March|April 2016 Alumni Authors

By Alcalde Staff in March | April 2016, TXEX on February 29, 2016 at 2:00 pm | No Comments

Just Pray for Jo

by Terry Luke, BA ’68, Life Member

Luke’s debut novel is the story of a young Texas woman looking for her own way in life. Jo Tyson comes from an abusive household and runs away to a small coastal town where she meets a man she marries much too soon. As their relationship falls apart, Jo finds her calling at a local newspaper until her entire life is uprooted by the Pearl Harbor bombing. A coming-of-age tale full of historical references, the book draws on Luke’s family’s long-standing time on the Texas Gulf Coast and her own experiences as a waitress and writer for weekly newspapers.

 

Mastering the New Media Landscape: Embrace the Micromedia Mindset

by Rusty Shelton, BA ’03, Life Member, and Barbara Cave Henricks

Make yourself discoverable, learn from traditional media, and create a community to surround yourself—these are just a few of the lessons
Shelton and co-author Barbara Cave Henricks offer about creating a digital presence. Following the rise of alternative media outlets they call “micromedia,” such as blogs and podcasts, Shelton and Henricks discuss the democratization of media and its effects on storytelling by using digestible and entertaining personal accounts from media industry professionals.

 

Overflow

by Suzanne Staton, BA ’91, BJ ’97, Life Member

Inspired by her love of Galveston, Staton sets her book on the city’s beach during the start of the 20th century. She blends the history of the then-booming city with the complex relationships of Haydyn Winters, the son of a rich family who wants nothing more than to leave and start a life with a recent love interest. But his plans are interrupted when the Great Galveston Hurricane hits the Gulf, marking one of the deadliest natural disasters in U.S. history.

 

 

 

Poetry for Strangers

by Elisabeth Sharp McKetta, PhD ’09, Life Member

Through her collection of 50 poems, McKetta seeks to show ordinary people that poetry matters. She spent two years asking strangers each week for a word to use in poem. Each poem in the book comes with a short description of the chosen word and the stranger behind it. The  Harvard Extension School writing teacher continues her project as a weekly blog. —Danielle Lopez

 

 

Laying Down the Paw

by Diane Kelly, BBA ’88, JD ’90

The third installment in the Paw Enforcement series finds Officer Megan Lutz and her K-9 partner Brigit in the aftermath of a devastating tornado. Facing everything from looters to a murder suspect, the dynamic duo must keep Fort Worth safe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Necessary Murder of Nonie Blake: A Samuel Craddock Mystery

by Terry Shames, BA ’66

In the fifth novel in Shames’ series following the strange cases of small-town Texas police chief Samuel Craddock, Nonie Blake is murdered after having spent the last 20 years in a mental institution. With her family at the top of the suspect list, Craddock looks into Blake’s history at the mental hospital only to find she hadn’t been there for the last 10 years.

Tags: alumni authors, books, reading list