James Magnuson heads up the Michener Center for Writing at the University of Texas at Austin. He draws upon that experience for his new novel, Famous Writers I Have Known. Small-time grifter Frankie Abandonato gets in over his head in in New York and heads out to Austin, Texas, where he gets sucked into the world of literature and MFA programs. Could this be the longest and biggest con in Frankie's career?
Journalist Denise Parkinson learned about an infamous 1930s murder case from her native Arkansas County. In Daughter of the White River: Depression-Era Treachery and Vengeance in the Arkansas Delta, she tells the story of a community of people living on the White River and the strange tale of Helen Spence, who avenged her father's murder by shooting the accused dead in a county courtroom and the bizarre spiral her life took as the country was plunged into the depths of economic depression and hunger.
