Texas diverse as books about lone star state

Writers’ panel has different views on Lone Star State

What makes Texas literature “Texas”? Other than the typical Western saga, everybody seems to have a different idea — especially writers who have won awards for their recent works.

One of the six panels of authors at the 10th annual Boerne Book Festival Oct. 3 delved into that very question, with an answer emerging that Texas is as diverse as its writers’ personalities, and as rich as the characters they chronicle.

The Boerne Book Festival brought together authors and book lovers at the Patrick Heath Public Library under one roof, and several tents were set up on the grounds.

The Writers League of Texas hosted the “Obsessed with Texas” panel featuring first-time authors Drew Buxton, Jess Cannon and Lucas Schaefer, all of whom received high praise for their initial works within the past year.

“I live in a place, in Round Rock, that feels a lot like Boerne. It’s got a lot of people coming in and out, but it’s still got a small-town feel and I love it,” said Cannon, author of “Zoom with a View.”

“I ended up writing about Blue Oak, Texas, which is a fictional small town I made up that does really feel a lot like Boerne,” she said. In her book, a Blue Oak social media influencer is murdered, and the community joins forces to solve the crime.

“This is a theme, almost a fantasy, of really an enjoyable, weird, quirky Texas community, because I want to write about the good things about Texas,” she said.

Schaefer’s novel, “The Slip,” is a gargantuan tome at 160,000 words, a size he joked about in his introduction. Set in Austin in 1998, the book follows a youth who moves to the city and becomes a regular at a boxing gym.

“It’s big, in part, because of Texas. I wanted that big, expansive, all-encompassing type of situation,” said Schaefer, who moved to Austin in 2006.

Buxton’s novel, “Daytona Teddy Riggs,” is about a has-been football star and his quest to become the world’s strongest man.

“The main character, Teddy, he does fulfill the stereotype of Texas. He’s a former high school football star, he drives a big jacked-up pickup, he goes to Whataburger all the time, there’s a lot of H-E-B in it,” Buxton said.

“I chose to not steer away from the things that are stereotypical, just because they felt real to me, but to actually go beyond that, and not shy away from things that Texas is known for,” Buxton said.

Schaefer said friends would “dismiss” his move to Texas once they found out he located to Austin.

“Oh, it’s Austin, that’s not Texas. So I would sort of adopt the view, ‘This isn’t Texas, this is Austin,’” he said.

Schaefer added, “But over the course of writing this book and being here a long time, I really started to chafe at that notion. Why is Austin, not ‘Texas?’ Why are the cities of Texas, where millions of people live, not (considered) ‘Texas?’ I like the more expansive view of Texas, because Texas is so many things.”

The varied cast in his book, he said, is reminiscent of the diverse nature of the state itself.

Other author discussions included a sports panel with Boerne Independent School District Athletic Director Stan Leech talking about his inaugural children’s book, “Athletic as a Camel,” the first in what will become a series.

Also speaking on the sports panel was Tim Christ, who wrote “How Boerne Made History and Played on Their Field of Dreams,” a book about coaching the local team that made it to to Little League World Series in 2024.