Authors contending with ghosts, Yankees
and fans
By Bill Whitaker
Although Dallas stockbroker-turned-author B.G. “Jug”
Burkett dominated last week’s annual Book & Author Dinner,
the evening offered an excellent chance to catch up on the goings-on
of local authors.
Take, for instance, Gregg Cantrell, who occupies the Rupert
N. Richardson History Chair at Hardin-Simmons University and is
receiving rave reviews for his new biography, Stephen F. Austin:
Empresario of Texas. Not only have book reviewers been mighty
nice to him, he’s also managed to keep from running afoul
of Stephen F. Austin himself.
Seems the spirit of the so-called “Father of Texas”
is still vocal on certain matters. Among other things, a Houston
psychic has informed Gregg that relations were a bit more strained
between Austin and his father Moses (who pretty much bankrupt
the entire family) than even Gregg suggested in his book.
Although neither the psychic nor the ghost of Stephen F. Austin
made the Texas historian’s book and the author himself is
loathe to talk about the spirits of departed Lone Star heroes,
Gregg’s wife Brenda conceded it was still nice to have some
other-worldly input now and then.
“Well,” she reasoned, “you’ve got to take
your sources where you find them.”
Meanwhile, novelist Cole Thompson has been coping with his
own set of challenges, including working some with a screenwriter
who is adapting Cole’s much-praised novel, Chocolate Lizards,
a fictional frolic about dusty West Texas, the drilling business
and the colorful denizens that inhabit the oil patch.
The catch?
“A guy from Vancouver wrote it,” Cole joked of the
movie script. “But it’s been a pleasant experience and
I’ve talked with him a lot about it. Funny thing was, he
said he really enjoyed the symbolism of the pee-can trees!”
Yep. That’s a Yankee, all right!
Meanwhile, Jug Burkett — the Dallas author whose book
Stolen Valor scuttles stereotypes and misconceptions about Vietnam
veterans while aggressively exposing phonies who have passed themselves
off as heroic veterans — offered some unusual tips for spurring
book sales. He would know, because he self-published his book
and his sales have been painstakingly won.
Among other things, Jug suggested authors create their own
web sites. He said not only has he had good sales through his
own web site (www.stolenvalor.com)
but, acting on a tip from a colleague, he took the seemingly ridiculous
step of tacking $3 onto the already hefty $31.95 book price if
a customer also wanted the book autographed by Jug.
“It’s amazing,” the stockbroker marveled, shaking
his head. “Sixty percent of my customers want the signature!”
Only one customer took the pains to inform Jug how greedy and
stupid his autograph scheme was: “Then he said he was going
to go out and buy the book in the bookstore!”
Pointed matter
If archaeologists were concerned about plans for a children’s
arrowhead hunt at the old Fort Phantom Hill ruins during Saturday’s
“Fort Phantom Rendezvous,” they need not have fretted.
Rancher Jim Alexander, whose family has long owned the property
where the pre-Civil War fort ruins stand, was happy to host a
full-scale archaeological dig around the ruins during the summer
of ’98. One reason is that Jim had high hopes Texas Tech
University’s Dr. Grant Hall would gain enough evidence to
learn more about the fort’s somewhat mysterious past.
Confident most of the arrowheads had been retrieved, if not
by scientists then by Jim and his family members, Jim ordered
a new batch of arrowheads brought in, these reportedly from south
of the border. That way there would be arrowheads on the fort
grounds for children to find Saturday.
When someone asked Lisa Sanders, locally based director of
the Texas Forts Trail, just how one would be able to determine
if an arrowhead found among the fort ruins was a “real arrowhead”
or one merely from south of the border, she thought a moment.
“Well, I guess you could turn it over,” she joked,
“and if it has a price tag on it that says “$1.99, Made
in Taiwan,” it’s most definitely not real!”
Jim’s humorous remark upon hearing that: “Well, I
know any arrowheads they find won’t be real. I got all of
’em!”
Bill Whitaker can be reached at 676-6732 or whitakerb@abinews.com.
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