A Celebration of our State’s Big Appetite for Literature brought to you by Writing Workshops Dallas and Gemini Ink.

A Free Monthly Online Reading Series from Writing Workshops Dallas & Gemini Ink
(Zoom Meetings Monthly @ 7pm CST; RSVP for Zoom invite)

THE PITCH
Unplug from the outside world and JOIN us at The Big Texas Read (TBTR) brought to you by Writing Workshops Dallas and Gemini Ink. As featured in Poets&Writers, Forbes, The Dallas Morning News, San Antonio Express-News, U.S. News & World Report, San Francisco Chronicle, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Houston Chronicle, and Texas Highways, we’ll be reading one work of prose or poetry written by a Texas author every month—with Zoom author chats and Q&A’s. It’s a big virtual book club and we’d love for you to join us!
RSVP

August 17th, 2022 via Zoom @ 7PM CST

Up Next: We’re reading and discussing Laurie Ann Guerrero’s collection of poems in the TCU Texas Poets Laureate Series: I Have Eaten the Rattlesnake. The discussion will be moderated by Xelena González, author of the upcoming title Remembering (Simon & Schuster, 2023).

About I Have Eaten the Rattlesnake; New and Selected Poems

This collection of Guerrero’s new and selected work documents the struggle to both honor and disrupt cultural, social, and familial traditions and histories. Hers is an honest and fearless examination of racism, sexism, domestic abuse, illness, and loss.

Feminist writer, mother, and educator, Guerrero has been described by the San Antonio Current as “a badass of poetic proportions.” In her poems, bodies sway “above the cotton-like sheets on a line,” women turn into roosters, grief is carried like a newborn, snake venom is made in the marrow of the atlas bone, and the greatest revolution is “to sing graveside, to whisper intention into bowls of beans, to dance / without fear or fight.” With her unfailingly bold imagery and sharp eye, this collection of Guerrero’s work is a carefully constructed artifact by a poet who works and thinks with her hands. This volume is the fourteenth in the TCU Press Texas Poet Laureate series.

About Laurie Ann Guerrero

Poet Laureate of San Antonio (2014-2016) and of Texas (2016-2017), Laurie Ann Guerrero is the author of four collections including A Tongue in the Mouth of the Dying (Notre Dame 2013) and A Crown for Gumecindo (Aztlan Libre 2015). Her most recent collection, I Have Eaten the Rattlesnake: New & Selected Poems (TCU Press) was released in the spring of 2021. She is an Associate Professor and the Writer-in-Residence at Texas A&M University-San Antonio where she teaches writing and gender studies. 

About Xelena González

Xelena González is a storyteller, dancer, and visiting author who centers self-love in her multi-disciplinary workshops for all ages. Her picture books include the award-winning ALL AROUND US (Cinco Puntos Press, 2017), the recently-released WHERE WONDER GROWS (Lee & Low, 2022), and the forthcoming title REMEMBERING (Simon & Schuster, 2023). Her writing for adults includes poetry, essays, screenwriting, and a body of visionary fiction entitled LOTERIA REMEDIOS (Hay House, 2024). Xelena has enjoyed a 15-year friendship with Laurie Ann that began at Gemini Ink.

UPCOMING AUTHORS AND TITLES

Sept 21: Carmen Tafolla and Regina Moya, The Last Butterfly/La Ultima Mariposa
Oct 19: Jill Alexander Essbaum, Hausfrau
Nov 16: Daniel Peña, Bang: A Novel
Dec 14:Tomás Q. Morin, Let Me Count the Ways

 

PREVIOUS AUTHORS AND TITLES

​Alexandra van de Kamp, Ricochet Script 
Wondra Chang, Sonju
Johnnie Bernhard, Sisters of the Undertow
Barbara Ras,The Blues of Heaven
Mike Soto, A Grave is Given Supper
Deb Olin Unferth, Barn 8
Marisol Cortez, Luz At Midnight
Sergio Troncoso, A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son
Edward Vidaurre, Pandemia & Other Poems
Octavio Quintanilla, If I Go Missing
Sherry Kafka Wagner, Hannah Jackson
Nan Cuba, Body and Bread
Cliff Hudder, Pretty Enough for You
Rebekah Manley, Alexandra and the Awful, Awkward, No Fun, Truly Bad Dates A Picture Book Parody for Adults
Jenny Browne, Fellow Travelers: New and Selected Poems (TCU Poet Laureate Series)
Amanda Eyre Ward, The Jetsetters
Heather Harper Ellett, Ain’t Nobody Nobody. 
Andrea Vocab Sanderson, She Lives in Music
Antonio Ruiz-Camacho: Barefoot Dogs
Poet Wendy Barker: Gloss
Debut Novelist Fowzia Karimi: Above Us the Milky Way
Edgar-winning novelist Joe R. Lansdale: Edge of Dark Water
Winner of the Iowa Prize for Nonfiction Kendra Allen: When You Learn the Alphabet
2020 Texas Poet Laureate Emmy Pérez: With The River on Our Face
New York Times Bestselling Author Kathleen Kent: The Dime & The Burn
Critically Acclaimed Novelist David Samuel Levinson: Tell Me How This Ends Well

PARTNER BOOKSTORES
We’re grateful to partner with independent bookstores Interabang Books in Dallas and The Twig Book Shop in San Antonio for The Big Texas Read. Order your book directly from either bookstore and have it delivered to your front door!