Book contains about 400 images of the fronts and backs of real photo postcards from about 1900-1920. These were postcards created by ordinary people from their own photographs and mailed with their messages on the back. Book also describes history of photography that resulted in people being able to create their own photos without a dark room, and explains known information about the specific cards, including who sent and received them and what they depict

Interview with Vladislava Alaytseva, Uzbekistani-born immigrant to Dallas, Texas, for the DFW Metroplex Immigrants Oral History Project. The interview includes Alaytseva's personal experiences of childhood in Uzbekistan, moving to the U.S., transitioning to the American school system, her first impressions the U.S., and the culture shock in America. Additionally, Alaytseva talks about the transition of Uzbekistan from a Soviet satellite to an independent Muslim nation, her mother's family in Russia, the differentiation between being ethnically Russian or Uzbekistani, the definition of "culture," the comparison of life in Uzbekistan and the U.S., and the elements of Uzbekistani culture brought to America.

With the outbreak of World War II, British Royal Air Force (RAF) officials sought to train aircrews outside of England, safe from enemy attack and poor weather. In the United States six civilian flight schools dedicated themselves to instructing RAF pilots; the first, No. 1 British Flying Training School (BFTS), was located in Terrell, Texas, east of Dallas. Tom Killebrew explores the history of the Terrell Aviation School and its program with RAF pilots. Most of the early British students had never been in an airplane or even driven an automobile before arriving in Texas to learn to fly. The cadets trained in the air on aerobatics, instrument flight, and night flying, while on the ground they studied navigation, meteorology, engines, and armaments–even spending time in early flight simulators. By the end of the war, more than two thousand RAF cadets had trained at Terrell, cementing relations between Great Britain and the United States and forming lasting bonds with the citizens of Terrell.

On August 1, 1966, Charles Joseph Whitman ascended the University of Texas Tower and committed what was then the largest simultaneous mass murder in American history. He gunned down forty-five people inside and around the Tower before he was killed by two Austin police officers. During the previous evening he had killed his wife and mother, bringing the total to sixteen people dead and at least thirty-one wounded. The murders spawned debates over issues which still plague America today: domestic violence, child abuse, drug abuse, military indoctrination, the insanity defense, and the delicate balance between civil liberties and public safety. "An outstanding job of chronicling one of the most significant cases in the annals of American crime. . . . Lavergne skillfully researched, documented, and analyzed a case that in many ways defined the concept of ‘mass murder’ . . . will likely become a classic in anyone’s library of true crime editions."--James Alan Fox, Dean of Criminal Justice, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, and an authority on mass murder

Transcript of an interview with Evilu Pridgeon, educator and longtime Dallas LGBT activist, for the Dallas LGBT Oral History Project. Pridgeon discusses her childhood in Austin, Texas; education; work history; coming out; Dallas LGBT history; AIDS crisis in Dallas; LGBT activism; The Dallas Way; diversity in the gay community.

Award-winning composer John Musto stands at the forefront of modern American art-song composition. Many of his songs, such as "Litany" from Shadow of the Blues, have already achieved a place in the standard contemporary repertory for singers. His compositional technique weaves influences of jazz, blues, ragtime, and popular music with classical technique to make music that is decidedly modern but accessible and well liked both by critics and audiences. Unfortunately, though he is still actively composing, very little has been written about Musto and there is a lack of information available about his more recent compositions. This performance guide addresses one of Musto's acclaimed song cycles, Penelope, (a cycle of seven songs for soprano and piano) commissioned and premiered in 2000. The story of the cycle is an updated version of the character Penelope from Homer's The Odyssey and was a collaboration between Musto and poet Denise Lanctot. Including interviews with Musto, and his wife, soprano Amy Burton, who premiered the cycle and for whom it was written, the document provides background information on how the cycle was conceived and gives in-depth performance information on each of the seven songs of Penelope. In addition to musical examples and poetry from …

Transcript of an interview with Amy Trevino, a Mexican-American woman, about her educational experiences. Trevino shares memories of her childhood growing up in a large family and attending school; How her favorite subjects changed throughout the years with the teacher's influence and connection to the subject matter; Encouragement from her aunt to graduate and attend college; Rebelling and not graduating with her high school class in 1994; Struggles as a young adult with no future goals; Getting married and having children; Her accomplishment in 2005 of enrolling in a Catholic school for 6 weeks to obtain high school diploma; Personal growth and encouraging her children to graduate and go to college.

