Mary Beth Rogers will be in conversation with Joe Holley.

Mary Beth Rogers served as Ann Richards’s campaign manager and chief of staff, a television executive, college professor, and government official. She is the author of several books, including Barbara Jordan: American Hero, and Turning Texas Blue: What It Will Take to Break the GOP Grip on America’s Reddest State.

Joe Holley has been the “Native Texan” columnist for the Houston Chronicle since 2013. A native Texan himself – from Waco – he’s been an editorial-page-editor in San Diego, Calif., a contributor to Texas Monthly, a speechwriter for Gov. Ann Richards, a staff writer for The Washington Post and an editorial writer for the Chronicle from 2012 to 2017. He was a 2017 Pulitzer Prize finalist for a series of editorials on gun control and the Texas gun culture. He received the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 2022. He’s the author of six books, including Hometown Texas, a collection of his weekly “Native Texan” columns; Hurricane Season: The Unforgettable Story of the Houston Astros and the Resilience of a City; and Sutherland Springs: God, Guns and Hope in a Small Texas Town, published in 2020 and recipient of the 2021 Carr P. Collins Award, presented by the Texas Institute of Letters in recognition of the year’s best work of nonfiction. The book explores the aftermath of the mass shooting at the Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Nov. 5, 2017. Joe and his wife Laura Tolley (yes, Tolley, not Holley), a former journalist with the Associated Press, divide their time between Austin and Marathon.

For more information, or to order books, please visit: https://www.brazosbookstore.com/event/person-mary-beth-rogers-hope-and-hard-truth