Book Smart

Beloved Texas Book Festival reveals star author lineup for 2022

Texas Book Festival returns in full force this fall.

Courtesy of Texas Book Festival

After two years of virtual and hybrid programming, the Texas Book Festival is returning in full in-person force November 5 and 6 in downtown Austin. With a sizable list of impressive literary talent for readers of all ages, the beloved bookworm gathering has uncovered 15 authors that will headline the fest.

The festival will feature Screen Actors Guild Award recipient and nine-time NAACP Image Award winner Omar Epps, Good Morning America Book Club Pick author and Women’s Prize finalist Angie Cruz, Texas literary legend and author of 73 New York Times bestsellers Sandra Brown, Pulitzer Prize finalist and Guggenheim Fellow biologist David George Haskell, NYT bestselling children’s author-illustrator and Caldecott medalist Michaela Goade, and many more.

“This announcement marks the beginning of our Festival season, and we are very excited to bring talented authors and thousands of readers together again at our beloved annual event, ” says Lois Kim, the festival's executive director. “We hope all Texans, young and old, newly Texan or 7th generation, are marking their calendars to join us for an epic literary weekend.”

Included in the sneak peek on July 13 is actor-producer Omar Epps, known for his roles in House, Shooter, This Is Us, and many more television shows and feature films. Epps will present his debut young-adult novel Nubia: The Awakening, an epic Afro-futurist saga billed as perfect for fans of Black Panther.

Returning to the festival is Angie Cruz, the award-winning author who debuted her first novel, Soledad, at Texas Book Festival 2001. Cruz will present her new work, How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water, about a woman who, faced with an unexpected job loss amid the Great Recession, reevaluates her life. Texas native and formerTBF First Edition Literary Gala emcee (2003) Sandra Brown also returns, presenting her latest novel, Overkill, in which a former NFL superstar struggles with a crisis of conscience and juggles a life-or-death decision.

"There’s something special about seeing authors in-person again," says TBF literary director Matthew Patin. "Virtual programming provided us, and continues to provide, creative opportunities, yet nothing quite matches an author visiting Austin once more. In pre-COVID times we took a physical appearance for a given, but now it feels that much more valuable and important. And the fifteen names here are only a fraction of what’s to come.”

The full list of sneak peek authors includes:

Vishwesh Bhatt, I Am From Here: Stories and Recipes from a Southern Chef
Sandra Brown, Overkill
Sandra Cisneros, Woman Without Shame: Poems
Angie Cruz, How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water
Erin Entrada Kelly, Those Kids from Fawn Creek
James Kirchick, Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington
Omar Epps, Nubia: The Awakening
Sidik Fofana, Stories from the Tenants Downstairs
Michaela Goade, Berry Song
Xochitl Gonzalez, Olga Dies Dreaming
David George Haskell, Sounds Wild and Broken: Sonic Marvels, Evolution's Creativity, and the Crisis of Sensory Extinction
Elizabeth McCracken, The Hero of This Book
Matt de la Peña, Patchwork
Mary Laura Philpott, Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives
Roger Reeves, Best Barbarian: Poems

New

Historic Austin museum will close for more than a year for restoration

Photo courtesy of the City of Austin

The Elisabet Ney Museum will close at the end of 2024 and reopen in mid-2026.

Every building needs some maintenance here or there, and the historic Elisabet Ney Museum needs some extra-special care. Formerly the art studio and residence of its namesake, it's been standing since 1892. It'll spend 2025 in relative solitude, as it undergoes renovation for a year and a half with no visitors allowed.

The museum will close to the public December 30, 2024, and open again in the summer of 2026 if all goes according to plan, a news release from the City of Austin shares. It'll be a quiet period compared to the 21,000 people visiting from around the world each year.

According to a museum overview on the city's website, Elisabet Ney, a European portrait sculptor, bought the property and called her new studio Formosa. She worked on sculptures depicting important Texans like Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston, and collected works of European contemporaries.

The building at 304 East 44th St. includes 3,700 square feet of museum space, which was converted by Ney's friends after her death in 1907. It retains its unique look that juxtaposes a Neo-Classical main studio from 1892 with a later addition from 1902 including a tower for her husband, Edmund, to write in. It is also on 2.5 acres of land, which has largely been restored to its natural state with native species.

A press release lists these tasks (verbatim) within the scope of the new work, referred to as the Capital Improvement Project (CIP):

Restoration of original exterior wood doors and windows
Upgrades and replacement of the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system
Replacement of the exhibit and general lighting systems
Repairs to the roof, masonry, plumbing, and interior finishes.

There will also be work to do outside of the building. Workers will replace the pedestrian bridge across Waller Creek, stabilize a 20,000-square-foot portion of the bank, and make the grounds more accessible by adding new pathways.

Funding comes from several sources, according to a release: "the 2012 Bond, Proposition 14, the Parkland Dedication Fund, the Historic Preservation Fund, Partners in Preservation through the National Trust, and contributions from the Friends of the Elisabet Ney Museum."

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