The current study assessed the effectiveness of a training package, delivered in the form of a manual, to teach a parent to increase the variety and amount of food consumed by her son. The participant was a 5-year-old boy with Pervasive Developmental Disorder and limited food consumption. A changing criterion design across two variables, variety of food and quantity of food, was used. Results were that the parent who used the manual, with limited assistance from the experimenter, did succeed in increasing food variety and quantity of target foods.

Interview with Jay Titus, an Army Air Forces veteran (457th Squadron, 330th Bomb Group, 20th Air Force), concerning his experiences as a B-29 bombardier in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Bombing missions from Guam to Japan in 1945; Japanese fighter and flak opposition; fire bombing raids. Appendix includes a photocopy of the "350th Bomb Group Digest: a summary of combat activities from April 12 to Sept. 2 1945" [21 leaves]

Brazos is a collection of poetry that comments on and critiques life in a small town in Texas. These poems situate the speaker both in this town and in spaces removed from the town, but the work always grapples with questions of how the speaker identifies himself via the relationship to that space. The creative portion is accompanied by a critical introduction that looks at the intersections of poetry and the lyric essay.

Thousands of children are diagnosed with autism each year, with a rate of occurrence of 1 in 150 births, compared to 5 per 10,000 just two decades ago. This astounding escalation has professionals scrambling to explain why the devastating neurological disorder, which profoundly affects a person’s language and social development, is on the rise. Are we simply getting better at diagnosing autism, or is a modern health crisis unfolding before us?

The stories in The Expense of a View explore the psyches of characters under extreme duress. In the title story, a woman who has moved across the country in an attempt to leave her past behind dumps an empty suitcase into the Columbia River over and over again. In another story, a woman who wakes up mornings only to discover she's been shooting heroin in a night trance, meets her doppelganger on a rainy Oregon beach. Most of the characters are displaced and disturbed; they suffer from dissociative disorders, denial, and delusions. The settings—Florida, eastern Washington, Seattle, and the Oregon coast—mirror their lunacies. While refusing to look at what’s right in front of themselves might destroy them, it’s equally likely to be just what they need.The contents include: Honey -- Night train -- Void of course -- The expense of a view -- Three of swords -- Thinking about Carson -- Compliance -- My old man -- My doppelganger's arms -- Festival -- How to make an island -- Blue plastic shades -- The grandmother's vision -- The island of cats.

Interview with Margaret Dawson concerning her recollections of the Crater of Diamonds and diamond mining near Murfreesboro, Arkansas from 1951 to 1962.

Many Christian writers point to God through their fiction without openly evangelizing. The images their words evoke lift their secular and religious readers' heads, for God is reflected in their use of language, the emotions they describe, and the actions of their characters. The preface and short stories in this collection aim to show that God's presence can be felt even when people are suffering due to human decisions and mistakes. He is with His creations in the midst of their pain to impart hope when they need it most.

Interview with Cmdr. Alex Vraciu, a Navy WWII veteran and Navy Cross recipient from East Chicago, Indiana. Vraciu discusses his family and educational background, naval flight training, Edward "Butch" O'Hare, the F6F Hellcat, various combat operations throughout the Pacific, his actions at the "Marianas Turkey Shoot," being awarded the Navy Cross and time stateside, and returning to combat. In appendix is an autobiographical sketch by Vraciu, including a picture of him and his Hellcat with visible victory markings on the fuselage.

