Sandra Cisneros is an American writer. She is best known for her first novel, The House on Mango Street (1983), and her subsequent short story collection, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991). Her work experiments with literary forms that investigate emerging subject positions, which Cisneros herself attributes to growing up in a context of cultural hybridity and economic inequality that endowed her with unique stories to tell. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, was awarded one of 25 new Ford Foundation Art of Change fellowships in 2017, and is regarded as a key figure in Chicano literature.
James Frank Dobie was an American folklorist, writer, and newspaper columnist best known for his many books depicting the richness and traditions of life in rural Texas during the days of the open range. He was known in his lifetime for his outspoken liberal views against Texas state politics, and he carried out a long, personal war against what he saw as braggart Texans, religious prejudice, restraints on individual liberty, and the mechanized world's assault on the human spirit. He was instrumental in saving the Texas Longhorn breed of cattle from extinction.
Katherine Anne Porter was an American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, poet and political activist. Her 1962 novel Ship of Fools was the best-selling novel in America that year, but her short stories received much more critical acclaim. In 1966 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the U.S. National Book Award for The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter.
Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa was an American scholar of Chicana feminism, cultural theory, and queer theory. She loosely based her best-known book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987), on her life growing up on the Mexico–Texas border and incorporated her lifelong experiences of social and cultural marginalization into her work. She also developed theories about the marginal, in-between, and mixed cultures that develop along borders, including on the concepts of Nepantla, Coyoxaulqui imperative, new tribalism, and spiritual activism. Her other notable publications include This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981), co-edited with Cherríe Moraga.
Charles William Goyen was an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, poet, editor, and teacher. Born in a small town in East Texas, these roots would influence his work for his entire life.
Edwin A. "Bud" Shrake, Jr. was an American journalist, sportswriter, novelist, biographer and screenwriter. He co-wrote a series of golfing advice books with golf coach Harvey Penick, including Harvey Penick's Little Red Book, a golf guide that became the best-selling sports book in publishing history. Called a “lion of Texas letters” by the Austin American-Statesman, Shrake was a member of the Texas Film Hall of Fame, and received the Lon Tinkle lifetime achievement award from the Texas Institute of Letters and the Texas Book Festival Bookend Award.
The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter is a volume of her previously published collections of fiction and four uncollected works of short fiction.
Mexican American literature is literature written by Mexican Americans in the United States. Although its origins can be traced back to the sixteenth century, the bulk of Mexican American literature dates from post-1848 and the United States annexation of large parts of Mexico in the wake of the Mexican–American War. Today, as a part of American literature in general, this genre includes a vibrant and diverse set of narratives, prompting critics to describe it as providing "a new awareness of the historical and cultural independence of both northern and southern American hemispheres". Chicano literature is an aspect of Mexican American literature.
Guernica Editions is a Canadian independent publisher established in Montreal, Quebec, in 1978, by Antonio D'Alfonso. Guernica specializes in Canadian literature, poetry, fiction and nonfiction.
Mary Austin Holley (1784–1846) was an American historical writer best known as the author of the first known English-language history of Texas, Texas (1833), expanded in 1836 into History of Texas. She was a cousin of Stephen F. Austin, who arranged for Holley to receive a land grant on Galveston Bay. Although Holley visited Texas five times, she was never able to afford to move there.
John Crittenden Duval (1816–1897) was an American writer of Texas literature. He has been noted as being the first Texas man of letters and was dubbed the "Father of Texas Literature" by J. Frank Dobie. His Early Times in Texas was initially published serially in 1867 in Burke's Weekly and was finally published in book form in 1892. The story, which became a Texas classic, recounted Duval's escape from the Goliad Massacre, in which his brother, Burr H. Duval, was killed, as well as other tales.
Peter LaSalle is an American novelist, short story writer, and travel essayist.
Caballero: A Historical Novel, often known only as Caballero, is a historical romance novel coauthored by Jovita González and Margaret Eimer. Written in the 1930s and early 1940s, but not published until 1996, the novel is sometimes called Texas's Gone with the Wind.
Jovita González was a well-respected Mexican-American folklorist, educator, and writer, best known for writing Caballero: A Historical Novel. González was also involved in the commencement in the League of United Latin American Citizens and was the first female and the first Mexican-American to be the president of the Texas Folklore Society from 1930 to 1932. She saw a disconnect between Mexican-Americans and Anglos so in a lot of her work, she promoted Mexican culture and tried to ease the tensions between each group.
Lowell Mick White is an American fiction writer living in Texas whose work focuses on the changing relationships between physical place and the individual.
The Texas Institute of Letters is a non-profit Honor Society founded by William Harvey Vann in 1936 to celebrate Texas literature and to recognize distinctive literary achievement. The TIL’s elected membership consists of the state’s most respected writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, journalism, and scholarship. Induction into the TIL is based on literary accomplishments. Application for membership is not accepted. The rules governing the selection of members and officers are contained in the TIL By-Laws. The TIL annually elects new members, gives awards to recognize outstanding literary works, and supports the Dobie Paisano Fellowship Program for writers.
The Gay Place (1961) is a series of three novellas, with interlocking plots and characters, by American author Billy Lee Brammer. The novellas, published in a single book, include The Flea Circus, Room Enough to Caper and Country Pleasures. Set in an unnamed state identical to Texas, each novella has a different protagonist: Roy Sherwood, a member of the state legislature; Neil Christiansen, the state's junior senator; and Jay McGown, the governor's speechwriter. The governor himself, Arthur Fenstemaker, a master politician serves as the dominant figure throughout. The book also includes characters based on Brammer, his wife Nadine, Johnson's wife Ladybird, and his brother Sam Houston Johnson.
Latino literature is literature written by people of Latin American ancestry, often but not always in English, most notably by Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans, and Dominican Americans, many of whom were born in the United States. The origin of the term "Latino literature" dates back to the 1960s, during the Chicano Movement, which was a social and political movement by Mexican Americans seeking equal rights and representation. At the time, the term "Chicano literature" was used to describe the work of Mexican-American writers. As the movement expanded, the term "Latino" came into use to encompass writers of various Latin American backgrounds, including Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and others.
Ire'ne Lara Silva is a Chicana feminist poet and writer from Austin, Texas. Her parents were migrant farmworkers. She has published numerous works of poetry and her short story collection won the 2013 Premio Aztlán Literary Prize. A central theme of her work is Indigenous survival and perseverance despite colonization: "let's empower ourselves with that knowledge."
Florence Duval West was a 19th-century American poet. Her published works include The Land of the Lotus Eaters, and The Marble Lily and Other Poems. As a letter writer, she had few, if any equals.
