Alkek Library News

Texas State honors legendary country songwriter Freddy Powers

The Wittliff Collections and the Center for Texas Music History at Texas State University- San Marcos are pleased to celebrate the life and career of award-winning singer/songwriter Freddy Powers with a public reception for his fans and friends.

The event will be Wednesday evening, April 27, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. at the Wittliff Collections, located on the seventh floor of Texas State’s Alkek Library. Admission is free and all are welcome. Attendees are asked to RSVP to southwesternwriters@txstate.edu.

Directions and parking information is online:

http://www.thewittliffcollections.txstate.edu/about/visit/directions.html.

In addition to five solo albums, Powers has written and co-written hits for Merle Haggard, George Jones, Ray Price, Big & Rich, and numerous other prominent artists. An accomplished vocalist and jazz guitarist, Powers also played guitar in country legend Merle Haggard’s band for many years. Many of Powers’ songs have been recorded by Haggard, and his career includes BMI #1 Song awards for “I Always Get Lucky With You,” “Let’s Chase Each Other Around The Room Tonight,” “Friend in California,” and “A Place To Fall Apart.”

In 2006, Powers was honored by the Texas Heritage Songwriters Association, which noted in his Hall of Fame award: “Freddy Powers may not be as famous as his powerful pals Merle Haggard, George Jones, and Willie Nelson, but his award-winning hit songs and production work are behind-the-scenes testaments to his talent and success.”

In 2009, working in collaboration with the Center for Texas Music History, Powers donated a substantial archive to the Wittliff Collections as part of the Texas Heritage Songwriters Association Collection.

“We’re so honored to be the home for the archive of this talented and influential Texas musician,” said Wittliff Collections curator Steve Davis. “Through our partnership with Dr. Gary Hartman and the Center for Texas Music History we are preserving these important records of our cultural heritage. We hope everyone can join us as we applaud Freddy Powers and his exceptional contributions to country music.”

For more information about this event, contact Dr. Gary Hartman, director of Texas State University’s Center for Texas Music History, at gh08@txstate.edu or (512) 245-3749.

Wittliff Collections offer public history students hands-on experience

Thanks to graduate students in Texas State’s Public History program, three important archives at the Wittliff Collections are now fully processed and open for research. Last fall, the students completed arranging and inventorying these holdings, under the guidance of Lead Archivist Katie Salzmann, as part of their coursework in archives management. Working in groups of four, they applied what they learned in readings and in class to make the Robert Benton, Ron Querry, and Jack Jackson collections available to anyone interested in the creative processes of these literary artists.

The Robert Benton Papers document the career of the Academy Award-winning screenwriter and director from Texas. Projects represented by scripts, production and publicity materials, photographs, and set designs include Kramer vs. Kramer, Still of the Night, Places in the Heart, Billy Bathgate, and Nobody’s Fool.

Choctaw Nation member Ron Querry is the acclaimed author of the novels The Death of Bernadette Lefthand and Bad Medicine, which depict the intersection of white and native worlds. Of Querry’s writing, Tony Hillerman said, “The Death of Bernadette Lefthand should rank among the classics of American fiction.” Querry’s papers include notes, drafts, and other materials relating to these novels and his other writings, as well as Querry’s personal correspondence, photographs, and subject files.

Jack Jackson, also known as Jaxon, is widely considered the author of the first underground comic to be sold, called “God Nose.” Later in his career, he found success as an illustrator and author of historical fiction. That work forms the bulk of this collection and includes research material, drafts, and illustrations for his titles, including Columbus, Imaginary Kingdom: Texas As Seen by the Rivera & Rubi Military Expeditions, and Shooting the Sun: Cartographic Results of Military Activities in Texas.

The inventories, or “finding aids” for these and all of the Wittliff's processed archives in the Southwestern Writers Collection are available through the A-Z Guide in the Research section of the website, www.thewittliffcollections.txstate.edu. Need help identifying a research topic within these or any other of the Wittliff resources? Explore some suggestions at www.thewittliffcollections.txstate.edu/research/a-z/researchtopics.html, or call the Wittliff Collections at 245.3861 for one-on-one assistance.

