Postscripts
Paredes Memorial
By Clay Smith, Fri., May 21, 1999
Mystery Text
There are plenty of reasons to attend what is being billed as a reading of a "sequential mystery" at Barnes & Noble Westlake, Tuesday, May 25 at 7pm, but the most salient of them may be to see whether it can actually be pulled off. Four local writers were asked to contribute -- but not collaborate -- on a sequential mystery whose stipulations are the following: It has to be read and understood within 10 minutes, it has to be set in modern-day Austin, and it must involve the Austin Writers' League in some way (the Austin Writers' League is co-sponsoring the event). And the writers involved must have previously published something that featuresmodern-day Austin. St. David's chaplain and administrator Chuck Meyer, author of The Reverend Lucas Holt mystery series, was the first writer in the sequence. Rev. Lucas Holt is a former prison minister who has become the minister for a church in Austin, St. Margaret's, that people call Maggie Mae's. His ex-cons come to Austin and join the God Squad and help Holt solve murders. Meyer has written, among many other titles, the Saints of God Murders, Blessed Are the Merciless, Beside Still Waters, and he has a new book coming out in July called Death Angel, which is not part of the Lucas Holt series. Meyer handed his text (which does in fact feature a woman named Carla Wells, the fictional executive director of the Writers' League, to which the real executive director of the Writers' League, Jim Bob McMillan, says only "hmmm") to James Magnuson, director of the Michener Center, whose novel Windfall, released this January, is set in Austin. The most traditional of third writer Jeff Abbott's mystery series, the Jordan Poteet Mysteries, is The Only Good Yankee, which features, the author says, "a romantic triangle from hell, a semi-mad bomber ... a murder with barbed wire, and potshots at environmentalists and developers both." The final writer is Mary Willis Walker, whose most recent mystery is All the Dead Lie Down.
Short Story Contest
Send your short story of 2,500 words or less to us by June 7 to be considered for our Eighth Annual Short Story Contest. The story should be previously unpublished, typewritten, and accompanied by a separate cover letter that has your name, address, and phone number, so in other words don't put that information anywhere on the story itself. And only send us one story! Send to: Short Story Contest, PO Box 49066, Austin, TX 78765 or via the Internet at: http://www.auschron.com/shortstory.
Violet Crown Awards
It's time to think about submitting entries to the Austin Writers' League's ninth annual Violet Crown Book Awards. $1,000 cash prizes will be awarded in each of three categories -- fiction, nonfiction, and poetry/prose (which includes essay and short fiction) -- to AWL members who have published books between July 1, 1998, and June 30, 1999. (Authors can join AWL upon submitting two copies of the book, a $10 entry fee, and entry form.) Deadline is June 30; Call 499-8914 or e-mail [email protected]. for more information.