By early 1941, Great Britain stood alone against the aerial might of Nazi Germany and was in need of pilots. The Lend-Lease Act allowed for the training of British pilots in the United States and the formation of British Flying Training Schools. These unique schools were owned by American operators, staffed with American civilian instructors, supervised by British Royal Air Force officers, utilized aircraft supplied by the U.S. Army Air Corps, and used the RAF training syllabus. Within these pages, Tom Killebrew provides the first comprehensive history of all seven British Flying Training Schools located in Terrell, Texas; Lancaster, California; Miami, Oklahoma; Mesa, Arizona; Clewiston, Florida; Ponca City, Oklahoma; and Sweetwater, Texas. The British students attended classes and slowly mastered the elements of flight day and night. Some students flushed out, while others were killed during training mishaps and are buried in local cemeteries. Those who finished the course became Royal Air Force pilots. These young British students would also forge a strong and long-lasting bond of friendship with the Americans they came to know.

Although in 2000 he became the first sideman inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, “King Curtis” Ousley never lived to accept his award. Tragically, he was murdered outside his New York City home in 1971. At that moment, thirty-seven-year-old King Curtis was widely regarded as the greatest R & B saxophone player of all time. He also may have been the most prolific, having recorded with well over two hundred artists during an eighteen-year span. Soul Serenade is the definitive biography of one of the most influential musicians of the 50s, 60s, and early 70s. Timothy R. Hoover chronicles King Curtis’s meteoric rise from a humble Texas farm to the recording studios of Memphis, Muscle Shoals, and New York City as well as to some of the world’s greatest music stages, including the Apollo Theatre, Fillmore West, and Montreux Jazz Festival. Curtis’s “chicken-scratch” solos on the Coasters’ Yakety Yak changed the role of the saxophone in rock & roll forever. His band opened for the Beatles at their famous Shea Stadium concert in 1965. He also backed his “little sister” and close friend Aretha Franklin on nearly all of her tours and Atlantic Records productions from 1967 …

This anthology collects the winners of the 2019 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest at UNT’s Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. First place winner: Eli Saslow, “It Was My Job, and I Didn’t Find Him” (The Washington Post), narrates the life of a former officer at the Parkland high school shooting. Second place: Elizabeth Bruenig, “What Do We Owe Her Now?” (The Washington Post), is the story of a high school rape victim who received no justice. Third place: Hannah Dreier, “The Disappeared” (ProPublica), follows a mother who lost her teenage son to gang violence. Runners-up include Jamie Thompson, “Standoff” (The Dallas Morning News); Lane DeGregory, “Lincoln’s Shot” (Tampa Bay Times); Jenna Russell, “The World, the Stage, the Way Ahead” (The Boston Globe); Evan Allen, “Under a Dark Sky, a Baby is Born” (The Boston Globe); Lisa Gartner, “She’s Taught at the Parkland High School for 14 Years. Can She Go Back?” (Tampa Bay Times); Claire McNeill, “So You Remember the Student Who Was Shot at FSU? He’s Pretty Sure We’ve All Moved On” (Tampa Bay Times); and Bethany Barnes, “Targeted” (The Oregonian).

This thesis consists of a preface and twenty-one original short stories. The preface examines the differences between creative nonfiction, autobiography, and memoir. The twenty-one interrelated stories included are autobiographical in nature, in some ways memoirs and in some ways creative nonfiction. The over-all theme of the collection explores one character's journey of self-discovery and transformation.

James M. Davis is a retired businessman who lives in Midland, Texas, with his wife of over six decades, Jean. He served on active duty in the U.S. Army Air Forces for more than two and a half years during World War II, and then in the Air Force reserves until 1961. David L. Snead, the editor, is an associate professor of history at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. He received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Virginia and is the author of The Gaither Committee, Eisenhower, and the Cold War and George E. Browne: An American Doughboy in World War I.

