Her Texas: Story, Image, Poem & Song

Multicultural, multiethnic, and multidisciplinary, Her Texas includes stories, essays, memoirs, poetry, song lyrics, paintings, and photographs by 60 Texas women. Texas, once a country unto itself, has engendered myths and legends that rival the magnetic force of national identity. At first, Texas writers looked toward the men who embodied the larger-than-life stories of cowboys and Indians, pioneers and outlaws, cattle barons and oil kings. Although the female writers, poets, songwriters, artists, and photographers of this collection know this heritage, they also illuminate a Texas that is large enough in landscape, history, and spirit to include a multitude of experiences and identities. Discover women who write with intelligence, humor, pain, and joy of experiences rooted in the far-flung landscapes and cityscapes of Texas, and who enlarge the definition of “Texan” to include multifaceted lives lived in fertile intersections where myths and realities meet: a teenage mother from San Antonio compares her dreams with her real life; a Tejana recalls her downtown childhood in terms of a magical-realist game of loteria; a cop from Houston takes her place in a historically male environment; a popular blues musician pays homage to the grounding influence of her mother; a photographer shares her vision of the beauties and environmental degradations of Texas landscapes; a woman helps her injured horse regain his health while she recovers from the wounds of unemployment; a young mother and professor faces breast cancer; a tent-revival organist’s daughter manifests a spirituality of her own; a grandmother in an Iranian-American family struggles to survive in the isolation of suburbia; a nun ties herself in the midst of a hurricane to the orphans in her care; while at a Dallas flea market, an African-American woman comes to terms with her relationship with her African sister-in-law; a renowned poet illuminates her husband’s struggle with Parkinson’s disease; an anthropologist explores the haunting cave paintings of Palo Duro canyon; and a Tejana poet describes mid-life, her love for her mother, and her love for her son. Issues covered in this anthology include sexual abuse and recovery; struggles against disease, poverty, and isolation; ethnic identity and heritage; musical roots; environmental degradation of water, air, and landscape; family and relationships; political and intellectual struggles, and more.