Texas Pages

As always when writing about the Mayborn, I really wanted to spin this note as a narrative: "Feeling fatigued yet doggedly determined to serve the readers of Texas, the editor cracked his knuckles, sipped his coffee and faced his computer."

But let's skip to the facts. They are much more engaging.

The 2009 Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference of the Southwest will welcome travel writer Paul Theroux, National Public Radio host Ira Glass (pictured) and New Yorker Latin American correspondent Alma Guillermoprieto as keynote speakers this year.

Others scheduled to attend include writers Roy Blount Jr., Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Julia Reed, Michael Kauffman, Gordon Grice, Roger Thurow and filmmakers Allen Mondell and Cynthia Salzman Mondell.

Registration has opened for the fifth annual conference, which takes place July 24-26 at the Hilton DFW Lakes Executive Conference Center in Grapevine.

Fees are $295 for the general public, $270 for educators and $225 for students.

Intrigued? You can read coverage from previous conferences here, here and here.

You might also be interested in the "suggested reading" list compiled by Mayborn organizer George Getschow. It's after the jump, as we in the biz say.

(Ira Glass photo credit: Nancy Updike.)

For those who worship at the temple of words, Saturday night's Mayborn Literary Conference keynote speech by N. Scott Momaday was a religious experience.

Mr. Momaday held the crowd of 450 transfixed as he talked about writing and the power of the oral tradition. Transfixed is not quite the word -- at times, the stillness in the cavernous hotel ballroom was near-complete. Not a chair squeaked, not a glass clinked, barely a sound could be heard, beyond his mesmerizing voice.

The 74-year-old was brought to the dinner in a wheelchair and had to be helped to the stage, where he was seated in a leather wingback chair. From there, he spoke with the diction and authority of a Shakespeare professor and the warmth and humor of a favorite uncle.

And for an audience hungry for wisdom about writing, he served up a feast.

The second day of the Mayborn Nonfiction Literary Writers Conference was jam-packed with speakers (and attendees; the conference room at the DFW Hilton Lakes in Grapevine was stuffed to the gills).

Some highlights:
* Andy Van De Voorde, executive associate editor at Village Voice Media (locally, they own the Dallas Observer) talked about that New Yorker cartoon cover with Barack and Michelle Obama that's caused so much uproar. He called it a "failed parody," in that too many readers just didn't get it, which is the "worst reaction you can get with satire," Mr. Van De Voorde said. "If they get it and they're still [expletive], that's fine."

He called on newspapers and media in general to "believe the reader gets it ... assume the reader is smart."

This year's Mayborn Literary Conference is off and running, as nonfiction writers, editors and agents are converging in Grapevine for celebration and conversation about the craft of nonfiction writing.

Bob Shacochis was the evening's literary light. The National Book Award winner delivered a keynote speech that was described as insightful by the charitable, rambling by those less so. But it was packed with nuggets of writerly wisdom.

It should be noted that he started out with praise for his hosts for boosting the city's literary stature:

"I don't know what you've been putting in the water since my last book tour in the great state of Texas, which was in the year 2000. And it went to Austin, which is fabulous, fabulous. And I went to San Antonio -- great. And I went to Houston, which is -- you can suffer though, it's OK.

"But your publicist was not going to send you to Dallas ... because it was sort of a literary wasteland. It was. Nobody would come -- unless you were John Grisham or Madonna, nobody is coming to your damn literary reading at Barnes & Nobles in Dallas. It's just not happening. That's not my opinion, it's most of the writers I know.

"And I'm going to have to tell them they have to change their mind."

How nice to have so many author events happening that I haven't even been able to blog about them all.

Here's hoping you caught Lesley Tellez's interview with Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez earlier this week. The author was in town to promote Dirty Girls on Top, a sequel to her best-seller The Dirty Girls Social Club.

At the other end of the week, if not the spectrum of literary lights, N. Scott Momaday is headed to the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference.. Karen M. Thomas interviewed him about his career.

If you write nonfiction, you have one week to get your material in to the contest at the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writing Conference.

At stake: $12,000 in prizes and the envy of your literate friends.

