Connie Lane Williams: Chicken Fried Steak Festival

Connie Lane Williams: Chicken Fried Steak Festival: "Lamesa's first annual Chicken Fried Steak Festival is underway. Forrest Park is just pristene this time of spring. My sister Darla and I a..."

Chicken Fried Steak Festival

Lamesa's first annual Chicken Fried Steak Festival is underway.  Forrest Park is just pristene this time of spring.  My sister Darla and I and my two granson's, Darrion 7, and Logan 3, set up my Dancing Backward's in Texas booth in the shade under the tallest trees in West Texas.  Everything is green and the park's grassy floor slopes down through the trees into sulfer draw. Dozen's of vendor's were hard at work setting up their wares when we left the park tonight.  One of the City worker's said there were fifty-two vendor's registered for space in the park.  The kids and I will get there early int he morning to see what someone is going to put in that horse corral that's sitting empty near our table.  We plan to spend the morning there, and have a taste or two of the chicken fried steaks that the folks entered in the contest are going to be turning out.  I'll have copies of Dancing Backwards in Texas for your viewing pleasure and maybe we'll have time for a reading or two.  John Levacy and Wayne Thompson and their friends did a bit of pickin' and grinin' and I think they are gonna be back tommorrow to help out with the entertainment.  See ya'll there; we're right in the middle of nothing, and that makes us something on the South Plains of West Texas. Come check it out, you won't go away hungry.  Oh yeah, there's a wine tasting at the Barron building Saturday night and a band on the square till midnight.  Hasta Manana!

Connie Lane Williams: Dancing Backwards in the Library

Connie Lane Williams: Dancing Backwards in the Library: "Good morning friends, I will be doing a reading and book signing this afternoon, April 28, Thursday, from 4:30pm to 5:30 pm in the Dawson Co..."

Dancing Backwards in the Library

Good morning friends, I will be doing a reading and book signing this afternoon, April 28, Thursday, from 4:30pm to 5:30 pm in the Dawson County Public Library, Lamesa, Texas.  This will be a reading for general audiences, your children are invited.  One always wonders how the old home town will respond to the highlights in our lives; I guess this will be the proof of the pudding.  Book sales have been tremendous; I am grateful for the support of many friends and fans who live away from here, and I am so happy to have been able to engage our poetic community, family and friends in laughter as well as tears.  We all share the common bond of humanity, and laying it out there, we get to experience our connection with one another.  Wish me luck this afternoon; I'm not a nervous performer, but today is a little scary 'cause it's in my hometown.  Love to all -- Connie Lane

You Are Invited

The Dawson County Library will host a reading of Dancing Backwards in Texas by author Connie Lane Williams.  You are invited to join us at 310 South Main, Lamesa, Texas, from 4:30pm to 5:30pm, Thursday April 28, 2011.  Dancing Backwards in Texas is a collection of poetry that views the West Texas landscape from love and laughter to spiritual epiphany.  Travel with Williams through the prairies of West Texas to the sidewalks of Austin as she spins a yarn, inspires you to laugh and cry, or step back for a closer look at the familiar.

Chicken Soup Poetry

This poem is in the section of Dancing Backwards in Texas titled "Floating on Water," and refers to those interludes in my life when my lungs react to the years of abuse and I am reduced to lying in bed listening to beautiful music, reading, and making my Jewish mother chicken soup.  "I doze while listening to Edith Piaf / Wake having understood the French words as easily as English / "  hmmmmm must be the codeine cough syrup, but the truth is it's actually a time for introspection, and because of the wonderful aroma and array of herbs floating on top of my chicken soup, I thought it perfect for the introductory poem of "Floating on Water." 

Ironically after the wonderful release party Saturday night in Austin, I find myself back home in my nest nursing yet another 'bout of the "crude" and making chicken soup, listening to music, and writing poetry.
I love my life, it's always open to change and a little backwards jig.

Check out the comments about Dancing Backwards in Texas  on my website at http://www.connielanewilliams.com/  Published by Slough Press, College Station Texas and edited by Dr. Charles Taylor, this collection of poems will dance you through the West Texas landscape, the stellar skies of the universe and under the oragami moon.  An autographed copy can be purchased from Connie Lane Williams at 301 North 19th Street, Lamesa, Texas 79331 for $15.95 plus shipping of $3.00. 

Connie Lane Williams: DANCING BACKWARDS IN TEXAS

Connie Lane Williams: DANCING BACKWARDS IN TEXAS: "Dancing Backwards in Texas had it's coming out party quiet by accident last Saturday night, April 2, 2011 at the B'Hai Temple in Austin, Texas, which is befitting the collection.  I met Peggy Lynch first at the Expressions venue there a couple of years back; I took a look at the PITA website and discovered a call for submission of poetry with a Texas Theme.  I penned the first lines of Dancing Backward at that moment, "Texas ladies have too much history / they carry their whole lives around on the tip of their tongues / dancing backwards is not easy." I think I was looking for a reason that Texas women could not write about Texas, there was just too much to say.  Then I had a revelation, why, I'd been dancing backwards all my life, no wonder it had been such a sight. 

Take a look at what some of Texas well known poets have to say about Dancing Backwards in Texas and why it appeals to the native and non-native son of the state as well, there is more to dancing backwards than meets the eye, "it is an acquired technique."

Dancing Backwards is as various in subject matter as it is in tonal nuance.  By turns poignant, philosophical, reflective, rowdy, and erotic, Williams's poems capture not only the flora, fauna and denizens of her beloved West Texas but also the vast and treacherous regions of the human heart.  What really stands out in the collection, however, is the enchanting musicality of her poetic diction.  In poem after poem and line after line, Williams "beats time to Mozart."

Larry D. Thomas

Member, Texas Institute of Letters

2008 Texas Poet Laureate

lean into these poems as you would a warm West Texas wind, a cool creek watched by a naked moon; hear the rattlers off in the mesquite, the coyotes on the ridge, the lovers in the bed of that pickup bathed in a sweat older than song; catch the whispers in the cafes, the music blaring from the bars, the holy shouts of a woman who has a keener eye for truth than a Harris’s hawk—welcome Connie Williams, a poet who sees the whole round in the proud beauty of all things

— Ric Williams, author of the award-winning book of poetry the secret book of god and the novel The Woman in Tower: Stories for the Wounded Child

An autographed copy of Dancing Backwards in Texas, published by Slough Press and edited by Dr. Charles Taylor,  may be ordered from the author, Connie Lane Williams, at 301 North 19th Street, Lamesa, Texas   79331 for $15.95 plus $4.00 shipping and handling.  Or e-mail to RedSagewoman@hotmail.com.