Judith Austin Mills

San Fransisco Book Review’s weekly 5 recommended books starts off with Those Bones at Goliad from Dec. 23-Dec.30. (See weekly 5 on website home page by googling San Fransisco Book Review.)

Find the entire review by googling: Those Bones at Goliad  San Fransisco Book Review.

Those Bones at Goliad is officially released and becoming available where history buffs and readers of historical fiction look for new novels. Plain View Press, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Goodreads have it listed, and new reviews are coming in. I’ll be at the PVP table with copies at Round Rock Library’s Fall Book Fair, and the director of the Austin History Center is hoping to schedule a presentation slot for the novel later next February. Austin locals will find Those Bones…on the shelves at BookPeople.

My “sequel” to How Far Tomorrow–a historical novel set during the Texas Revolution–doesn’t pick up where the first novel leaves off. It starts well before the struggle in Texas heats up. It starts with a motherless hired boy in Natchez, Mississippi, who watches for late travelers coming down the river. The couple he leads to an overflow guest house are on the run. They are aiming for a new start in Texas. The reasons Shelby Whitmire has years later for heading toward the border with Mexico  are different from causes that speech-makers champion. They are different from the reasons a Georgia father signs up with his state’s battalion. They are different from the reasons Shelby’s childhood friend takes a military ship to Mexico’s coast. What they all share is a destiny shaped by the wilderness called Texas. Even those few who survive Goliad will never shake its shadow. And all Shelby Whitmire ever wanted was a home where he could believe himself to be a man, where he could know every morning what a good man would do with his day. (In the photos above–my How Far Tomorrow display at the Texas Book Festival, and the statue of Joanna Troutman, who figures into Those Bones at Goliad.)

******************THOSE BONES at GOLIAD–now in production!

Painting featured: “Misty Morning in Goliad State Park,” by Karen Boudreaux

  The artist whose painting is featured on the cover of How Far Tomorrow has agreed to let another of her artworks grace the cover of Those Bones at Goliad. Thanks to Texas artist Karen Boudreaux for letting Plain View Press use Sycamores at Goliad State Park!

 

 

***The launch of my poetry sequence Accidental Joy was , June 1, 2014

I was joined by Austin area poets who had written wonderfully supportive reviews of my free verse “waterfall” about the impact of imagination. My publisher and my literary publicist were there and also two friends from Shoal Creek Writers, a critique group started twenty years ago.

Since then, some reviews of my poetry volume have been very gratifying: from Ben Pehr, an active member of the Austin poetry community–

 “What stands out poem after poem is your poetic voice.  It is at once intelligent, wise, examining, perceptive, sensitive (without yucky self-pity), dignified, eloquent, and charming. There are more adjectives which surface at times, such as poignant, melancholic, humorous…The voice is one the reader comes to respect, making it worthy of attentive reading.”

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*********************************************************************************************************************…..A former A colleague of mine told me three years ago when How Far Tomorrow was published that I am “prolific”…If I had written four novels, one short story collection, and two poetry manuscripts in just the last five years that adjective might apply. But it has taken me thirty. I’ve been writing steadily and seriously for that long. So “dogged” and “obsessed” and “dedicated” might work better for me.

Check out my blog post to see how yet another Texas Revolution novel is beginning to hatch!