From Jane Roberts Wood comes a quietly riveting novel revealing the banal faces of evil in a small East Texas town. In 1946 a young couple is brutally murdered in Cold Springs. And, now, thirty-four years later, the rumor is that Jackson Morris, who had been the only person of interest in the murders, has come home. Or has he? When the four women of the Tuesday bridge club hear this rumor, their responses range from a reckless excitement to a shaky uneasiness. There’s Isabel, compelling and passionate, who foolishly and inexplicably longs to see Jackson, her first love, again while the seemingly innocent Mary Martha prays that the sheriff will put Jackson’s head in a noose. Although the eternally optimistic Sarah looks to the law to determine Jackson’s fate, the fourth woman, an Irish immigrant and a misfit in Cold Springs, is guided by the spirit world, including a cat, in deciding his guilt or innocence. When a second murder occurs after Jackson’s return, Cold Springs reacts with fear and paranoia while the women struggle to protect their friend’s reputation and desperately try to find a murderer.

Living in the Woods in a Tree is an intimate glimpse into the turbulent life of Texas music legend Blaze Foley (1949--1989), seen through the eyes of Sybil Rosen, the woman for whom he wrote his most widely known song, “If I Could Only Fly." It captures the exuberance of their fleeting idyll in a tree house in the Georgia woods during the countercultural 1970s. Rosen offers a firsthand witnessing of Foley’s transformation from a reticent hippie musician to the enigmatic singer/songwriter who would live and die outside society's rules. While Foley's own performances are only recently being released, his songs have been covered by Merle Haggard, Lyle Lovett, and John Prine. When he first encountered “If I Could Only Fly," Merle Haggard called it “the best country song I've heard in fifteen years." In a work that is part-memoir, part-biography, Rosen struggles to finally come to terms with Foley's myth and her role in its creation. Her tracing of his impact on her life navigates a lovers' roadmap along the permeable boundary between life and death. A must-read for all Blaze Foley and Texas music fans, as well as romantics of all ages, Living in the Woods in a …

This extraordinary first collection of short stories covers the landscape of dysfunctional childhood, urban angst, and human disconnection with a wit and insight that keep you riveted to the page. The characters here have rich and imaginative interior lives, but grave difficulty relating to the outside world. The beginning story, "Ducklings," introduces the over-weight and over-enthusiastic Marjorie, the last twelve-year-old you would want babysitting your toddler. In "Wanted" we meet Eleanor, a single girl living in Chicago who may or may not be dating a serial killer. "Another Cancer Story" is an unsentimental account of two sisters whose beloved mother just won't seem to die, and "The Last Dead Boyfriend" gives us a recovering addict who keeps encountering her recently deceased boyfriend, an unpleasant man she wished she'd broken up with before he died. Always funny, often dark, and wholly satisfying, these stories explore the longing for connection among characters who are frequently stricken with anxiety. Each story is rendered in a way that is surreal, vivid, and entirely convincing. "Wonderful Girl is a smart, funny collection, by turns poignant, mysterious, terrifying, sexy, often just plain nuts (in a good way!). The characters in these stories are deliciously confused but …

Most of the nine stories in Last Known Position were written upon James Mathews’ return from combat deployment to the Middle East with the D.C. Air National Guard. Life under fire provided the author with both dramatic events and a heightened sense of observation, allowing him to suggest the stress of combat as the driving factor behind extreme yet believable characterization and action. Military experiences and settings cause certain human elements and truisms to emerge more profoundly and dramatically. These stories portray desperate characters driven to make desperate choices. Always on the edge of a dark and unpleasant reality, Mathews’ characters survive by embracing fantasy, humor, violence, and sometimes redemption. Each story bears its own brand of hopeless quirkiness. Four teenagers on an army base steal a grenade and are stalked by a parade horse. A drifter returns home to rob the grandparents who raised him. A national guardsman faces a homicidal superior officer in Iraq on the eve of war. An elderly man worries that his wife’s new house guests are unrepentant cannibals. Always tense, sometimes ridiculous, and never dull, Last Known Position brings the reader to places unknown before and unforgettable after.