Kill Two Birds Get Stoned

Walter Snow is doomed. He stares at the blank pages in his typewriter, hoping for the spark that will finally ignite his ambition to write the Great Armenian Novel. And then he meets Clyde Potts. She is beautiful, intelligent, charming, perhaps psychic, and, for better or worse, very possibly unbalanced. With Potts’s joie de vivre and her certified-insane partner in crime, Fox Harris, Snow is caught up in a series of pranks against corporate sprawl that they execute with a bit of booze and some wacky tobaccy from Australia known as Malabimbi Madness. Things quickly spin out of control as the trio’s ultimate, diuretically inspired prank leads to an unexpected, shocking conclusion, and Walter is left to wonder if the only things you ever keep in this life are the things you let slip through your fingers.

Walter Snow gets caught up in the hijinks of two new friends. But things quickly spin out of control as the trio's ultimate diuretically inspired prank leads to an unexpected, shocking conclusion, and Walter is left to wonder if the only things you ever keep in this life are the things you let slip through your fingers.

Considered the "gold standard" of political parties texts, this new, eighteenth edition of Party Politics in America moves its comprehensive and authoritative coverage into the age of deepened partisan conflict, expanded presidential power, and global health threats. Marjorie Randon Hershey builds on the book’s three-pronged coverage of party organization, party in the electorate, and party in government and integrates important developments in racial politics, social media use, and battles over access to the vote. The book uses contemporary examples to bring to life the fascinating story of how parties shape our political system. New to the eighteenth edition: • Fully updated through the 2020 election, including changes in virtually all of the boxed materials, the chapters, and the data presented. • Examines the impact of the Trump presidency on the Republican Party’s supporting coalition and issue positions, changes in party and ideological polarization, and the return to the world of campaign finance of "interested money" from big (and often anonymous) donors. • Explores political attitudes and voter turnout among college-age and other young voters in light of dramatic changes in American politics and the economy. • Expanded online Instructor’s Resources, including author-written test banks, essay questions, relevant websites with correlated sample assignments, the book’s appendix, and links to a collection of course syllabi.

Everyone wants to be a published writer. But only a few manage to break into print. In this guide, Richard D. Bank provides expert advice to help you reach your goals of writing and selling articles, essays, and books. Featuring step-by-step instructions covering all aspects of writing, including how to: Master the elements of creative nonfiction Conduct interviews and take accurate notes Find your unique voice Develop good research and editing skills Write with authority and confidence Sell writing to periodicals and publishers Whether you want to write an intimate memoir, a magazine story, or a scholarly article, you’ll find all you need to see your bylines in print.

Larry McMurtry declares, "Texas itself doesn't have anything to do with why I write. It never did." Horton Foote, on the other hand, says, "I've just never had a desire to write about any place else." In between those figurative bookends are hundreds of other writers—some internationally recognized, others just becoming known—who draw inspiration and often subject matter from the unique places and people that are Texas. To give everyone who is interested in Texas writing a representative sampling of the breadth and vitality of the state's current literary production, this volume features conversations with fifty of Texas's most notable established writers and emerging talents. The writers included here work in a wide variety of genres—novels, short stories, poetry, plays, screenplays, essays, nonfiction, and magazine journalism. In their conversations with interviewers from the Writers' League of Texas and other authors' organizations, the writers speak of their apprenticeships, literary influences, working habits, connections with their readers, and the domestic and public events that have shaped their writing. Accompanying the interviews are excerpts from the writers' work, as well as their photographs, biographies, and bibliographies. Joe Holley's introductory essay—an overview of Texas writing from Cabeza de Vaca's 1542 Relación to the work of today's generation of writers, who are equally at home in Hollywood as in Texas—provides the necessary context to appreciate such a diverse collection of literary voices. A sampling from the book: "This land has been my subject matter. One thing that distinguishes me from the true naturalist is that I've never been able to look at land without thinking of the people who've been on it. It's fundamental to me." —John Graves "Writing is a way to keep ourselves more in touch with everything we experience. It seems the best gifts and thoughts are given to us when we pause, take a deep breath, look around, see what's there, and return to where we were, revived." —Naomi Shihab Nye "I've said this many times in print: the novel is the middle-age genre. Very few people have written really good novels when they are young, and few people have written really good novels when they are old. You just tail off, and lose a certain level of concentration. Your imaginative energy begins to lag. I feel like I'm repeating myself, and most writers do repeat themselves." —Larry McMurtry "I was a pretty poor cowhand. I grew up on the Macaraw Ranch, east of Crane, Texas. My father tried very hard to make a cowboy out of me, but in my case it never seemed to work too well. I had more of a literary bent. I loved to read, and very early on I began to write small stories, short stories, out of the things I liked to read." —Elmer Kelton

