Her Texas: Story, Image, Poem & Song
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Description
Multicultural, multiethnic, and multidisciplinary, Her Texas includes stories, essays, memoirs, poetry, song lyrics, paintings, and photographs by 60 Texas women. Texas, once a country unto itself, has engendered myths and legends that rival the magnetic force of national identity. At first, Texas writers looked toward the men who embodied the larger-than-life stories of cowboys and Indians, pioneers and outlaws, cattle barons and oil kings. Although the female writers, poets, songwriters, artists, and photographers of this collection know this heritage, they also illuminate a Texas that is large enough in landscape, history, and spirit to include a multitude of experiences and identities. Discover women who write with intelligence, humor, pain, and joy of experiences rooted in the far-flung landscapes and cityscapes of Texas, and who enlarge the definition of "Texan" to include multifaceted lives lived in fertile intersections where myths and realities meet: a teenage mother from San Antonio compares her dreams with her real life; a Tejana recalls her downtown childhood in terms of a magical-realist game of loteria; a cop from Houston takes her place in a historically male environment; a popular blues musician pays homage to the grounding influence of her mother; a photographer shares her vision of the beauties and environmental degradations of Texas landscapes; a woman helps her injured horse regain his health while she recovers from the wounds of unemployment; a young mother and professor faces breast cancer; a tent-revival organist's daughter manifests a spirituality of her own; a grandmother in an Iranian-American family struggles to survive in the isolation of suburbia; a nun ties herself in the midst of a hurricane to the orphans in her care; while at a Dallas flea market, an African-American woman comes to terms with her relationship with her African sister-in-law; a renowned poet illuminates her husband's struggle with Parkinson's disease; an anthropologist explores the haunting cave paintings of Palo Duro canyon; and a Tejana poet describes mid-life, her love for her mother, and her love for her son. Issues covered in this anthology include sexual abuse and recovery; struggles against disease, poverty, and isolation; ethnic identity and heritage; musical roots; environmental degradation of water, air, and landscape; family and relationships; political and intellectual struggles, and more.
Product Details
Price
$29.95
$27.85
Publisher
Wings Press (TX)
Publish Date
March 01, 2015
Pages
448
Dimensions
6.0 X 9.1 X 1.2 inches | 1.85 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9781609404239
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About the Author
Donna Walker-Nixon, a recipient of the Minnie Stevens Piper Award, is the founding editor of Windhover: A Journal of Christian Literature and the cofounding editor of Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas. She is the author of the novel Canaan's Oothoon. Her short story "Tented Amusements" was published in the Journal of Texas Women Writers, and her fiction has appeared in Descant, Echoes, and Concho River Review, Red Boots and Attitude, Texas Short Stories, and Writing on the Wind. She lives in Temple, Texas. Cassy Burleson is a professor of English at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Rachel Crawford has worked as a high school English teacher, a university English professor, an editor, and a writer. Her poetry has appeared in various journals, and she is a recipient of the Beall Poetry Festival's Poetry in the Arts Award. They both live in Lorena, Texas. Ashley Palmer teaches sociology, sociology of religion, and gender studies courses at Baylor University, where she is a former assistant director of the Academy for Teaching and Learning. Her work has been published in the Review of Religious Research. She lives in Waco, Texas.
Reviews
"An important, intriguing, and long overdue collection of poetry, fiction, song, nonfiction, and images from contemporary Texas women. Their varied lives and experiences in this vast, sometimes mythical State, are the voices of 21st-century Texas." --Marcia Hatfield Daudistel, former director, Texas Western Press, and coauthor, Authentic Texas: People of the Big Bend
"Her Texas collects the work of a who's who of creative Texas women into a beautiful anthology of written and visual art. Each editor provides an introduction with her own distinctive voice that collectively function as a prelude to the work contained therein, microcosms of the macro-macrocosm of Texas . . . . When I finished Her Texas I wanted to find a porch and a huge pitcher of iced sun tea and talk with these women long into the night. Her Texas speaks to the soul of Texans." --Michelle Newby, lonestarliterary.com
"Spirited, appropriately oversized anthology of Texas-centric creative work by women from the Lone Star State . . . . The editors strive for, and attain, a good balance of old and new and of ethnicities and ages.... a strong gathering in both its parts and its sum." --Kirkus Reviews
"This volume, published in 2015 contains so many impressive works, I hardly know where to begin to offer samples . . . . It most certainly would make a wonderful gift to the reader in your life. This celebration of woman belongs on every reader's book shelf. It has plenty of writing to justify 5 Stars." --Jim McKeown, rabbitreader.blogspot.com
"I'd like to list here the whole of the impressive table of contents for Her Texas, an anthology from San Antonio's Wings Press of creative nonfiction, song, poetry, fiction, photographs . . . . With each new author, I found myself Googling authors and artists and seeking out their other works . . . . When I finished reading Her Texas, I wanted to share one or another story, image or poem with just about everyone I know. And there is something for just about anyone in this robust anthology. You don't have to be a 'her' and you don't have to be from Texas to appreciate these works, but you do have to be ready to be enthralled by the depth and breadth, the diversity of voices and ideas, that this singular work offers." --Yvette Benavides, San Antonio Express-News
