Bill Wittliff was himself a publisher long before the University of Texas Press began working with him in 1996 on two series that drew from the Collections he founded at Texas State University. The Southwestern & Mexican Photography Series, for which he served as editor for two decades, included eighteen books, showcasing work from the likes of Keith Carter, Kate Breakey, Rocky Schenck, Graciela Iturbide, Mariana Yampolsky, and Mary Ellen Mark. Wittliff’s Southwestern Writers Collection, also housed at Texas State, was the foundation of a second series with the Press. Also founded in 1996, the series included twenty-nine books with such Texas writers as John Graves, Bud Shrake, Larry L. King, Prudence MacIntosh, and Steve Harrigan, among many others.
A prolific photographer, Wittliff authored or coauthored four books with his images for UT Press: Vaquero: Genesis of the Texas Cowboy (2004); La Vida Brinca: A Book of Tragaluz Photographs (2006), A Book of Photographs from Lonesome Dove (2007), and A Book on the Making of Lonesome Dove (2012). Late in his career, Wittliff began writing a memoir that evolved into a fictional series of books he called the Papa Stories: The Devil’s Backbone (2014), The Devil’s Sinkhole (2016), and The Devil’s Fork (2018) were inspired by stories he heard as a child growing up in Texas.
In all, Bill Wittliff and the University of Texas Press collaborated on more than fifty books. It is a measure of his contribution to Texas letters that, even if none of those titles had been published, Wittliff would still be an icon, renowned for his collection, his screenwriting, his photography, and his own Encino Press. The Press is deeply saddened by his passing, and forever grateful for the work we did together.
Despite everything that happened in 2016, it was a great year for University of Texas Press authors on our blog. Here are the 10 most-read posts, spanning topics from Mexican cuisine to Moche power structures, from author-curated music playlists to fascinating conversations among scholars.
We look forward to another year of great reading in 2017!
Earlier this year, UT Press was excited to announce that musician, songwriter, and former Go-Go Kathy Valentine has signed an agreement to write her first book – a memoir. Read the post. →
2016 was the year that scientists declared the dawn of a human-influenced age. One of our most popular author Q&A featured Nicholas Kawa talking about his new book Amazonia in the Anthropocene: People, Soils, Plants, Forests. We asked him about his work, what we can learn from contemporary rural Amazonians, and the complicated identity politics of indigenous rights. Read the post. →
[ Film, Media and Popular Culture : Comics ]
The graphic novel is commonly thought to have matured from pulp infancy to literary adulthood. However, comic writers remain burdened by the stigma of literary illegitimacy. In his new book Arresting Development: Comics at the Boundaries of Literature, Christopher Pizzino questions this idea that comics have "grown up" in the literary community's perception, arguing that the medium’s history of censorship and marginalization endures in the minds of its present-day readers and, crucially, its authors. We asked him to talk about why he wrote the book in this passionate and funny Q&A. Read the post. →
In this blog post, historian Charles Molesworth expands on his book The Capitalist and the Critic: J. P. Morgan, Roger Fry, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to reflect on issues that reverberate today: buying influence in a presidential race, breaking up too-powerful bank trusts, pushing Progressive Era initiatives to eliminate obscure and unfair trading practices, and the problem of "large sums of money resting in the hands of a few men." Read the post. →
We couldn't resist excerpting Diana Kennedy's brilliant bêtes noires to celebrate her 93rd year and the new edition of her classic part memoir, part cookbook, Nothing Fancy: Recipes and Recollections of Soul-Satisfying Food. In addition to chapters about her life and recipes for her favorite foods, she also covers her culinary addictions and the equipment she simply cannot do without. Enjoy Diana's unfiltered opinions on the proper way to enjoy and promote sustainable food. Read the post. →
Don’t know who Rocky Schenck is? You should. The film director William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist) collects Rocky's work and wrote the introduction to his new collection of fine art photography, The Recurring Dream. Rocky not only makes hauntingly beautiful hand-tinted photographs, he also makes films, music videos, and has worked with Adele, Francis Bean Cobain, Robert Plant, Ray Bradbury, Ellen DeGeneres, Willie Nelson, B.B. King, T-Bone Burnett, Nicole Kidman, Stevie Nicks, Patti
LaBelle, Dionne Warwick, and John Prine. He says that many of these luminaries come across his work, feel an emotional connection to him, and reach out to collaborate.
Rocky Schenck has lived and worked in Hollywood since he left the University of North Texas years ago, but his childhood in Texas and his family's artistic heritage informs his work. The author John Berendt (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story) describes Schenck’s photographs as stills “taken from a movie that exists not on film but rather in one’s memory, with all the fuzziness typical of remembered impressions.” Schenck has talked to many media outlets about how he approaches his art and how he reflects on his ties to Texas. We've compiled some of the most interesting insights into his life and process to celebrate the publication of The Recurring Dream.
Don't miss Rocky Schenck's book signing and artist reception at The Wittliff Collections in San Marcos on Sunday, October 2nd. More information here. He'll also have an exhibition opening at the Fahey Klein Gallery in Los Angeles on Thursday, October 20th.
On growing up in Texas and his family's artistic heritage:
"I grew up rather isolated on a ranch outside of Dripping Springs, Texas, where I spent much of my childhood painting landscapes and watching old films on TV before and after school. I became obsessed. I decided I wanted to be a filmmaker, and I started writing, directing, and photographing little movies. My Dad bought me a twin lens Yashica stills camera, and I learned photography while shooting stills on the sets of my little epics.
My early films and photographs were all in black and white as I attempted to duplicate the look of the vintage films I saw on TV. I never had formal training as a photographer or a filmmaker. I also loved to draw when I was a child, so my parents enrolled me in an oil painting class. My ancestors were classically trained artists who moved from Europe to Texas in the 1850's, and I was a big admirer of their work. I suppose I wanted to learn how to paint in the rather romantic style of their paintings. I started selling my little landscapes around age thirteen.
— From a piece in KYKYLYKY; interview by Jan Walaker
Inside the Artist's Studio
