Writer worship

We got front row seats for Susan Orlean's presentation at the Texas Book Festival. She talked about her latest book, The Library Book. That is her on the left. The lady in green is Elizabeth McCracken, also a fine writer, who was Susan's moderator.

The winning poems

Here are the winning poems from the event we highlighted yesterday.

Our honorees

Each year, Linda and I review a stack of poems and stories by local students in the Badgerdog creative writing program sponsored by the Austin Public Library Friends Foundation and pick winners and runners-up for 3-6th graders and 7-12th graders. Here you see your blogger Forrest with three of the winners. The fourth one couldn't make the event. We will show you the two winning poems tomorrow.

A great writer speaks

Our friend Elizabeth Crook was honored at the Library Friends Foundation event the other night. She has a number of novels in print.

Flamenco Inspiration

Sarah Bird wrote a novel inspired by the culture of Flamenco dancing ("The Flamenco Academy") and last night, courtesy of the Badgerdog Publishing annual event, Sarah read some of the novel while the singing, guitar and dance would come alive behind her. Here she pauses to watch Olivia Chacón dance. Great evening of raising money for a great cause. FFP has worked tirelessly with this group to raise money for their work to bring writing to the community and to the country.

O. Henry Museum

As Wikipedia says "not to be confused with 'O Henry!' the candy bar." William Henry Porter lived in Austin in the late 19th century in this house which is on East Fifth Street. It is now a museum run by the City of Austin Parks and Rec. He wrote "Gift of the Magi" as most people know. Some also know he wrote a lot of his stories in prison, hence the pen name. A modern "Gift of the Magi" might be a guy selling his Play Station to get his girl the workout game for her Wii and meanwhile she sells the Wii to get him Guitar Hero or Rock Star or something. [Disclaimer: I have no game console of any kind and am only vaguely aware of what this tradeoff would be. Old women should avoid trying to be amusing in this way, but I couldn't help myself.]