Festive Frolics

A belated Happy Thanksgiving to you all! I trust you ate your weight in turkey and were thankful for Tums, naps, and indoor plumbing. Now that the tryptophan has left our systems, it’s officially time to get our Yule on at Malvern Books.

Christmas Decorating

Christmas windows

Cheery, no? You really should stop by and check out our festive bling in person—and take care of all your Christmas shopping while you’re at it!

We also have some splendid events lined up for you this month. We’ll post more details as they come to hand (our Facebook page is the best place to go for gentle reminders), but for now let me whet your appetite with a few snippets…

This Thursday, December 5th, we’ll host a reading from Daniel Chacón and Ire’ne Lara Silva, two participants in this year’s Flor De Nopal Literary Festival. Chacón teaches creative writing at the University of Texas at El Paso and is the author of the novel and the shadows took him and several short story collections, including the acclaimed Hotel Juárez. Silva’s first poetry collection, Furia, received an Honorable Mention in the 2011 International Latino Book Awards, and her first short story collection, Flesh to Bone, was published last month by Aunt Lute Books.

A couple of days later, on Saturday, December 7th, the intrepid/insane locals who took part in this year’s National Novel Writing Month will meet up at Malvern to talk about exactly how drunk you have to be to sign up the challenges of writing 50,000 words in thirty days. If you took part in NaNoWriMo (or are contemplating signing up next year), please do join in the discussion!

And on Tuesday, December 17th, we’ll be hosting something very exciting indeed: a rather rambunctious birthday celebration in honor of the legendary Texas poet Albert Huffstickler, who passed away in 2002 at the age of seventy-four. We’re big fans of Mr. Huffstickler, and we’ll be pulling out all the stops to mark the occasion of his birth. There will be cake! There will be merriment! And, most importantly, there will be readings from assorted lovely types like Annie Hartnett, W. Joe Hoppe, David Jewell, Sylvia Manning, Mark Smith, and Larry Thoren. So do make sure to set aside some time in your busy Chrissie calendar for a lil’ Merry Huffmas…