Frances B. Vick

FRANCES BRANNEN VICK was born in East Texas but has spent most of her life elsewhere, although the old family land is still there and visited frequently. Some of her people first came in East Texas in 1824 so she counts herself pretty much a professional Texan and has an East Texas twang to prove it. She is retired director and co-founder of the University of North Texas Press and E-Heart Press. She holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in English from The University of Texas at Austin and Stephen F. Austin State University, respectively, and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of North Texas. After a career teaching English, she published over 200 books, many of them state and national award winners.

In retirement, she has written One Hundred Years of "The Eyes of Texas." She co-authored Petra's Legacy: The South Texas Ranching Empire of Petra Vela and Mifflin Kenedy, which won the Coral Horton Tullis Award for the best book on Texas history from Texas State Historical Association, among other awards. She was the Carl Hertzog Award and Lecture Monograph recipient for Confessions of a Texas Publisher/Writer. She produced Literary Dallas and has written introductions and chapters for such books as Texas Women Writers, The Family Saga: A Collection of Texas Family Legends, Texas Women on the Cattle Trails, and Notes from Texas Writers. Her latest books are Letters to Alice: Birth of the Kleberg-King Ranch Dynasty and Tales of Texas Cooking: Stories and Recipes from the Trans-Pecos to the Piney Woods and High Plains to the Gulf Prairies, Texas Folklore Society Publication LXX.

She is currently the Secretary-Editor of the Texas Folklore Society, founded in 1909, the first woman to hold this position. The first book that came out with her as Secretary-Editor is A Biscuit For Your Shoe: A Memoir of County Line, a Texas Freedom Colony, by Beatrice Upshaw with photographs by Richard Orton, a TFS Extra Book. A Biscuit for Your Shoe shares Beatrice's memories of growing up in a freedom colony founded by former slaves that tells of beliefs, home remedies, folk games, and customs, as well as the importance of religion and education in a community of like-minded people. The Texas Folklore Society has moved to Tarleton State University in Stephenville, part of the Texas A&M University System, and is still waiting to unpack, having moved in the middle of the pandemic sweeping the nation.