder and director of LASER, a mentoring and research hub for Latinos (ninth grade through college), selected as a 2015 Bright Spot in Hispanic Education by the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. An expert on Latino popular culture, Aldama is the author, co-author, and editor of twenty-six books, including Your Brain on Latino Comics: From Gus Arriola to Los Bros Hernandez and The Cinema of Robert Rodriguez.

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Maya Perez

1:45 PM - 2:45 PM

Signing at 3:00 PM

The Art of Screenwriting with Maya Perez & Craig Johnson

Location: LaunchSA
Signing Location: Augusta Street

Maya Perez is a writer, a producer/consultant for Austin Film Festival’s On Story, and a board member of the Austin Film Festival, for which she has also served as Conference Director. She holds an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was a James A. Michener Fellow.

Bill Wittliff

3:45 PM - 4:45 PM

More info

Signing at 5:00 PM

The Old West Made New: Western Fiction Across the Centuries with Jeff Guinn, Bill Wittliff, & Craig Johnson

Location: Swartz Room
Signing Location: Augusta Street

Bill Wittliff is a distinguished screenwriter and producer whose credits include Lonesome Dove, The Perfect Storm, The Black Stallion, and Legends of the Fall, among others. His fine art photography has been published in the books A Book of Photographs from Lonesome Dove, A Book on the Making of Lonesome Dove, La Vida Brinca, and Vaquero: Genesis of the Texas Cowboy.

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Andrea Valdez

4:15 PM - 5:00 PM
Signing at 5:15 PM

Not Our First Rodeo: A Texan-Off with Andrea Valdez

Location: Rogers Hall
Signing Location: Augusta Street

Test your knowledge of all things Texan at this fun event featuring How to Be a Texan author Andrea Valdez, a panel of contestants, and definitely mean judges (the contest goes way beyond the use of “y’all,” y’all).

A native Houstonian who has worked for Texas Monthly since 2006, Andrea Valdez is the editor of TexasMonthly.com. She has written on a wide range of subjects, including more than forty columns on activities every Texan should be able to do, which provided the inspiration for this book. She also helped Texas Monthly launch The Daily Post and TMBBQ.com.

www.utexaspress.com

UT Press at the 2016 Texas Book Festival

This weekend, the University of Texas Press and many of our authors will enjoy the 21st annual Texas Book Festival on the Capitol grounds in downtown Austin and environs. This

year, an illustration from Bill Wittliff's The Devil’s Backbone by the late Texan illustrator Jack Unruh graces the Texas Book Festival Poster!

We'll have a booth on Colorado Street with tons of titles for sale at a great discount, so please stop by. There are a lot of wonderful authors in attendance this year, so we’ve distilled our authors' appearances into a single UT Press schedule (browse the full schedule here):

Saturday

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM

More info

A Love Letter to Texas Women

Author: Sarah Bird

Moderator: Steve Davis
Location: Capitol Extension Room E2.036
Booksigning: Main Book Signing Tent (Congress near 10th Street)

Enjoy seeing some of the top writers in Texas at this lively panel discussion featuring winners of the Texas Institute of Letters’ 2016 Literary Awards. The TIL was founded in 1936 and has been a leading force in Texas literature for more than 80 years.

Where to find the author online: @sarahbirdwriter | Website

UT Press Podcast Interview with Sarah Bird:

10:30 AM - 11:15 AM

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The Devil's Sinkhole

Author: Bill Wittliff

Moderator: Jane Sumner

Location: Capitol Extension Room E2.014

When last we saw the boy Papa in The Devil’s Backbone, he had finally learned the fate of his missing Momma and his vicious daddy. Now, master storyteller Bill Wittliff takes us on another enthralling journey through wild and woolly Central Texas in the 1880s with The Devil's Sinkhole.

12:45 - 1:30 PM

A Love Letter to Texas Women, How to Be a Texan

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Authors: Sarah Bird, Andrea Valdez

Moderator: Kathy Blackwell

Location: Capitol Extension Room E2.036

Booksigning: Main Book Signing Tent (Congress near 10th Street)

Lone Star pride runs strong, there’s no denying it. But what exactly does it mean to be a Texan? Is it all boots, chaps and cowboy hats, Lone Stars and barbecue and stories of Ann Richards? Sarah Bird (A Love Letter to Texas Women) and Andrea Valdez (How to Be a Texan) sit down to discuss what life as a Texan means to them, and how it inspired their new books.

Where to find the author online: @andreamvaldez

UT Press Podcast Interview with Andrea Valdez:

Q&A with Austin Film Festival Organizers Barbara Morgan and Maya Perez

Award-winning screenwriters and filmmakers, including Ron Howard, Callie Khouri, Jonathan Demme, Ted Tally, Jenny Lumet, and Harold Ramis, discuss their careers and iconic films in lively conversations from the acclaimed PBS series On Story. The Austin Film Festival (AFF) has transcribed the best of these conversations and published them in the 2013 book On Story—Screenwriters and Their Craft and in the new book On Story—Screenwriters and Filmmakers on Their Iconic Films with a foreword by James Franco.

