Book Smart

Beloved Texas Book Festival reveals star author lineup for 2022

Arlington's Sandra Brown will appear at the Texas Book Festival this fall.

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 Arlington resident, Texas literary legend, and author of 73 New York Times bestsellers Sandra Brown; 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; 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 seventh 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, re-evaluates her life. Texas native, DFW resident, and former TBF 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

News for campers

New 650-acre state park coming to Lake Palestine in East Texas

Photo courtesy of TexasLand

Lake Palestine

East Texas is gaining a new state park at Lake Palestine that will include amenities like hike-and-bike trails, campsites, and lakefront access.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation has paid more than $10 million for a 650-acre ranch at Lake Palestine that will be converted into a state park, the agency says. If the park opened today, it would be the 90th state park in Texas.

The ranch, roughly 100 miles southeast of Dallas, had been on the market for a little less than $10 million. Roughly 60 percent of the ranch is wooded, and about 40 percent is pastureland.

The foundation will make improvements to the site, about 18 miles west of Tyler, before handing it over to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in late 2027. That’s when funding from the Centennial Parks Conservation Fund will become available for the department to acquire the property.

The deal preserves one of the last large habitat sites in that part of East Texas and will ultimately expand public access to Lake Palestine. The lake encompasses more than 25,500 acres and touches four counties. White-tailed deer, bobcats, and waterfowl are among the creatures that populate the habitat.

“Opportunities to protect a property like this don’t come along very often, and when they do, timing is critical,” Anne Brown, the foundation’s executive director, said in a release. She said the land will “ultimately become a place where generations of Texans can enjoy the outdoors.”

The Pollard family had owned the ranch, which housed their pecan farm, since 1940. Aside from the pecan orchard, the property includes pine forests, ponds, a seven-acre lake, and Lake Palestine frontage.

Sam Pollard, president of Texas Pecan Nursery, said the property “is part of my soul. It means a lot to me that we can leave a legacy for people to enjoy.”

The foundation says visitors to the future park will be able to enjoy blufftop views of the lake, watch wildlife and birds, and walk around the pecan orchard. They’ll also be able to take advantage of boating, paddling, swimming, and fishing at Lake Palestine.

Rodney Franklin, director of the state park system, called the site an “East Texas gem” and thanked the Pollards for enabling “this special slice of the Pineywoods to be accessible for generations of Texans.”

The parks and wildlife agency plans to create the park in phases, starting with guided access, followed by daytime access and then full-day and overnight access. The agency will invite public input about the park’s development.

Planned amenities include hike-and-bike trails, traditional and primitive campsites, day-use areas and lakefront access.

The NextEra Energy Foundation, a philanthropic arm of NextEra Energy and NextEra Energy Resources, chipped in $100,000 to support the future park. NextEra supplies electricity to about one million customers in Texas, mostly through its Gexa Energy subsidiary.

In addition, the wildlife foundation tapped into the state’s Land Conservation Loan Fund for the ranch purchase. The voter-approved, donor-supported fund aids land conservation efforts. Dallas-based Lyda Hill Philanthropies was an inaugural backer of the loan fund.

lake palestine parks state park texas

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News for campers

New 650-acre state park coming to Lake Palestine in East Texas