Michele M. Miller, Wittliff Collections

Celebrating Edwin "Bud" Shrake at the Southwestern Writers Collection

SATURDAY, APRIL 26 — BOOK LAUNCH Land of the Permanent Wave An Edwin “Bud” Shrake Reader By Bud Shrake Edited and with an introduction by Steven L. Davis Foreword by Larry L. King

The best works by one of Texas’s most influential writers take center stage in Land of the Permanent Wave: An Edwin “Bud” Shrake Reader, the newest volume in the Southwestern Writers Collection Book Series published by the University of Texas Press.  The series originates from The Wittliff Collections, literary and photographic archives at Texas State University in San Marcos. The public is invited to the book launch, Saturday, April 26, which will feature a book signing with Shrake and acclaimed actor G.W. Bailey reading from the author’s work.

Admission is free. Attendees are encouraged to RSVP either by phone (512) 245-2313 or email southwesternwriters@txstate.edu. The Wittliff Collections are located on the seventh floor of the Alkek Library, Texas State University-San Marcos. Directions online: www.thewittliffcollections.txstate.edu.
##

Proposed Website will Provide Overview of Dick J. Reavis Papers

In September 2006, the Southwestern Writers Collection (SWWC) announced the opening of the Dick J. Reavis Papers for research. Since then, Reavis’s manuscript archive has become one of the most frequently accessed in the collection for one reason—his extensive research materials on the 1993 Branch Davidian-FBI standoff outside Waco, Texas, collected while writing his 1995 book, The Ashes of Waco. Still in print today, Reavis’s book remains one of the most comprehensive and balanced accounts of this highly controversial incident in U.S. history.

Recognizing the raid, siege, and burning of the Branch Davidian center as a major story being covered by the press only from the government’s perspective, Reavis spent two years reporting and investigating the incident, its players, and causes. Reavis’s research went beyond the book’s publication. His role as an investigator expanded, and he became one of the few impartial experts on the subject. Reavis eventually testified in Congressional hearings as an expert witness, based on his investigation of the topic.

This April marks the 15th anniversary of the tragic ending of the siege at Mount Carmel, and the SWWC is working to secure grant funds to create an online exhibit with the Reavis materials. Because of the international attention the incident received, the chaotic and violent nature in which it began and ended, and the further domestic terrorism it engendered in Oklahoma City, research interest remains high. The Dick J. Reavis Papers at the SWWC have been used as sources for at least two documentaries, including “Assault on Waco,” aired on the Discovery Channel.

The proposed website will provide an overview of the incident and a brief history of the groups involved, as well as a case study in law enforcement and “cult” relations. The bulk of the digitized objects to be made available are the negotiation transcripts and recordings, and the video created by the federal government during the siege.

For more information or to access the Reavis files to do research of your own, call (512) 245-2313, email jm206@txstate.edu, or stop by the SWWC at The Wittliff Collections on the library’s seventh floor. Research hours are posted online.

Dagoberto Gilb Reading at the Library (March 4, Tuesday)

DAGOBERTO GILB Reading & book signing

TUESDAY, MARCH 4
3:30 pm
The Wittliff Collections
Southwestern Writers Collection
Alkek Library Seventh Floor

FREE and open to the public

The Wittliff Collections host acclaimed author Dagoberto Gilb reading from his new novel, The Flowers, published by Grove Press. The reading will be followed by a Q&A and book signing. Books will be for sale courtesy of the University Bookstore.

DAGOBERTO GILB received the Texas Book Festival Bookend Award for Ongoing Literary Achievement in 2007 and is editor of Hecho en Tejas, the Southwestern Writers Collection anthology of Texas Mexican literature. A tenured professor in the Creative Writing Program at Texas State and member of The Wittliff Collections Advisory Board, Gilb has seen his work translated into French, Italian, Japanese, German, Spanish, and Dutch. Other books by Gilb include The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuña, Woodcuts of Women, and Gritos: Essays. His first published collection of short stories, The Magic of Blood, won the PEN/Hemingway Award.

For more information, contact The Wittliff Collections at 512.245.2313.

Labels: dagoberto gilb, southwestern writers, wittliff collections

Mystery Writers & Live Music at the Library (February 23, Saturday)

LONE STAR SLEUTHS DAY Meet & Greet with Fifteen Texas Mystery Writers plus Acoustic Noir Songs Performed Live

FEBRUARY 23, Saturday
2:00 to 5:00 pm

THE PUBLIC IS INVITED to LONE STAR SLEUTHS DAY celebrating the new Texas crime fiction anthology in the Southwestern Writers Collection Book Series with UT Press. Fifteen of the contributing mystery writers and the three editors, Bill Cunningham, Steven L. Davis, and Rollo K. Newsom, will be on hand to talk with guests and sign books.

