Breaking news, look at the RITA 2009 finalist list
Holy Cow look who made the 2009 RITA Finalists for Paranormal Romance
The Darkest Night by Gena Showalter
Harlequin Enterprises, HQN (ISBN: 0373772467)
Tracy Farrell and Margo Lipschultz, editors
The Healer by Sharon Sala
Harlequin Enterprises, HQN (ISBN: 978-0-778-2544-4)
Leslie Wainger, editor
If for some unknown reason you don’t know what the RITA Awards are all about: Romance Writers of America biggest awards!!!
RITA awards are presented annually to the best published romance novels of the year. The award itself is a golden statuette named after RWA’s first president, Rita Clay Estrada, and has become the symbol for the best in published romance fiction.
Michael Wallis keynote speaker at the OK Historical Society Annual members meeting
Michael Wallis, who I hope you all know as a renowned Oklahoma author or if not, maybe the voice of the Sheriff of Radiator Springs in the Pixar Cars movie, will be the keynote speaker for the luncheon at the Oklahoma Historical Society’s Annual Meeting in Bartlesville. This meeting will be April 23rd, so you need to move along if you want to attend. How do you get asked to this yummy affair? To join OHS go to their membership pages and pick the one that’s right for you.
Michael Wallis is THE guy to make you proud to be an “Okie” and get over our inferiority complex. He has been the receipient of the Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award, from the Oklahoma Center for the Book. We are happy to say this hasn’t stopped him from achieving many more lifetime achievements. 
If you want to get started on one of his books, go to Way Down Yonder in the Indian Nation. Then off to Route 66: The Mother Road. And of course don’t miss his award winning, The Real Wild West: The 101 Ranch and the making of the American West. All of his books are carefully researched. You can tell by the awards he racks in: Winner of the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame; Oklahoma Book Award from the Oklahoma Center for the Book ; and the Spur Award from the Western Writers of America.
It’s just down right un-Oklahoman to not read Mr. Wallis.
Kim Doner is On a Road in Africa
Oklahoma Center for the Book 2009 Finalist Kim Doner takes us on a ride with Mama O (Chryssee Perry Martin) to feed and tend to the animals at the Nairobi Animal Orphanage. Kim is obviously a very accomplished illustrator. This, her ninth children’s book, is written by her in verse. You can tell her enthusiasm for her topic throughout the book.
The front and back inside covers share Kenyan words with their english equivalent. The last pages show pictures of the real Mama O and her animals with their many caregivers.
For a fun book with Kim Doner as illustrator, check out Molly Griffis’ The Buffalo in the Mall. If you’re looking for another one written by Kim, my favorite is Buffalo Dreams. 
Buffalo in the Mall is for ages 4 to 7, and Buffalo Dreams for 7 and up.
Crosstimbers
Crosstimbers magazine is an amazing find. Published by the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, it includes; poetry, reviews, art, non-fiction and fiction articles and mostly by Oklahoma authors and illustrators.
( my scan of the magazine cover isn’t all that great, but please don’t judge this magazine by its cover)
For example, this issue has poetry by Sandra Soli, Robert Ferrier, Carol Hamilton, Chris Ellery, Audrey Streetman, Ann Brown and Robert Cooperman. There’s an article on Mary Welborn, “Art with a Mission : the New Botanicals.” She has an exhibit at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, from Feb.25th to April 22.
The exhibit is on display at the McDermott Learning Center from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every day during the spring. The Wildflower Center is located at 4801 La Crosse Avenue in Austin, just off Loop 1 South (MoPac Boulevard). For information, call 292-4200. or www.wildflower.org
This month’s Crosstimbers also includes a thought provoking article by Tonnia L. Anderson, “On Remembering the Familiar: The Cultural Politics of Depression Era Photographs of Blacks.” Reviews of books like, Weigland’s Books on Trial and Klein’s Grappling with Demon Rum“. There’s an article on Nathan Brown, one of the Oklahoma Center for the Book finalists in poetry. And even an article on Train travel in America by Layne Thrift and J. C. Casey.
But if you want to read all this for yourself, USAO is very kind to post the current issue on the internet. Current issues are located on the Crosstimbers website. This is one great deal.
Carolyn D. Wall, Sweeping Up Glass
The most powerful novel I have read this year is Carolyn Wall’s Sweeping Up Glass.
Currently published by Poisoned Pen Press (hardback), with Random House picking it up and releasing it in paperback, August 2009.
