 
Two announcements from UT's Harry Ransom Center landed in our in-box this morning detailing acquisitions both big and small – although I suppose when you're talking about authors of this stature, no acquisition counts as too small. The first is the addition of two unpublished letters to the HRC's pre-existing Tennessee Williams collection. Both letters are written by the lauded American playwright to Pancho Rodriguez Gonzalez, who inspired the character of Stanley Kowalski in Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire and was, as the HRC's press release puts it, Williams' "former intimate" (a rather coy moniker for a man who, according to Donald Spoto's 1994 biography The Kindness of Strangers , was on the losing end of a passionate and devoted affair with Williams). Kimberley Jones, Wed May 14, 4:56pm
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At least, this is what the (bearded, vaguely sour-smelling) forensics detectives tell me, extrapolating backwards from what evidence is available. What have we got, among the ichor this week? Michael Chabon's Yiddish Policemen's Union, perhaps too recently mentioned in this blog (but, fuck it, the novel's strange and gorgeous and employs similes sweeter than a Filipino donut dipped in honey), of which a scant 25 pages are left before the gumshoe-and-gefilte-fish narrative's fully devoured. There's Pynchon's Mason & Dixon, which we're halfway through (and have been halfway through for approximately eight months) and are extremely happy about, especially as T.P.'s previous effort, Vineland, really was a (relatively) lame-ass cartoon of a book (as a lot of the critics had warned), whereas Mason & Dixon returns to the glorious overloads of brilliance and complexity of V. and Gravity's Rainbow and will serve as an appetizer for the daunting feast called Against the Day (which hasn't even made it bedside, yet, but remains on the top shelf of the livingroom's largest bookcase). Deep breath. Wayne Alan Brenner, Tue May 13, 5:48pm
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It's the stuff deprived-of-light writers dream of – getting away from the big city, nestling into a wooded enclave, and doing nothing but wordsmithing ... and maybe a little yard work. Welcome to the Dobie Paisano Fellowship. Well, not welcome to you, exactly, but certainly to the two latest fellowship winners, just announced today. The Ralph A. Johnston Fellowship goes to former Austinite Michael Erard, who held a crowd rapt at last year's Texas Book Festival, where he was promoting his first book, Um...: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean. The Jesse Jones Fellowship was awarded to Vanessa Ramos, a native El Pasoan who traffics in poetry, playwrighting, and creative nonfiction. Each writer will enjoy a monthslong stay at J. Frank Dobie's historic, 254-acre ranch, located to the west of Austin. If that sounds good to you – and, really, how could it not? – you can apply for the 2009-2010 fellowships come fall. Information and applications will be available on the web in October.
Kimberley Jones, Mon May 12, 4:22pm
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Remember when we told you last week about Austin Public Library's awesome and awesomely award-winning book cart drill team, the Bibliofiles? And remember how you felt when you watched the video and thought, "Well, this looks alright for grainy, faraway footage, but what I really want is to see that action live and in living color"? omigod it's your lucky day. Okay, actually Saturday is your lucky day. That's when the Bibliofiles do their book cart dance at the Monster Book Sale in the North Star Home Center (2209 West Anderson Lane). Added bonus – there's a monster book sale... videos, CDs, DVDs, too. All proceeds benefit APL. For more info, go here.
Kimberley Jones, Mon May 12, 3:41pm
Looking for a short fiction fix? Look no further than the aptly titled American Short Fiction , with a fresh issue on stands now. The locally produced, nationally recognized magazine, which was founded in 1991 by current O'Henry Prize editor Laura Furman, went dormant in 1998, but it was revived in 2006 by local nonprofit Badgerdog Literary Publishing. Back with a bullet: The new issue, with a gorgeous Don Quixote cover, includes five new pieces, including an excerpt from UT prof Scott Blackwood's forthcoming novel We Agreed to Meet Just Here, which won the 2007 Associated Writing Programs Prize for Novel. (Call it his Austin swan song: After 23 years here, Scott leaves us this fall to be the Director of the MFA Creative Writing Program at Chicago's Roosevelt University.) We haven't had a chance to do much more than the thumb through the covers, but ASF Managing Editor Jill Meyers is especially keen on Ethan Rutherford's "The Peripatetic Coffin"; she calls it "a darkly funny piece about a young man who, after learning his girlfriend is likely headed to prison, finds consolation in charm school." Did we mention it's set on a Civil War-era submarine? The Spring/Summer issue of American Short Fiction is available now at BookPeople and other fine book-type establishments.
Kimberley Jones, Mon May 12, 3:24pm
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We recently ran a book review of political blogger and Austinite Amanda Marcotte's new book, It's a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments, but what we neglected to do was mention that you have two opportunities next week to meet the woman behind the blog. Marcotte will be at BookWoman (5501 N. Lamar Blvd. #A-105) on Wednesday, May 14, at 7pm for a reading and booksigning. The next day, she'll turn around and do it all over again, appearing at MonkeyWrench Books (110 E. North Loop) at 7pm. (And by the way, a happy belated birthday to Austin's favorite anarchist bookstore, which celebrated its sixth anniversary on April 27.) Here's some of what the Chron's Wells Dunbar had to say about Marcotte's book: "Ribald, bullshit-free, and empowering, it's perfect for feminists in training – and a great example of transitioning a blog's discrete observations, irritants, and outbursts into a satisfying whole." Read the whole review here.
Kimberley Jones, Thu May 8, 3:13pm
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It's about half-past 4, which means you should probably start lining up right now if you want to get in the door for lit superstar Michael Chabon's reading and booksigning at BookPeople tonight at 7pm. Fresh off his Nebula Award win (hosted right here in the ATX), Chabon will be reading from The Yiddish Policmen's Union, new in paperback – and an absolutely gorgeous paperback design at that. Our own Jay Trachtenberg named the book one of his favorites of 2007. Here's what he said: "At times brilliantly insightful but also painfully frustrating. Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union vividly creates the frozen enclave of Sitka, Alaska, where post-Holocaust Jews have settled since Israel lost its War of Independence in 1948. Part hard-boiled detective mystery, meditation on living in exile, love story, and chess puzzle, Chabon's noirish narrative and memorable characters make this a real delight." Chabon goes on at 7pm. For more info, check out what BookPeople has to say here.
Kimberley Jones, Wed May 7, 4:31pm
So, as it turns out, our own Austin Public Library not only has a book cart drill team, but it officially has the “best book cart drill team in the state of Texas.” And what the hell is a book cart drill team, you ask? Well, it’s only the best vehicle discovered so far for dancing in formation with book carts, those rolling bookshelves you always see sitting around at the library.
APL’s team, the Bibliofiles – made up of a handful of ladies with an apparent affinity for neon ties and hats shaped like books – won first place last month at the state championship book cart drill team competition, and they’ll now go on to represent Texas in the third annual Library Book Cart Drill Team World Championship. It bears repeating: world championship!
But never mind all that. The point here is that video exists of the four minutes of glory that sent the Bibliofiles to the heights of book cart drill team achievement. I can’t decide what I admire more – that they thought to devise their hats-shaped-like-books so that they additionally have the capability to spin around, or that they so brazenly risk life and limb to dance on mobile carts in the name of literacy.
Nora Ankrum, Wed May 7, 4:07pm
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