State of Texas Publishing - Parsons

Noel Parsons, former director of the Texas Tech University Press and recently retired with family in Florida, in 2005 had some excellent comments for the folks in Conroe and you.    The State of Texas Publishing Parsons begins:  "In his book The Ornamental Hermit, which Texas Tech Press published in 2004, essayist Robert Murray Davis, long-time professor of English at the University of Oklahoma, includes an essay on the state of Oklahoma writing and publishing. In doing so, he must compare Oklahoma, and every other state, to Texas. He notes that no other state except New York, of course, and perhaps California (and I would include Mississippi) has a literary culture to compare to that of Texas." Further down he askes the questions "Why is this? Why, except perhaps for Mississippi, does no other state away from the great publishing centers of the northeast have anything approaching the literary tradition of Texas?" From a presentation at the conference "The State of Publishing," Montgomery College, Conroe, Texas, November 19, 2005. Read more about Texas literature at http://www.ttup.ttu.edu/fromthedirector.html In February 2008 Texas Tech announced "Texas Tech Press Director Elected to State Literary Group: Noel R. Parsons will be inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters for his work in advancing Texas literature."         Read more of Sally Post's article at  http://www.depts.ttu.edu/communications/news/stories/08/02-parsons-til.php