Rowdy Books

Texas' vegan cattle rancher to sign memoir at Austin bookstore

Renee King-Sonnen at Rowdy Girl Sanctuary

Renee King-Sonnen tells her story in Rowdy Girl: Confessions of a Vegan Cattle Rancher.

A Texas animal sanctuary owner has told her story in a debut book and is bringing it to Austin for a signing. Renee King-Sonnen, who runs the Rowdy Girl Sanctuary in Waelder, will appear at BookPeople for her first-ever signing on June 26.

Waelder is located along Interstate 10, about evenly between Austin, Houston, and San Antonio. It was where King-Sonnen and her husband Tommy Sonnen ran a cattle ranch before converting it to a vegan sanctuary for animals.

King-Sonnen's life began to change when she started raising a cow she named Rowdy Girl. She has intended to eventually slaughter Rowdy Gal, but becoming closer led her to a change of heart. In 2014, Tommy agreed to sell his herd to Renee if she could pay $30,000 before they're sent to slaughter. Although it was Renee who initiated the change, now Tommy is a vegan, too.

King-Sonnen's new memoir is called Rowdy Girl: Confessions of a Vegan Cattle Rancher. Readers will learn about how animal agriculture works and experience some of the thoughts that led King-Sonnen to challenge her beliefs about animals, food systems, and people's roles in keeping those systems going.

"Life works in mysterious ways - and I believe that bitty calf and I found one another for a reason," wrote King-Sonnen in a Facebook post announcing the BookPeople signing. She adds, "This book is not only about my personal story - it’s about HOW we crack open the meat matrix that dominates our world - most notably in cattle country, Texas in the USA!"

Free registry for the BookPeople signing is open now via Eventbrite. More information about the the event and a link to preorder are available at BookPeople.com. BookPeople is located at 603 N. Lamar Blvd., and the signing starts at 7 pm.

animals vegan vegetarian books

moms deserve better

Texas earns discouraging rank as 9th worst state for working moms

Working mother, best and worst states for working moms in 2026

Photo by Filipp Romanovski on Unsplash

Texas is far from the best state for working mothers, the study determined.

A new national study comparing the best and worst states for working mothers has painted a bleak picture for Texas. The Lone Star State earned a disappointing rank as the ninth worst state for working moms in America.

WalletHub's 2026 report compared the work-life balance, childcare, and professional opportunities for working mothers across all 50 states and the District of Columbia to determine the rankings. Metrics analyzed include the quality of daycares, childcare costs, school system quality, gender pay gaps, the share of families in poverty, female unemployment rates, a parental leave policy score, the average length of a woman's work week (in hours), and much more.

The top five best states for working mothers in America are all located in the Northeast, according to the study. Connecticut claimed the top spot nationally, and Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Vermont respectfully rounded out the top five.

Texas ranked as the 43rd "best" state overall. The bottom three worst states for working moms are Louisiana (No. 51), Alabama (No. 50), and New Mexico (No. 49).

Texas' best ranking was in the national comparison of states with the best median salaries for women, adjusted for the local cost of living. The state ranked No. 22 overall, but it earned middling and poor ranks across numerous additional categories.

The average length of a woman's work week in Texas is the fifth-worst in the country, and the state's female unemployment rate is the 11th worst nationally. The ratio of female executives to male executives in Texas is also the sixth-worst in the U.S.

Here's how WalletHub ranked life as a working mom in Texas in other categories, where a No. 1 rank is considered the best and No. 25 is considered average:

No. 26 – Childcare costs (adjusted for the median women’s salary)
No. 26 – Pediatricians per capita
No. 27 – Parental leave policy score
No. 33 – Daycare quality
No. 35 – Gender pay gap (women’s earnings as a percentage of men’s)
No. 38 – Percentage of single-mother families living in poverty

Unfortunately, Texas' poor livability for working mothers may not surprise some. Earlier this year, Texas was dubbed the No. 4 worst state for women in a separate study by WalletHub. It shouldn't be a stretch to expect better for women — who make up nearly half of the workforce — yet still get paid 82 percent of what men make per hour.

"The U.S. still has a lot of work to do when it comes to improving conditions for working moms, given the wage gap and the lack of representation women have in certain leadership positions," WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo said.

He said the best states for working mothers offer equitable pay, strong career advancement, strong parental leave policies, top notch school systems, and high quality childcare and healthcare.

wallethub texas reports women's equality