Elmer Kelton – författare

In "Texas Sunsrise", Elmer Kelton brings together two novels that tell the story of the Texas Revolution. In "Massacre At Goliad", tensions mount between Mexican authorities and American newcomers. Revolution is in the air, something Thomas Buckalew welcomes but his brother Joshua fears, since Joshua is in love with a Mexican girl. The story touches on the immortal battle of the Alamo but centres on the infamous Goliad massacre, and ultimately the decisive battle of San Jacinto, which made Texas an independent republic. "After The Bugles" begins where "Massacre At Goliad" ends - on the battlefield at San Jacinto. Joshua Buckalew tries to put the pieces back together but finds that starting over in the aftermath of war can be as challenging as the war itself. The racial differences that helped foment the conflict have not gone away. And Texas finds that being an independent republic can be more difficult than being a colonial extension of Mexico.

Aging cowboy and bronco-buster Wes Hendricks just wants to be left alone on his poor ranch, even when town developers offer him big money to sell it. Wes's grandson reluctantly tries to convince him to give up his home, but that was before he, too, succumbs to the ranch's--and a young cowgirl's--wild beauty.

Caprock, Texas, is a sleepy cow town until oil is discovered in the 1920s. Suddenly thousands of people stream in to find their fortune. Some are honest folk like Elise and Victor Underwood, who pray for a little luck with their daily bread. But too many are two-bit swindlers. And then there's frontier mobster Big Boy Daugherty. Sheriff Dave Buckalew faces a whole different set of circumstances as his town springs to life - in good and not-so-good ways. The town of Caprock is loosely based on Crane in West Texas, where Kelton grew up, although Crane did not exist until the oil boom. Honor at Daybreak represents a departure for Kelton. There is no single dominant figure. Although Sheriff Buckalew represents a quiet strength that binds his town together, this is a book in which an entire community joins together to save itself.

Legendary Western author Elmer Kelton stands before you on the page, speaking directly in his warm, witty voice. Living and Writing in West Texas preserves two speeches he gave in the 1980s – one to the Friends of the Library Symposium at Texas Tech University (1985) and one to the Texas Folklore Society in Lubbock (1988) . In each, Kelton blends storytelling and sage advice. He reflects on life in West Texas – its sky, its hardship, and its stubborn beauty – and on his craft as a writer. Kelton “wrote Texas as it was and is,” readers will recall, and here he does so with an authentic ear for dialogue and phrase These speeches are at once memoir, history, and how-to: Kelton peppers them with colorful anecdotes of ranching life, characters from the plains, and the trials of a writer finding his voice. He speaks plainly about writing – the habits and honesty it takes – all while evoking the high plains and dusty ranch country he loved. Fans will recognize the same dry humor and deep empathy that made his fiction so beloved. Originally issued in a finely bound hardcover (1988) in a signed limited edition, this volume went out of print decades ago. The new TCU Press edition restores these texts for a broad readership, with a fresh introduction by Western author, Patrick Dearen. Living and Writing in West Texas is a gift for novelists and historians alike: it captures Kelton at the mic, offering the “eye and ear” of a true West Texas voice. It stands as both a keepsake of Kelton’s legacy and a lively insider’s view of Texas storytelling.

'An outstanding contribution to the historiography of the American West and likely will remain for a long time the definitive work on the Texas Panhandle' - Ernest Wallace. 'As one born in the region, Rathjen is sympathetic to it, but he is also understanding of it; there is little Chamber of Commerce stuff in his story' - Robert G. Athearn. The Texas Panhandleits eastern edge descending sharply from the plains into the canyons of Palo Duro, Tule, Quitaque, Casa Blanca, and Yellow House is as rich in history as it is in natural beauty. Long considered a crossroads of ancient civilizations, the twenty-six northernmost Texas counties lie on the southern reaches of the Great Plains, where numerous dry creek beds and the Canadian River have carved the region appropriately named the High Plains. Through these plains and their canyons, ancient peoples trailed game for the hunt. The Panhandle provided choice grazing lands for bison, and as the region became more familiar to ancient tribes, semipermanent camps marked the landscape. Yet when Coronado's conquistadores crossed the High Plains in search of fabled wealth and found sun-baked adobe instead of gold, they declared the region a wasteland. Likewise, the Republic of Texas found little use for their vast plains land considering settlement of the frontier far too dangerous. Not until the late-nineteenth century, as the U.S. Army waged war on the Comanches, Kiowas, and Cheyennes who lived there, did Panhandle tracts of frontier open to hard-bitten settlers who had to prove themselves as indomitable as they were land hungry. Departing from the premise that the Panhandle frontier 'is but a brush stroke on...[the] much larger canvas' of previous frontier histories, Rathjen challenges the work of Frederick Jackson Turner and Walter Prescott Webb, and proves that regional is by no means synonymous with provincial.