Books & Authors

"The American Sun & Wind Moving Picture Company" is an enchanting tale set in the silent film era. Beginning in 1915, in Fort Lee, New Jersey, where a Jewish family makes one and two reel silent films, the novel is composed of six chapters, each a discrete silent film in itself. Joey, the too-beautiful-to-be-a-boy son of moviemaker, Simon, and his actress wife, Hannah, imagines stories that his uncle’s camera turns into scenes for their movies. Witness to and participant in the rapid technological advances in film, from the movies his family makes, to the advent of the talkies, Joey is cast in both male and female roles, onstage and off. When the woman Joey loves murders her abusive husband and sends Joey from his New Jersey family disguised as the mother of her own children, he embarks on a cross-country journey of adventure and hardship, crossing paths with the likes of D. W. Griffith, Lillian Gish, Mary Pickford, and “Roxy” Rothafel. Finally, reunited on the opposite coast with his uncle, and with the woman he has never stopped loving, Joey’s wild journey—and life!—arrive at a moment as unpredictable as it is magical. In an outrageously original tale worthy of a studio whose moguls might have been Kafka, Garcia Marquez, and Isaac Bashevis Singer, reality and illusion merge and separate, leaving the audience spellbound even after the final curtain falls.

Dean Smith has taken falls from galloping horses, engaged in fistfights with Kirk Douglas and George C. Scott, donned red wig and white tights to double Maureen O’Hara, and taught Goldie Hawn how to talk like a Texan. He’s dangled from a helicopter over the skyscrapers of Manhattan while clutching a damsel in distress, hung upside down from a fake blimp 200 feet over the Orange Bowl, and replicated one of the most famous scenes in movie history by climbing on a thundering team of horses to stop a runaway stagecoach. Cowboy Stuntman chronicles the life and achievements of this colorful Texan and Olympic gold medal winner who spent a half century as a Hollywood stuntman and actor, appearing in ten John Wayne movies and doubling for a long list of actors as diverse as Robert Culp, Michael Landon, Steve Martin, Strother Martin, Robert Redford, and Roy Rogers.

Clyde “Bulldog” Turner rose from the West Texas plains to become an early lynchpin of the Chicago Bears and the NFL and one of the greatest linemen of the pre-television era. Fame, however, did not stick to Bulldog Turner because the positions he played rarely made headlines. Bulldog played center and linebacker, while the recognition, glory, and money went to those who scored touchdowns. Like Pudge Heffelfinger, Fats Henry, Ox Emerson, George Trafton, Bruiser Kinard, Adolph Shultz, or Mel Hein, Bulldog Turner is a ghostly character from football’s leather helmet days. Still, no man played his positions better than Bulldog Turner. He was the ideal combination of size and speed, and every coach’s dream: a lineman who could block like a bulldozer, run like a halfback, and catch like a receiver. Despite his talents, Bulldog never made much money playing football, and what he did earn slipped through his fingers like sand. When he retired, his iconic nickname faded from memory. He died in relative obscurity on what remained of his Texas ranch. "Remembering Bulldog Turner" brings an NFL great into the limelight he never enjoyed as a football player.

Lisa Ohlen Harris shared a household with her mother-in-law, Jeanne, for seven years. When Jeanne’s health deteriorated due to COPD, Harris became one of 65 million American family caregivers. The two women grew so intertwined that Harris began to feel she herself was the one fading away. Harris helped Jeanne file an advance directive specifying that no extraordinary measures were to be taken to preserve life. As they navigated the healthcare system in Jeanne’s final months, Harris and her mother-in-law realized that an advance directive is not as clear and controlled as it seems. End of life issues involve a series of small decisions—sneaky ones, with no big drama—and life support is already established before any one big decision is made. In "The Fifth Season," Harris’s recounting of those years bestows illuminating immediacy on the difficulties of caring for an elderly parent while raising four young children in an extended family household. Chronicling that last season of love and struggle as she grappled with ethical convictions and personality clashes, Harris finds her way through conflicted emotions to a place of compassion and peace.

In 1838 Texas vice president Mirabeau B. Lamar, flush from the excitement of a successful buffalo hunt, gazed from a hilltop toward the paradise at his feet and saw the future. His poetic eye admired the stunning vista before him, with its wavering prairie grasses gradually yielding to clusters of trees, then whole forests bordering the glistening Colorado River in the distance. Lamar’s equally awestruck companions, no strangers to beautiful landscapes, shuffled speechlessly nearby. But where these men saw only nature’s handiwork, Lamar visualized a glorious manmade transformation--trees into buildings, prairie into streets, and the river itself into a bustling waterway. And he knew that with the presidency of the Republic of Texas in his grasp, he would soon be in position to achieve this vision. The founding of Austin sparked one of the Republic’s first great political battles, pitting against each other two Texas titans: Lamar, who in less than a year had risen to vice president from army private, and Sam Houston, the hero of San Jacinto and a man both loved and hated throughout the Republic. The shy, soft-spoken, self-righteous Lamar dreamed of a great imperial capital in the wilderness, but to achieve it faced the hardships of the frontier, the mighty Comanche nation, the Mexican army, and the formidable Houston’s political might.

On July 8, 1860, Dallas, Texas burned. Three slaves were accused of arson and hanged without a trial. Today, most historians attribute the fire to carelessness. Texas was the darkest corner of the Old South, too remote and violent for even the bravest abolitionists. Yet North Texas newspapers commonly reported runaway slaves, and travelers in South Texas wrote of fugitives heading to Mexico. Perhaps a few prominent people were all too happy to call the fire an accident. "Silent We Stood" weaves the tale of a small band of abolitionists working in secrecy within Dallas’s close-knit society. There’s Joseph Shaw, an undertaker and underground railroad veteran with a shameful secret; Ig Bodeker, a charismatic, melancholic preacher; Rachel Bodeker, a fierce abolitionist, Ig’s wife, and Joseph Shaw’s lover; Rebekah, a freed slave who’ll sacrifice everything for the cause; Samuel Smith, a crypto-freedman whose love for Rebekah exacts a terrible cost; and, towering above them all, a near-mythical one-armed runaway who haunts area slavers and brings hope to those dreaming of freedom. With war looming and lives hanging in the balance, ideals must be weighed against friendship and love, and brutal decisions yield secrets that must be taken to the grave.

Less than twelve hours after receiving his degree in aeronautical engineering, Fiske Hanley was on a train bound for basic training as an Air Force Aviation Cadet. Nine months later he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant. Assigned as a B-29 flight engineer, he was attached to the 504th Bombardment Group (VH). In January 1945, they flew their new B-29 to Tinian Island in the Pacific and began bombing missions over Japan. On the seventh mission their plane was shot down. Lt. Hanley arrived on Japanese soil via parachute and thus began his harrowing experience as an Accused American War Criminal. Kept in overcrowded, filthy dungeons cells in Tokyo, they were not treated as Prisoners of War but were designated as Special Prisoners to be tried and executed for the killing of innocent women and children. While awaiting trial they were considered subhuman—starved on half POW rations, issued no clothes or basic hygienic needs, denied medical treatment and allowed to suffer and die from torture. "Accused American War Criminal" is written by one of the few surviving Special Prisoners.

The Way of Oz: A Guide to Wisdom, Heart, and Courage is centered on the original Wizard of Oz stories and the life of their creator, L. Frank Baum. The Way of Oz provides a road map for personal and professional growth using the magical archetypes of the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion, Dorothy, and the Wizard. Innovative, thought-provoking and fascinating, The Way of Oz invites readers to take an extraordinary journey—a journey like no other.