SCHEDULED AUTHORS
Susan Wittig Albert, Neal Barrett, Jr., Paula Boyd, Susan Rogers Cooper, Bill Crider, A.W. Gray, Rolando Hinojosa, Joe R. Lansdale, David Lindsey, Ben Rehder, Rick Riordan, Jim Sanderson, Jesse Sublett, Doug J. Swanson, Mary Willis Walker

LIVE MUSIC
Author/musician Jesse Sublett and country singer Kasey Lansdale will perform acoustic noir songs.

Catered refreshments will be served.
Books by all attending authors will be for sale.

Free and open to the public.

ATTENDEES, PLEASE RSVP
to southwesternwriters@txstate.edu or (512) 245-2313.

THE WITTLIFF COLLECTIONS
Southwestern Writers Collection
Alkek Library Seventh Floor
Texas State University-San Marcos
(512) 245-2313
http://www.thewittliffcollections.txstate.edu/

Read more about Lone Star Sleuths: An Anthology of Texas Crime Fiction from UT Press
http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/cunlop.html

Library Collections Unite Under New Name: the Wittliff Collections

The Southwestern Writers Collection and Wittliff Gallery are now The Wittliff Collections at the Alkek Library.

When the Southwestern Writers Collection was founded at the university library in 1986, its collecting activities focused on the literature, film, and music of the region.  It was only several years later that the collection of photographs of the Southwest and Mexico began to form, and in 1996 the Wittliff Gallery of Southwestern & Mexican Photography was formally christened.

Each collection, although operating as one organization within Texas State, continued to function separately for the most part in terms of archival activities, exhibitions, and public programming. However, it became increasingly complicated to explain how each repository was separate, but not separate.

In an effort to convey the composite nature of the collections, unite them under a common name, and acknowledge the great and generous contributions of the founding donors, the two counterparts will now be known officially as:

The Wittliff Collections

Where necessary, the terms “Southwestern Writers Collection” and “Southwestern & Mexican Photography Collection” will be used to refer to the components of The Wittliff Collections.

Bookmark the new website address: www.thewittliffcollections.txstate.edu  which can be accessed for exhibits and events info, author and artist inventories, and much more.

We are in the process of changing all pertinent materials and documents.
At this time, all location codes in the library catalog will remain as they are.

THE WITTLIFF COLLECTIONS offer a dynamic archival, exhibition, programming, and research environment designed to further the cultural legacy of the region’s literary and photographic arts, and foster “the spirit of place” in the wider world.

The Southwestern Writers Collection preserves and exhibits the literary papers and artifacts of principal writers, filmmakers, and musicians, including the major archives of Cormac McCarthy, Sam Shepard, and John Graves, Fox’s animated series King of the Hill, and the CBS miniseries Lonesome Dove.

The Southwestern & Mexican Photography Collection includes the major holdings of such renowned artists as Kate Breakey, Keith Carter, and Graciela Iturbide, and houses the largest archive of modern and contemporary Mexican photography in the United States.

Connie Todd, Curator
The Wittliff Collections, Alkek Library, 7th floor

 

Southwestern Writers Collection acquires Cormac McCarthy papers

The Southwestern Writers Collection (SWWC), a part of The Wittliff Collections at the Alkek Library, has acquired the papers of author Cormac McCarthy.

McCarthy’s body of work includes some of the finest novels of our times. Critic Harold Bloom declares Blood Meridian (1985) “the authentic American apocalyptic novel,” stating, “The fulfilled renown of Moby-Dick and of As I Lay Dying is augmented by Blood Meridian, since Cormac McCarthy is the worthy disciple both of Melville and of Faulkner. I venture that no other living American novelist, not even Pynchon, has given us a book as strong and memorable….”

In 1992, McCarthy won the National Book Award for the New York Times bestseller All the Pretty Horses, and in 2006 he was given the Pulitzer Prize for his most recent novel, The Road. The recipient of numerous other awards, including a Rockefeller Foundation Grant, Guggenheim Fellowship and MacArthur Fellowship (the so-called “genius” grant), Cormac McCarthy has been highly praised from the very start of his career.

No Country for Old Men, on which the recent film by Joel and Ethan Coen is based, was touted by Sam Shepard as “a monster of a book. Cormac McCarthy achieves monumental results by a kind of drip-by-drip process of ruthless simplicity. It will leave you panting and awestruck.” In December, the movie was named best film of 2007 by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.

A room designated for the Cormac McCarthy Collection, will be located within the Southwestern Writers Collection on the Alkek Library’s seventh floor, and will be equipped for exhibits, study, and related activities.

Public events are being planned, and will be announced.

Read the full news release here.