HOW YOU LEAVE TEXAS
By
Alana Cash
How You Leave Texas is a volume of three short stories and a novella about four young women who leave Midland, Austin, Fort Worth and Mayville, Texas for New York, California, Jakarta, and in one instance, jail. They seek escape from boredom and sorrow and find it. The stories are hilarious, tragic, revelatory.
EXCERPT:
I picked up the phone and called Mehta.
When he answered I asked, “Do you want to meet me somewhere and hang out for a while?”
“I can’t. I’m in the middle of tinting the hair under my arms.”
“What color?”
“Red.”
“Mehta, I’m in a quandary.”
“Go on.”
“That guy Zach called and we’ve got a date to meet at his house on Saturday night.”
“Did he mention anything about electric appliances or a collie suit?”
“No.”
“A live studio audience.”
“No.”
“Acrobatics? Bondage? A trained flea circus?”
“No.
“I can understand your quandary. I wouldn’t want to go either.”
“It’s not going I’m worried about. It’s leaving.”
“Just don’t leave anything behind,” he said. “Hold on a minute, the timer just went off.”
He put the phone down and I heard water running in the background. Mehta rinsing his armpits. Then there was silence as he viewed his underarm handiwork in the mirror.
“Now where were we,” he said when he picked up the phone again.
“How does it look?”
“Cheerful. Now, about the date.”
“I’m not sure I’ll have a good time.”
“My, what a poor attitude. If you don’t have a good time, steal something.”
“What?”
“Take a little souvenir. An ashtray, a towel, a Ming vase.”
“Anything you particularly want for your apartment?”
“Let me think. I’d like something crystal. You can never have enough crystal.”
“You don’t have any crystal.”
“See what I mean.”
AUTHOR INFORMATION:
Alana Cash is an adventurer. She’s trekked alone through war-torn Serbia and has slept in a KGB interrogation room in Prague. She’s been to a gypsy fair in rural England, a bullfight in Laredo, and parasailing in Acapulco. She’s been inside the New York Stock Exchange and eaten in J. Pierpont Morgan’s home dining room. She's gone on a ride-along in a New York City patrol car and kissed a man inside the Norman Bates Psycho house at Universal Studios. She’s been a lifeguard, legal secretary, accountant, writer, teacher, filmmaker and artist.
Her experiences are inspiration for her work as an acclaimed writer and filmmaker.
- She was one of 60 US teachers profiled on the PBS series, "A Writer's Exchange," for her talent as a teacher at the University of Texas Informal Classes - many of her students published and won writing awards
- Her feature film, "Tom's Wife," based on her novel of the same name, won awards all over the world
- Her documentary "Anna Freud: Under Analysis," part of documentary trilogy on women in science, was translated into German for broadcast in Austria, Germany & Switzerland
GIVEAWAY:
Alana will be awarding a screen printed camisole (What Happens in the Bedroom Stays in the Bedroom) to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour as well as a screen printed Brass Nuts t-shirt to another commenter. Also, everyone who reviews the book will receive their choice of a camisole or T-shirt.
Please follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here: http://goddessfishpromotions.
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