ISBN-10: 1-59058-512-7 (1590585127) Poisoned Pen Press
ISBN: 978-0-385-34303-9 (0-385-34303-5) Random House (paperback)
Sweeping Up Glass is set in 1938 Kentucky, dirt poor times and determined folks barely hanging on. Olivia Harker lives with her abandoned grandson, and her crazy mom Ida, who inhabits the shack out behind their tiny country store. Olivia has her own mothering issues, her daughter has left her and her son behind. Will’m is the only bright light in Olivia’s life. This is a tale of poverty, race, love lost and found, failed relationships, and somewhere in it all the possibility of hope.
The most poignant parts of the novel are the interplay of race relations as it affects the characters particularly Olivia during her childhood and latter the decisions she must make. What we see and fail to see determined by the color of our skin. The catalyst for the story is the needless slaughter of the silver faced wolves and the mirroring of cruelty of man against man.
The story is a strong one, but in my opinion what makes this an outstanding debut novel are the characters. Olivia and Ida, Will’m and Pap, Junk and Love Alice, and the Cott’ners filled with hate. The ending will startle you, jar you, and hold you spell bound through the final chapters. I won’t spoil any of it for you.
Jim Chastain, Nathan Brown, Dorothy Alexander, Okie Poets
NewsOK just this last Sunday did an excellent article on one of our Oklahoma poets, Jim Chastain. He is a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Awards for his book of poetry, Antidotes & Home Remedies, Village Books Press. Jim is an inspiration to all of us in how to live a fulfilled life while struggling with adversity. He expresses his journey through his prose and poetry, and invites us along for the rough ride. He is currently writing a blog for NewsOK. Visit there for samples of his poetry.
Nathan Brown and Jim Chastain are friends and colleagues, both on the finalist list for the Oklahoma Book Awards. Way to go you two!
This is Nathan’s finalist book. I picked a poem from another of his books, because it’s about the Okie heat and I want my friend to read it who is always gripping about our lovely summers.
Burn
Oklahoma in July
is a marshmallow
in a bonfire;
a branding iron
on the face;
a toad in the slow-
ly heated pot;
where Fahrenheit
screams until its eyes
turn red–
until the blood
rises in its mercurial veins.
…from the book Ashes Over the Southwest
BAM’s blog highlights Dorothy Alexander reading her poetry and her book is also an Oklahoma Book Award finalist, Lessons From An Oklahoma Girlhood, Village Books Press. 
Village Books Press is a small Oklahoma press dedicated to providing a voice and venue for Oklahoma poets, artist and writers. My understanding is Dorothy Alexander runs this publishing house in Cheyenne, Oklahoma.
So if you don’t think Poetry when you think Oklahoma you better start…..
Marcia Preston’s Trudy’s Promise
Finished Marcia Preston’s book, Trudy’s Promise, which is on the Oklahoma Book Award Finalists’ list. 
This is a book of political ideologies played out against family, relationships, trust and loyalty. Trudy Hulst loses her husband during his failed attempt to flee East Berlin and gain his freedom. Soon after she is forced to leave her only child, Stefan behind to save herself from prison. This is the story of her unfailing attempts to re-unite with her child. Historical references continue to draw you into her story.
First, the stark reality of the Berlin Wall, locking an entire city and people behind it. Then the dichotomy of Rolf and Wolfgang’s political ideologies. Rolf, Trudy’s husband forced to be part of Hitler’s Youth growing up, grew to hate everything communism stood for, and helped others flee its politics. His boyhood friend, Wolfgang, who was allowed to leave Germany during the war years, comes back and finds a home in the repressive East Berlin regime, sympathizing with its beliefs and struggling to rise in its ranks.
Constantly looking for a way to get her son back and to get him to West Berlin, Trudy avails herself of aid from a disingenuous American, accompanying the Kennedy visit in 1963. This is the one part of the story where I had to suspend belief and accept it as a literary device to get Trudy to America and propel the story forward. It’s just too hard for me to believe that one of the President’s motocade limos would stop and help someone they bumped against, and bring them to America after hearing their story. The cynic in me thinks they would probably have arrested her or maybe just run over her.
America is of course America, and Trudy is used by her political “friend” to further his career. She does make some headway in her quest to free her son and then when she has hopes of meeting with Mrs. Kennedy and perhaps the President, he is killed in Dallas. Historical references again take over and we re-live the assasination of our president and the grief the world experienced.
