So I’m on a book tour of Texas right now, and have actually driven 1,400 miles so far, from Texline in the northeast part of the Panhandle to South Padre Island at the very southern tip of the state. And though I’m a native Texan, since I haven’t lived here in a while it’s like a trip back through time for me, both nostalgic and primordial. I just spent three days on the Texas coast, and the lush tropical air and sound of grackles remind me of my badboy childhood. Plus all the pumpjacks and natural gas wells remind me how rich the state is in natural resources, a legacy of the age of dinosaurs, and then I come upon dragonflies (“caballitos del diablo” in Spanish, a great term, which means something like “little devil horses”) the size of small birds, and it really seems freaky. Here’s my daughter’s hand holding one:
I also just learned that The Bird Saviors received a terrific review in the San Antonio Express-News, here, and just did a reading at Paragraphs Bookstore on South Padre Island, with over 50 people there, which was a great crowd. That put a smile on my face.