More than 100 authors descended on Austin this past weekend for the Texas Book Festival, but only one was there to receive the 2023 Texas Writer Award. That author was Elizabeth Crook, and her session at the Festival was, in many respects, the highlight of the weekend.
Hannah Gabel, the Literary Director for the TBF, introduced her…
… and on hand to lead the discussion was her friend, Stephen Harrigan–the Texas Writer Award winner in 2011. They discussed the literary life, their writing processes and their work on “The Which Way Tree,” a screen adaptation (optioned by Robert Duvall) of Crook’s 2018 novel of the same name.
Crook’s latest novel, “The Madstone,” features the lead character in “The Which Way Tree,” Benjamin Shreve. And in both novels, Shreve offers what Harrigan calls “one of the most distinctive and appealing characters in all of fiction.”
That distinctive voice comes from a lot of hard work, as well as an ear for speech. Crook is a relentless researcher. While writing her first book, The Raven’s Bride (published by Jackie Kennedy at Doubleday), she travelled to different cities in Tennessee; to Huntsville, TX; to the cemeteries where Houston and Eliza Allen are buried; and talked to dozens of historians and family members of the subjects. For Madstone, she followed a similar approach, and she and Harrigan laughed about her efforts to ascertain accurate stagecoach schedules to and from Texas towns. Put simply, she wants historical fiction to be accurate history.
And that history is almost always set in Texas. “I love Texas,” she says. “Texas is home for me.” But she also relies heavily on imagination to create characters and scenarios, and it is this creative world–rooted in reality–that draws comparisons to Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Cormac McCarthy, Larry McMurtry, and Stephen Harrigan.
And once you read The Which Way Tree and Madstone, you’ll understand the comparisons–and her deserving win of the Texas Writer Award.
Note: Ever wonder what tangible “trophy” the Texas Writer Award winner receives? Well, according to Stephen Harrigan, it “used to be a bookend, one resembling a gravestone.” No longer. It is a pair of boots, individually fitted!
Center for Law, Engagement, and Politics 