Trudy is forced back to Germany to keep her promise to Stefan. Wolfgang has been Stefan’s caretaker when his grandmother passed away, and changes in his behavior and beliefs are beginning to take place. You will discover who is friend and foe, who is the stronger character and what becomes of a mother’s promise to her son.
The writing is good, the history and characters interesting. However, I thought there were a few too many coincidences or lucky circumstances to make the story believable.
Not feeling the romance…
Romance, Valentine’s Day, Bah Humbug. Nothing like working at your husband’s flower shop on the “love” holiday to put you out of the romantic mood. Late hours, endless phone calls, desperate boyfriends and spouses trying to get in their last minute order. He’s promised me sushi and wine to keep me going. I happened to look at the newspaper at the shop and saw an article by Sonya Colberg of NewsOK about our own ladies of Romance. (And I’m glad it hasn’t been very long ago that I pointed out the funny videos by Jill Monroe, Gina Showalter and Merline Lovelace.)
So while I’m trying to get myself through another year of frenetic shopping by guys buying for their special honey, you might want to pick up one of the titles from these spinners of the romantic tale and get in the mood yourself. I’ll have to catch up with you when I get these customers moved along.
Oklahoma Romance Writers or OK-RWA
Scissortail Creative Writing Festival, 2009
Scissortail Creative Writing Conference 2009
Oklahoma Authors to present at 4th annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival
The fourth annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival will be April 2 – 4 [2009] at the Estep Multimedia Center, located on the campus of East Central
University. This event is free and open to the public. In addition to the three featured authors, Rilla Askew, Elmer Kelton and LeAnne Howe, the festival will showcase an additional fifty regional authors.
Askew graduated from the University of Tulsa in 1980 and went on to study creative writing at Brooklyn
College, where she received her master of fine arts degree in 1989. Askew’s first novel, The Mercy Seat, received the Oklahoma Book Award and the Western Heritage Award in 1998. Her novel, Fire in Beulah, received the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation and the Myers Book Award from the Gustavus Myers
Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights. Askew’s latest novel, Harpsong, won the 2008 Oklahoma Book Award and Western Heritage Award for Best Novel.
Elmer Kelton is the author of over 40 novels. Four of Kelton’s novels have won the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and seven have won the Spur award from Western Writers of America. In 1998 he received the first Lone Star award for lifetime Achievement from the Larry McMurtry Center for Arts and Humanities at
Midwestern State University, Wichita Falls, Texas. He also received honorary doctorates from Hardin-Simmons University and Texas Tech University. He was given a lifetime achievement award by the National Cowboy Symposium in Lubbock, Texas. His book, The Good Old Boys, was made into a 1995 TV movie starring Tommy Lee Jones for the TNT cable network.
LeAnne Howe is a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and is an American Indian author, playwright, and scholar. Her work primarily deals with American Indian experiences. She attended Oklahoma State University, majoring in English. She obtained her master of fine arts degree in Creative Writing from Vermont College in 2000. Howe’s first novel, Shell Shaker received an American Book Award in 2002 from the Before Columbus Foundation. The novel was a finalist for the 2003 Oklahoma Book Award, and awarded Wordcraft Circle Writer of the Year, 2002, Creative Prose. Evidence of Red received the Oklahoma Book Award for Poetry in 2006.
The Darryl Fisher High School Creative Writing Contest winners will also be awarded during the festival. For more information contact Dr. Ken Hada at 580-559-5557. To view the schedule of readers, visit http://www.ecok.edu/scissortail/Creative_Writing_Festival.asp
Finalists Named, Oklahoma Book Awards
What’s better than the Oscars, the Grammy’s, and the SAG awards? The Oklahoma Book Award winners! and the prelude to the April 4th dinner celebrating the ultimate in Oklahoma authors, are the finalist lists. Just out, hot out of the judges’ mouths, drum roll please…. 
Who are these people that bring us the best of Oklahoma authors year after year. It’s the folks at the Oklahoma Center for the Book, a state affiliate of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. The purpose is to focus attention on the vital role of books and reading. They also have a very cool award dinner, a meet and greet with the authors and a chance to purchase and get autographs from your favorites.
Oklahoma Book Awards are given each year in fiction, non-fiction, children/young adult, poetry, and design/illustration categories for work written by an Oklahoman or about Oklahoma.
Here’s last years happy recipients, note blue ribbons with large bronze medal hanging around their necks.
So check out a finalist, you’ve got time before the winners are announced to pick your favorite. I’m narrowing my choices and we’ll compare notes after the big day.