Yours truly will be helping judge this year -- I'm hoping for lots of great material to make my job difficult once again.

If you're considering attending the July 18-20 conference (fees listed here, note that you'll be hanging with the likes of:

Details are coming soon.

He was 90.

Here is his biography from the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation.

Salon.com ran this profile in 2000.

We reviewed his recent work with Stephen Baxter, "Firstborn," earlier this year.

(Updated, 4:59 p.m)

Finally, here is Sir Clarke himself, reflecting on his 90th birthday.

Dates have been announced for the 2008 Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference: July 18-20.

Among the speakers this year: N. Scott Momaday, 1969 Pulitzer Prize winner for "House Made of Dawn," and Candace Millard, a former writer for National Geographic and author of "River of Doubt."

I'm proud that my newspaper is publishing excerpts from this book, which came to the University of North Texas Press via the Mayborn conference.

I've read many holocaust stories over the years; this excerpt has horrors that I'd never come across before. I found the writing to be gripping as well. I was not involved in the process of bringing it to the newspaper, and I'm looking forward to the second excerpt this Sunday.

For more about how the book came to light, Mayborn writer in residence George Getschow had this to say recently. The story also has a video segment attached.

(Illustration by Michael Hogue/DMN Staff)

Book TV has made Joyce Carol Oates' keynote speech available online.

Unless you are a fan of famous people reading lists of important books aloud, I would suggest skipping directly to the second half, where she talks about her own writing. And that part is quite interesting.

As we wrap up what has become Nan A. Talese week here on the blog, here's one final link -- to all the comments non-blog readers left about the dust-up. (Follow the link and click "view results.")

On the one hand, it seems silly that with all the great books and ideas floating around out there, this is the topic that consumed people for the moment.

On the other hand, it's nice to know that what is at its core a literary debate about the meaning of truth can get people so riled up, a year and a half after most of us thought it had been settled.

I asked George Getschow, the Mayborn's writer in residence, for his thoughts on the conference. This is what he had to say:

Like everyone who attends the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference of the Southwest, I think of myself as a storyteller. And when I tell a story, I’m drawn to images that evoke the deepest meaning – the existential and emotional truth of the story.

For me, if there’s one image that defines what the Mayborn Conference story is about it’s Craig Hanley, seated outside the ballroom of the Hilton Hotel, surrounded by our confreres requesting his signature on his debut literary nonfiction book, “William & Rosalie.” Directly across from Craig sat Joyce Carol Oates, a literary legend who had just delivered a keynote speech titled “Turning Nonfiction Into Art.” Joyce was also surrounded by a swarm of our confreres and speakers seeking her signature on “On Boxing” and some of her other widely acclaimed books and novels.

Hearing Craig, once a struggling carpenter, chatting about his new book (published by UNT Press and the Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism) and his new life as a writer, was enough to make a grizzly old journalist like me choke up. I set my copy of “William & Rosalie” on his table, asked him to autograph it, and left without saying another word. I didn’t want the throng gathered around Craig to see that the Mayborn’s writer in residence had become a sniveling, teary-eyed mess. I fled for the nearest exit sign. When I returned, I picked up “William & Rosalie,” opened the cover and read, “George, you changed my life for the better with this break…Thanks Brother.”

As spotted on the Critical Mass blog, The New York Times has a piece about their weekend home.

Where, one would presume, Oprah will not be a guest soon.

The video of Nan A. Talese speaking after Joyce Carol Oates' talk has been widely seen via C-SPAN and YouTube (link available via our original story.).

Now, here's something most of you have not heard: audio of the comments that started it all, during Ms. Talese's session on "Hot topics in literary book publishing" Saturday at the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference.

The question was asked by freelance book critic Jerome Weeks, who shared the stage with her. The recording was made from the audience, so it's slighlty scratchy in spots. But it lets you hear the remarks unfiltered.

Nan Talese might have put the Mayborn on the map, gossip-wise, but lest we forget the serious literary business that transpired, here is a list of those who walked away with $12,000 in writing prizes.

