Baylor Showcases Four of Texas' Best Authors

by Lillyan Baker, student newswriter, (254) 710-6805
Baylor University's department of journalism and The Texas Collection will present four authors, who will showcase Texas writing at its best on Tuesday, March 31, and Wednesday, April 1.

The events, which are free and open to the public, will begin with the journalism department's annual awards presentation at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, March, in the Kronzer Great Hall at the Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center on the Baylor campus. The authors will hand out awards, scholarships and copies of autographed books.

Later that evening on March 31, there will be a panel discussion featuring the four authors, led by Robert Darden, associate professor of journalism, followed by a Q&A. The discussion will be held in the Meadows Music Hall in the Glennis McCrary Music Building.

The events will continue with book signings by the four authors at 9 a.m. Wednesday, April 1, in The Texas Collection in Carroll Library.

One of the authors featured at the events is Jeff Guinn, author of Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde, which has been selected as the May Book-of-the-Month Club as well as for several other book clubs. Baylor is honored to be his only college visit on his book tour.

Guinn is former Books Editor and Senior Writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. After joining the paper in 1983, he won national, regional and state journalism awards for investigative reporting, news writing, feature writing and literary criticism. Guinn has been a guest on many national radio and television programs, including National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation, CNN's Headline News, CBS Sunday Morning and the FOX TV network's morning show Fox and Friends.

Guinn has been elected as both a member and literary critic of Texas Institute of Letters. He has written 12 books, both fiction and nonfiction, including The Autobiography of Santa Claus and Noah's Ride: A Collaborative Western Novel.

Jim Donovan is the founder and president of Jim Donovan Literary, a Dallas-based literary agency. For more than 17 years, he has sold books to major New York publishers, including HarperCollins, Viking Penguin, Random House, Simon and Schuster and many others. His agency handles both fiction and nonfiction. Donovan's book A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn, an account of Custer's last stand and its aftermath, will be one of the featured books for the events at Baylor.

Carlton Stowers is the author of more than two dozen works of nonfiction, including the Edgar Award-winning Careless Whispers, based on murders at Lake Waco, and To The Last Breath. Known for his true crime book, Stowers takes a different approach with his featured book, Where Dreams Die Hard: A Small American Town and Its Six-Man Football Team based on the small town with a big heart in Penelope, Texas.

Stowers' many awards include being a 12-time finalist in the Dallas Press Club competition, seven Katie Awards and four Stephen Philben Awards from the Dallas Bar Association. He was named Dallas' Best Writer by the Dallas Observer and received a National Community Network Media Award for Exceptional Merit for an article he wrote on the deadly use of heroin by teens.

Mary Rogers, author of Dancing Naked: Memorable Encounters with Unforgettable Texans, will be among the four authors for the event. Dancing Naked is her first book which showcases feature stories she wrote for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

For more information, contact the Baylor department of journalism at (254) 710-3261.