photography by Elizabeth Lavin |
THE BOOK:
The Dallas Women’s Guide to Gold-Digging with Pride (Ballantine Books, May 2007) is the first novel by J.C. Conklin, a former Dallas Morning News and Wall Street Journal reporter who now lives in Austin.
THE TABLE:
Capital Grille, at the Crescent Court, center table, main dining room.
THE AUTHOR SAYS:
“I was going to lunch a lot at Capital Grille with some of the husband-hunted men and gathering a lot of stories. They didn’t think of me as a girl, so they started to comment on the women in the place. I took notes in a day calendar I had, sometimes under the table.”
photography by Elizabeth Lavin |
THE BOOK:
Crosshairs (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, August 2007) is the third mystery in the Lee Henry Oswald series written by Harry Hunsicker, who is a Dallas real estate appraiser by day.
THE TABLE:
Legal Grounds, any table against the bookshelves.
THE AUTHOR SAYS:
“I like the creative vibe that you get in Lakewood. It’s unlike anywhere else in the city, and Legal Grounds seems to capture it nicely. And since I often write about people killing each other, I like to keep my back to the wall.”
photography by Elizabeth Lavin |
THE BOOK:
A Push and a Shove (Alyson Books, September 2007) is the debut novel by Star-Telegram film critic and Texas Monthly writer-at-large Christopher Kelly. He wrote his first draft of the novel in longhand.
THE TABLE:
Starbucks on Hulen Street in Fort Worth, near the back, behind display rack of mugs.
THE AUTHOR SAYS:
“Occasionally, others would be sitting at this table when I arrived, and so I would glare at them until they left. I started writing in October 2003, and since then there have been four different managers and probably at least 50 or so baristas come and go.”