In the manuscript category:

1st place (and a provisional publishing contract the University of North Texas Press) -- Donna Johnson of Austin for "Holy Ghost Girl."
2nd place -- Susannah Charleson of Dallas for "Scent of the Missing."
3rd place -- Kathleen Hawkins of Flower Mound for "Six Feet Above."

In the personal essay category:

1st place ($3,000 cash prize) -- Julianne McCullagh from Flower Mound for her essay, "Slainte."
2nd place ($2,000 cash prize) -- Joan Donaldson of Fennville, Mich., for "St. George and the Dragon."
3rd place ($1,000 cash prize) -- Jere Pfister of Houston for "The Mystery of the Black Book."

In the research-and-reporting-based essay category:

1st place ($3,000) -- Gary Borders of the Lufkin Daily News for "Tobacco Queen of Texas."
2nd place ($2,000) -- Spencer Campbell of Garland, for "A Troubled Heart."
3rd place ($1,000) -- Erin Burdette of Dallas for "Borrowed from God."

C-SPAN made video of Nan Talese's end-of-the-evening comments available. The link is posted with our original story about the event.

James Frey's embellishments would never have been exposed if Oprah hadn’t sponsored his book. Then, notoriety, zoom. Sales, zoom. Fortune, zoom. Scrutiny, zoom. Scandal, zoom. Because there was money involved, an Internet company specializing in exposing misbehaving celebrities showed him to be a nice guy who had not in fact done these trashy things. On Larry King Live he was reduced to insisting that he was, too, a jailbird and he was, too, a drug addict and alcoholic and the scumbag he said he was. And people ought to stop slandering him by saying he didn't do these scummy things.

This whole strange episode, once again, demonstrates loud and clear how education has failed. The vast multitudes are literalists and believe something is factual or it is untrue. Despite being greatly moved and even changed for the better by this book, they were distraught to learn that they hadn’t been moved or changed at all—because Mr. Frey was not literally as wretched in reality as he had implied in his book. Humanity expect artists to do their agonizing for them. Mr. Frey was supposed to be their scapegoat, and guess what? He didn’t suffer as much as he said he did, maybe not all. He didn't live up to the artist's job description.

So there was but one thing to do. Bring him back onto the show and make him suffer anyway, in public, according to the Puritan Code. Oprah, indignant, had assembled a panel of Grand Inquisitors, and when they were done torturing this Ignacious Reilly of a man, he was probably thinking about how sweet the gas pipe would be about then.

And there was another motive at work. People were angry about lots of things they couldn't control, not the least of which being lying politicians. Was John Kerry a war hero or a cowardly traitor? Did President Bush serve honorably and punctually in the Texas National Guard or was he AWOL? Did he abuse drugs or just alcohol? Were the reasons he gave for invading Iraq true or were they lies?

Did he embellish his story of why he took America to war and if so how is he different from Mr. Frey except in scale? But Oprah couldn't haul President Bush onto her show and give him a colonoscopy with a red-hot poker.

Oh, well. If James Frey didn't really do our agonizing for us, at least he was a good victim.

Here's a story about her comments appearing in tomorrow's paper.

Another quick post to say that the conference overall was earning raves from participants. To a person, speakers from around the country were impressed with the quality of the discussion and the way the conference's focus on nonfiction gives a clarity of purpose to the event.

Joyce Carol Oates, the brightest of the literary lights on the program, delivered a keynote that was, for the first half, worthy of a slightly confused college professor, as she sifted through piles of notes and gave a halting history lesson of the modern narrative.

Then, she opened up and discussed her own writing, focusing on how she came to write "On Boxing." And she sounded like the literary superstar she is.

Her history lesson did contain an exhaustive reading list. We'll be sorting our own pile of notes and attempting to post that later.

There was excitement at the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference of the Southwest tonight as Nan Talese, publisher and editorial director of Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, gave a passionate defense of "A Million Little Pieces," by James Frey.

Specifically, she criticized Oprah Winfrey and her fans. She says the book remains essentially true and that readers need to trust their own intelligence when reading such material.

We'll have more later, both on her remarks and on the rest of the conference.