Literary Scavenger Hunt

Books over bonnets: It's an Indie thing this Easter weekend

Forget the Easter egg hunt. How about some literary scavenging?

The Indie Book Festival moves to the Menil Lawn this year and kicks off at 10 a.m. on Saturday. The readings, raffles, and browsing last until 5 p.m. The Houston Indie Book Festival is the result of a collaboration among the Menil, a locally-based flash fiction e-journal NANO Fiction, the flagship journal of the University of Houston’s nationally ranked creative writing program Gulf Coast, KUHF Houston Public Radio and the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses.

April may be National Poetry month, but Houston celebrates all that and more at the Indie Book Festival. For three years running, Bayou City has been home to this festival of independent publishing that features a wide range of homegrown literary journals, small presses, local bookstores, writing collectives, and literary advocacy groups.

While Indie Book Festival affords aficionados the chance to check out the state of the art of literary publishing, anyone can appreciate what an impressive literary scene this region affords. You might learn, for instance, that Houston is home to to the nation’s largest publisher of literature by U.S. Hispanic authors. Nicolás Kanellos founded Arte Publico Press in 1979. He was the original publisher of Sandra Cisneros' landmark The House on Mango Street. The press continues to publish dozens of new titles each year and is home to the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project, dedicated to the recovery and publication of lost Hispanic literary voices from colonial times to the present, and Piñata Books, an imprint featuring works for children.

You can find Arte Publico Press titles and many others at Heights Books-Libros, Houston's first bilingual Spanish bookstore, which will also host a booth at the festival.

If shopping is your pleasure, you might also check out Houston's premier Muslim culture bookstore Light of Islam and Kaboom Books, which features used and scholarly books. Kaboom also hosts the NANO Fiction reading series. And no book festival would be complete without Houston's premier independent literary book dealer, Brazos Bookstore, or the entertaining oddities of Domy Books.

Where else can you find the latest graphic novels, bootleg videos, and dolls with big heads, sharp teeth and little bodies?

The Indie Book Festival will feature, in part thanks to the Council of Literary Presses and Magazines, a fire sale on literary journals ($2 each) and titles from an array of small presses ($4 each) from outside of the Houston area, incuding The Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, The Georgia Review, Fence and others.

Booths featuring distinguished regional journals, including the African-American arts and culture centered Callalloo, the Pebble Lake Review's range of poetry, prose, and reviews, and American Short Fiction's focus on the arts of story telling. Local publishers will be represented including Bright Sky Press, which publishes local and regional titles including the fantastic Houston Deco, a visual record of the city's surviving Art Deco architecture.

Before you leave, don't forget community organizations such as Houston's premiere literary presenter Inprint or Taping for the Blind, a service organization providing all manner of reading materials for the visually impaired. Taping also features a regularly broadcast poetry show, which is archived online.

Sleuths are sisters too. That's the message of the Sisters of Crime, who work tirelessly to advance the interests of women mystery writers. Or, see if the members of the Bay Area Writer's League or the Creative Writer's Collective can help you write the great American novel.

unspecified

Movie Review

Daniel Craig shines in Queer, an unapologetic tale of love and loss

Photo courtesy of A24

Drew Starkey and Daniel Craig in Queer.

As recently as the late 2010s, if a movie was made about an LGBTQ+ character, it was more than likely about their coming out experience. Romance, if it existed, was typically chaste, and actual sex was almost completely out of the question. Things have changed dramatically in the 2020s, to the point that a major movie star has no issue starring in a film called Queer.

Based on the 1985 novella by William S. Burroughs, the film features William Lee (Daniel Craig), whom everyone calls just Lee, a writer living in 1950s-era Mexico City who spends most of his time haunting local bars with friends like fellow writer Joe Guidry (Jason Schwartzman) and hitting on younger men. His early interactions in the film seem to indicate that Lee has a bad reputation within the local gay community, as multiple people avoid him or give him odd looks.

Lee senses an opportunity when he encounters a newcomer, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). Despite some awkward interactions, the two of them start spending time together, although Lee has much more invested in the relationship than Eugene does. Their hit-and-miss bond continues until Lee, who’s starting to get into drugs in addition to the booze, convinces Eugene to accompany him on a trip to South America.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes (making their second straight film together after Challengers), early on the film seems to be mostly about the divide between an older person who’s grown comfortable in his ways and a younger person who’s living a relatively carefree life. The introduction of drugs into the plot changes things, though, with Lee searching out more ways to open his eyes to what the world has to offer.

Guadagnino and his team use some interesting visual storytelling techniques to introduce ideas that may not be present in the actual script. The most successful, demonstrated in multiple scenes, is the superimposition of movements by Lee over what’s actually taking place in the scene. The subtle overlay gives the audience insight into Lee’s true feelings, showing what he can’t or won’t say out loud.

Music also plays a big part in how the plot is perceived, with the use of anachronistic songs from Nirvana and Prince serving to heighten certain moments. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is not as in-your-face as the one they did for Challengers, but it complements the film well, especially when the plot starts to get trippy in its final half hour.

Craig, who appears sweaty and disheveled for much of the film, is about as far from the suaveness of James Bond as you can get in this role. He takes multiple risks with his performance and almost all of them pay off. Starkey’s character is subdued by comparison, but still comes off well. Schwartzman and Lesley Manville are given showy roles, with both using altered appearances that make them nearly unrecognizable to deliver memorable performances.

Queer is not as accessible as Challengers was storytelling-wise, but the fact that it tells a story about gay men living their lives as they see fit with no interference or questions shows how far the film world has come in a short period of time. It also continues Guadagnino’s streak of making audacious films in a way that few other filmmakers are willing or able to approach.

---

Queer is now playing in theaters.

movies film

Literary Scavenger Hunt

Books over bonnets: It's an Indie thing this Easter weekend

Stylish new lounge shakes up Houston with art-inspired drinks and caviar

Veteran chef opens affordable new Thai restaurant in West Houston

These are the 6 most affordable ZIP codes for Houston renters

Movie Review

Daniel Craig shines in Queer, an unapologetic tale of love and loss