“The curiosity is the extra head”: Sentences like this occur with alarming regularity when speaking to Carol Thurston, who will have her third book, The Eye of Horus, published by Avon in spring 1999. The local writer, former UT journalism professor, and Lloyd Doggett speechwriter has crafted “an ancient mystery solved in the present” that involves an Egyptian mummy discovered with the head of a male wrapped between her legs, thus accounting for that pesky extra head. Publishers Weekly reported in December that Thurston’s title sparked a six-week auction in Germany; since then, rights have also been sold in Spain and Sweden. Interestingly, the book probably won’t be marketed as a mystery title but maybe as historical fiction, which seems to interest Thurston more anyway since it involves deciphering “the skeletons of what we think we know happened at a given time” (“skeletons” – sounds like a mystery writer to me). Thurston’s previous two books, Flair and Current Affairs, were published by Pocket. As an Austin Writers’ League board member, Thurston was present at last Thursday’s monthly meeting where Sally Baker was honored for her 10 years of service to that organization. Congratulations are in order for her and for local author Christopher Reich, whose book Numbered Account will enter The New York Times bestseller list as a “healthy 11” (as Tracy Locke of his publisher Delacorte says) beginning March 1. He’ll be reading at Barnes & Noble Arboretum Thursday, February 26, 7:30pm…
Texas Monthly senior editor Gary Cartwright will have his book Dirty Dealing reprinted by Cinco Puntos Press of El Paso in June. And Bobby Byrd, Cinco Puntos publisher, has a new book of poetry, How to Eat Stuffed Fish in Juarez: Poems From Armaggedon, to be published in November, just in time for the Texas Book Festival, which this week begins sending out about 20 initial author invitations to this year’s festival…
The Texas Center for Writers has invited poet August Kleinzahler to be visiting faculty for spring 1999. His new book of poetry, Green Sees Things in Waves, will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux this spring; readers may know him by the title of his most recent book of poetry, Red Sauce Whiskey and Snow…
And for you literary people who may have been hibernating of late, Southwest Texas State’s creative writing program recently received some good news. Of the $17.5 million Austin residents Roy F. and Joann Cole Mitte donated to SWT, $5 million was set aside to fund five endowed chairs which 31 departments at the university competed to host. The creative writing program won one of the chairs and so on January 23, SWT placed an ad in the Chronicle of Higher Education announcing the chair. Tom Grimes, director of the program, whose second play New World is about to be produced in L.A. and then Madrid and Buenos Aires, has spoken seriously with some very high caliber writers like Richard Ford, Michael Ondaatje (yes, that Ondaatje), Robert Stone, Ann Beattie, and Lorrie Moore, among others. Basic questions are still up in the air, like when the chair will begin (fall `98 or spring `99) and whether it will function on a permanent or rotating basis; in addition to teaching, the chairholder will likely be expected to hold public talks and lectures…
Austin Family magazine has reason to celebrate, having received two honorable mention awards from the 1997 Parenting Publications of America Excellence Awards for general excellence and feature writing.
Book news for “Postscripts” must be received at least one week prior to issue date. Mail to: The Austin Chronicle, PO Box 49066, Austin, TX, 78765; or fax 458-6910.
This article appears in February 27 • 1998 and February 27 • 1998 (Cover).