"An extraordinary collection of fiction and nonfiction by Sandra Cisneros, Rosemary Catacalos, Diane Fanning, Ruthie Foster, Tish Hinojosa, Naomi Shihab Nye, Loretta Diane Walker, and many more Texas women writers and artists, released earlier this year by Wings Press." --Robert F. Darden, Huffington Post
"The new anthology Her Texas: Story, Image, Poem & Song consists exclusively of works by living Texas authors, poets, songwriters and visual artists. The goal of providing a multiethnic and multidisciplinary snapshot of creative women in contemporary Texas is laudable, but the results continually raise the following questions: What is Texas writing, and what is a Texas woman? . . . A must-read on its own merits, Her Texas' greater role may be to instill in readers a hunger for even more Texas women's voices." --Amy Gentry, the Texas Observer
"This thick anthology of Texas women writers is a huge stride in the right direction of chronicling, defining, and mapping the landscape of talent that exists in the state. No longer is the Lone Star State dominated by masculine, cowboy narratives of ranch life, of legendary heroes, of forefathers. There's room for more in this great story, and Her Texas proves that these voices, too, deserve to be recorded, heard, and treasured. With a nod to the past and an eye to the future, it holds an important place in the broadening canon of Texas and American letters." --Katherine Hoerth, Pleiades
"During this time of political, social and criminal upheaval in Texas, throughout Mexico and along the Río Grande, some of the most compelling voices in our state are exploring the personal and cultural implications of these changes . . . . Exploding stereotypes of what it means to be a Texan and a woman, the volume ultimately unveils the richness of human experience as seen through the wide-ranging eyes of women." --David Bowles, the Monitor
"Her Texas collects the work of a who's who of creative Texas women into a beautiful anthology of written and visual art. Each editor provides an introduction with her own distinctive voice that collectively function as a prelude to the work contained therein, microcosms of the macro-macrocosm of Texas . . . . When I finished Her Texas I wanted to find a porch and a huge pitcher of iced sun tea and talk with these women long into the night. Her Texas speaks to the soul of Texans." --Michelle Newby, lonestarliterary.com
"Spirited, appropriately oversized anthology of Texas-centric creative work by women from the Lone Star State . . . . The editors strive for, and attain, a good balance of old and new and of ethnicities and ages.... a strong gathering in both its parts and its sum." --Kirkus Reviews
"This volume, published in 2015 contains so many impressive works, I hardly know where to begin to offer samples . . . . It most certainly would make a wonderful gift to the reader in your life. This celebration of woman belongs on every reader's book shelf. It has plenty of writing to justify 5 Stars." --Jim McKeown, rabbitreader.blogspot.com
"I'd like to list here the whole of the impressive table of contents for Her Texas, an anthology from San Antonio's Wings Press of creative nonfiction, song, poetry, fiction, photographs . . . . With each new author, I found myself Googling authors and artists and seeking out their other works . . . . When I finished reading Her Texas, I wanted to share one or another story, image or poem with just about everyone I know. And there is something for just about anyone in this robust anthology. You don't have to be a 'her' and you don't have to be from Texas to appreciate these works, but you do have to be ready to be enthralled by the depth and breadth, the diversity of voices and ideas, that this singular work offers." --Yvette Benavides, San Antonio Express-News
"An extraordinary collection of fiction and nonfiction by Sandra Cisneros, Rosemary Catacalos, Diane Fanning, Ruthie Foster, Tish Hinojosa, Naomi Shihab Nye, Loretta Diane Walker, and many more Texas women writers and artists, released earlier this year by Wings Press." --Robert F. Darden, Huffington Post
"The new anthology Her Texas: Story, Image, Poem & Song consists exclusively of works by living Texas authors, poets, songwriters and visual artists. The goal of providing a multiethnic and multidisciplinary snapshot of creative women in contemporary Texas is laudable, but the results continually raise the following questions: What is Texas writing, and what is a Texas woman? . . . A must-read on its own merits, Her Texas' greater role may be to instill in readers a hunger for even more Texas women's voices." --Amy Gentry, the Texas Observer
"This thick anthology of Texas women writers is a huge stride in the right direction of chronicling, defining, and mapping the landscape of talent that exists in the state. No longer is the Lone Star State dominated by masculine, cowboy narratives of ranch life, of legendary heroes, of forefathers. There's room for more in this great story, and Her Texas proves that these voices, too, deserve to be recorded, heard, and treasured. With a nod to the past and an eye to the future, it holds an important place in the broadening canon of Texas and American letters." --Katherine Hoerth, Pleiades
"During this time of political, social and criminal upheaval in Texas, throughout Mexico and along the Río Grande, some of the most compelling voices in our state are exploring the personal and cultural implications of these changes . . . . Exploding stereotypes of what it means to be a Texan and a woman, the volume ultimately unveils the richness of human experience as seen through the wide-ranging eyes of women." --David Bowles, the Monitor
