Meadows Center, Wittliff Collections celebrate Viva Texas Rivers!

Staff Reports

SAN MARCOS – The Wittliff Collections at Texas State University will host an afternoon celebrating Viva Texas Rivers! Adventures, Misadventures and Glimpses of Nirvana along Our Storied Waterways, the new Texas literary anthology in the Southwestern Writers Collection Book Series on Sunday, May 8, at 3 p.m.

Twenty-six contributors to the volume will talk with guests and sign books in The Wittliff Collections, located on the seventh floor of the Alkek Library.

Viva Texas Rivers! marks the first time the state’s most prominent literary voices have come together on behalf of a specific environmental topic. Both The Meadows Center and The Wittliff Collections have a distinguished record of publishing award-winning books in their respective book series. The Meadows Center has published more than 30 titles in its “River Books Series,” while The Wittliff has published more than 30 titles in its “Literary Series.”

Scheduled participants include: editors Steve Davis and Sam Pfiester, cover artist Clemente Guzman and map artist Molly O’Halloran along with featured writers Carmen Tafolla, Joe Nick Patoski, Andrew Sansom, Stephen Harrigan, Bill Minutaglio, Norma Elia Cantú, S.C. Gwynne, Carol Flake Chapman, Wes Ferguson, Joe Holley, Michael Barnes, Beatriz Terrazas, William Jack Sibley, Mark Busby, Clayton Maxwell, Michael Berryhill, Margie Crisp, Chip Dameron, Robert Flynn, Andrew Geyer, Jeff Davis and Daniel Oppenheimer.

Viva Texas Rivers! represents a unique partnership between The Wittliff and The Meadows Center, which came together to publish this book as part of both series. Ranging from the desert canyonlands of the Río Grande to the swampy Big Thicket, from crystal clear Hill Country streams to the Red River’s treacherous quicksand, Viva Texas Rivers! showcases many classic writings along with brand new essays written especially for this volume. The literary nonfiction is complemented with works of poetry.

The contemporary accounts are interspersed with selected historical nuggets: dispatches from Spanish explorers, John James Audubon’s early glimpse of Buffalo Bayou and a 19th century view of the Comal River’s “unexcelled” beauty in New Braunfels.

Viva Texas Rivers! is also the subject of a current exhibit at The Wittliff Collections, which runs through May 31. The exhibit features 58 of the writers who have contributed to the book, showcasing historical artifacts from river trips along with manuscripts, magazines, quotes and pages from Viva Texas Rivers! Several writers have contributed video readings, which play on a continuous loop in the exhibition space.

Viva Texas Rivers! is published through Texas A&M University Press.

For more information, visit www.thewittliffcollections.txstate.edu/events.html.