More info

Austin Film Festival is the first organization focused on the writer’s creative contribution to film. Its annual Film Festival and Conference offers screenings, panels, workshops, and roundtable discussions that help new writers and filmmakers connect with mentors and gain advice and insight from masters, as well as refreshing veterans with new ideas. We asked Barbara Morgan, cofounder and executive director of AFF, and Maya Perez, a writer and producer/consultant for On Story and AFF board member, about what makes the festival different, how they plan programming, how James Franco got on board to write a foreword, and more.

The Austin Film Festival runs through October 20th here in Austin!

What makes the Austin Film Festival different from other film festivals?

AFF’s focus on the screenwriter as the heart of the filmmaking process and how much we focus on writers, in general – enabling, championing, and celebrating their work and process – is what originally put us on the map. 23 years ago, we were the only festival in the country that centered itself on the writer’s contributions to film. We’re thrilled others have followed suit, finally giving a public platform to the creative people who usually take backseat to the director, actors, producer, etc. What also makes us unique is the comfortable, “living room”-style of the Conference. Our hotel setting encourages people to settle in and continue their conversations hours after the panels have ended. Finally, I think the sense of camaraderie among the panelists and registrants makes us different from other festivals. Many of the panelists were registrants themselves only a few years ago and know the questions, concerns, and frustrations one can feel when trying to break a TV pilot or break into the film industry. They all share the same love for storytelling in film and TV – we all binge and obsess over the same TV series, cheer and groan when the winners are announced at the Golden Globes and Oscars – and that’s apparent in the panels and film screenings. What’s been especially fun over the years is when filmmakers want to interview other filmmakers – Judd Apatow moderated the panel with Harold Ramis, Pamela Ribon led the conversation with Issa Rae, Shane Black with Phil Rosenthal, Paul Thomas Anderson with Jonathan Demme, and many more; they are as curious to know the answer to “How do you do what you do?” as any of the registrants. It’s really inspiring and informative – and often funny – to watch.

When you start to plan the next festival lineup, what goals do you set out for programming? What decisions go into putting together the perfect program?

We look at what’s been trending in film and TV that year, see what trends we’re noticing in the film and screenplay competitions submissions – are we getting in a lot of horror movies this year? Stories with child protagonists? Noirs? – solicit opinions from past panelists and registrants on who they’d like to see at the Conference. We work hard to balance the program to cater to our diverse registrant-base, so we seek writers at various levels of success, people writing blockbusters, indie projects, linear and non-linear stories, comedies and thrillers, etc. And then, of course, one of the big perks of working at the Festival is inviting your personal favorites. We were big fans of Rachel Getting Married and so were thrilled when Jenny Lumet accepted our invitation. The year Johnny Depp attended was so special because before we had even invited him to be our Actor Award recipient, he had said yes because he wanted to celebrate Screenwriter Award recipient Caroline Thompson, who he’d become friends with when she wrote Edward Scissorhands.

What do these books offer to both experienced and aspiring writers beyond the content that the PBS TV show, podcast, and radio show cover?

The book gives us an opportunity to share more content than a TV or radio format allows. Whereas the TV show gives maybe 26 minutes of Ron Howard’s panel, the book gives you almost the entire thing. This lets the reader settle into the conversation a bit more. That said, since it’s broken into sections readers can easily pick it up and read a couple of pages when needing a burst of motivation or feeling a little stuck on their own creative projects. Another great thing about the books is that they allow us to share content from panels that didn’t have high enough quality recording for either of the shows, like Frank Pierson’s conversation and Robin Swicord’s, for example.

Can we claim that James Franco keeps a copy of these books in each back pocket of his pants or is that overkill? Kidding. But seriously, how did you get James Franco to write the foreword to On Story—Screenwriters and Filmmakers on Their Iconic Films?

James has attended the Conference several times and what’s interesting about him – one of the many interesting things about him, I should say – is that every time he’s been here, he attends panels all day long and then goes to the competition film screenings at night. Most registrants don’t even know he’s there. I’ve heard people invite him to the big premieres and he always politely declines in favor of seeing the films that don’t yet have distribution. He’s always been especially interested in our Education Outreach track, the panels specifically organized for teachers and local high school students and his passion for and commitment to the arts is real. Anyway, so we sent him an email asking if he’d write the foreword and he wrote back and said yes.

What is the most surprising story to come out of these transcripts? The most inspiring? The funniest?

The funniest story, the one that makes me laugh every time I read it is Ron Howard’s story of directing Bette Davis for the first time. There’s so much advice and inspiration and experience in these pages that I can’t pick just one, but what sticks with me when feeling uncertain about this whole industry and what my place in it might be is Robin Swicord’s advice at the end of her chapter. It initially sounds depressing, but is actually really liberating. There are no guarantees, so write what you want, challenge yourself, and make it yourself.

We are actually in the middle of a moment similar to what was happening in the sixties and seventies that created the conditions for Dog Day Afternoon to be made: the film business is collapsing. So you get to write anything you want because they’re not going to buy your script, they’re not going to hire you, and you’re not going to get an agent. You don’t have to please a studio to be a filmmaker. The one piece of advice I would give is, be bold. Be as bold as Frank Pierson was and John Calley was and Sidney Lumet was. Go write that stuff and do it the way they did. They got their friends together and made a movie in the streets of Brooklyn. They brought it in under budget because they knew what they were doing. So go have fun.

www.utexaspress.com