Ep. 75: Writing Texas History- An Interview with Author Stephen Harrigan
Wise About Texas
Ken Wise
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 6 October 2019
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Award-winning author Stephen Harrigan visits Wise About Texas to discuss his new book–a history of Texas titled Big Wonderful Thing. Mr. Harrigan talks about how, as a journalist and novelist, he approached the colossal task of writing an entire history of Texas. Among other topics, he discusses his favorite Texas stories, the impact of our history on Texas, and a writer’s view of the Texas history we all love. Learn how one of Texas’ greatest writers approached Texas history in this episode of Wise About Texas.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Howdy and welcome to Wise About Texas, the award-winning Texas History Podcast. I'm your host Ken Wise. Texas While back I mentioned to you that I was going to do my best to do some interviews with interesting |
| 0:24.7 | folks around Texas. |
| 0:26.9 | This episode is an interview with author Stephen Herrigan. |
| 0:31.3 | Stephen Herrigan was born in Oklahoma City but got to Texas as soon as he could |
| 0:35.0 | which was when he was five years old. He grew up in Abilene and Corpus Christi. |
| 0:39.4 | He's a long time writer-at-large for Texas Monthly and his articles and essays have appeared |
| 0:45.3 | in a wide range of other publications including the Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, |
| 0:50.1 | and National Geographic among many others. |
| 0:53.1 | He's written 11 books of both fiction and non-fiction, including the Gates of the Alamo, |
| 0:58.4 | a well-known Texas work of Texas historical fiction. It was a New York Times bestseller. It received a number of awards including the Spur Award for Best Novel of the West. |
| 1:09.0 | Another novel of his, Remembering Ben Clayton, also won the Spur Award. |
| 1:15.6 | Herrigan writes for television and screenplays for the movies. |
| 1:19.8 | His award-winning screenplays have been produced on such outlets as HBO, T and T, the Hallmark Channel. |
| 1:27.0 | He's even working on a project with author Elizabeth Crook and actor producer Robert Duval. |
| 1:33.0 | Steve is the recipient of the Texas Book Festival's Writers Award, |
| 1:37.0 | the Londinkle Award for Lifetime Achievement, |
| 1:39.0 | which is awarded by the Texas Institute of Letters. |
| 1:42.0 | He's won the Texas Medal of Arts |
| 1:44.4 | Award from the Texas Cultural Trust and is a member of the Texas Literary Hall of |
| 1:49.5 | Fame. I sat down with Steve in Austin on the afternoon of the launch of his newest book Big Wonderful |
| 1:57.1 | Thing which took place at the Bullock State History Museum. |
| 2:01.3 | Big Wonderful Thing is a sweeping narrative history of Texas. |
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