Musical magic hit Austin, Texas, in the early 1970s. At now-legendary venues such as Threadgill's, Vulcan Gas Company, and the Armadillo World Headquarters, a host of country, rock-and-roll, blues, and folk musicians came together and created a sound and a scene that Jan Reid vividly detailed in his 1974 book, The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock. The breadth of talent still astounds—Willie Nelson, Janis Joplin, Jerry Jeff Walker, Doug Sahm, Delbert McClinton, Michael Martin Murphey, Willis Alan Ramsey, Kinky Friedman, Steve Fromholz, Bobby Bridger, Billy Joe Shaver, Marcia Ball, and Townes Van Zandt. Reid's book even inspired the nationally popular and long-running PBS series Austin City Limits, which focused attention on the trends that fed the music scene—progressive country, country rock, western swing, blues, and bluegrass among them. In this new edition, Jan Reid revitalizes his classic look at the Austin music scene. He has substantially reworked the early chapters to include musicians and musical currents from other parts of Texas that significantly contributed to the delightful convergence of popular cultures in Austin. Four new chapters and an epilogue show how the creative burst of the seventies directly spawned a new generation of talents who carry on the tradition—Lyle Lovett, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Robert Earl Keen, Steve Earle, Jimmy LaFave, Kelly Willis, Joe Ely, Bruce and Charlie Robison, and The Dixie Chicks.

Two police officers that did stints in detectives decided they wanted to go back to a front line/first responder status in the department. There is a notable age difference between them but due to similar attitudes and motivations they became friends years ago. By choice they end up on the same patrol squad, with the older as the others supervisor. The two no matter how hard they try and sometimes no matter how hard they try not to, get into very dangerous, frustrating and sometimes even comedic situations. Unfortunately being a police officer isn’t very popular in current times. These officers were active in the mid 90’s and the public was a little more supportive but police administrations weren’t necessarily so. No matter what the era, persons in higher stations do not want to lose their positions due to the actions of over zealous underlings. These two keep trying to do things right and the right things, but due to some frail human qualities and a thing called Murphy’s Law, things do not usually end very well for them. If you have any sense of right and wrong or what’s fair and what isn’t, you should find yourself cheering and hoping they will survive and over come all adversities. If not you may be more pragmatic and think they are morons and should have known better. Because, realistically they have no one else to blame but each other, for putting themselves in those positions. Judge for yourself.

How Rick Perry navigated and shaped Texas politics as the state’s longest serving governor. Rick Perry, the charming rancher, pilot, and politician from West Texas who was governor from 2000 to 2015, is one of the most important but polarizing figures in the state's history. Over the nearly forty years he spent in the political arena, his political instincts served as a radar primed to sense future political opportunities. Hugging the arc of Texas political change, he shifted from a rural, “blue dog” Democrat to one of the most conservative politicians the state had elected up to that time, overseeing the enactment of controversial redistricting, voting, and abortion measures. Yet his evolution was complicated and incomplete, as his stands on such topics as immigration, vaccine requirements, and the use of state funds to attract business ran into opposition from a growing and ever-more conservative wing of the Republican Party in Texas—and the nation. Rick Perry is both a biography of Perry as a politician and a study of the shifts in state politics that took place during his time in office. Demonstrating that Perry ranks among the most consequential governors in Texas history, Brandon Rottinghaus chronicles the profound ways he accumulated power and shaped the governorship.