An Evening with Gwynne, Harrigan and Wise

This year marks 10 years since The Ramay-Macatee Speaker Series began as a special event hosted by the Bridge Street History Center. Past events have offered exceptional speakers to sold out crowds. This Nov. 7, seats will be more coveted than ever at Granbury Live’s intimate venue as BSHC presents “An Evening with Gwynne, Harrigan and Wise.”

Justice Ken Wise will be the moderator of the round table format where he will host authors S.C. “Sam” Gwynne and Stephen Harrigan. All three historians are giants in their field. The subject? Our beloved Texas, about which the three gentlemen are well versed. This won’t be a history lecture but rather an entertaining evening of storytelling — factual, historically accurate storytelling.

For all of human history, people groups have gathered together around the fire or water source and delighted in a good story. In more recent history, cowboy lore includes the vision of dusty boots gathered around the fire before bed to “spin a yarn.”

Justice Wise sits on the 14th Court of Appeals in Houston. He is a member of the Texas Judicial Council, a director of the Judicial Section of the State Bar of Texas and an adjunct professor at Houston Baptist University. Wise, who regularly speaks about Texas history, was honored in 2021 by the Texas House of Representatives for preserving Texas history. Wise’s award-winning “Wise About Texas” podcast does its fair share to make Texas history come alive for people everywhere.

The atmosphere will be relaxed as Wise, Gwynne and Harrigan know one another and have appeared together before. In fact, Gwynne mentions taking walks with friend and peer Harrigan where each lives in Austin.

Wise feels none of the three will stay on script for long, “I will be off whatever meager script I bring immediately, because I'm very familiar with their work. I've known them through their work longer than we've known each other personally.”

I've interviewed them both before, and what's fascinating to me about authors is the way they see the world and how they take what they observe and communicate it to people in words, and how they paint pictures with words.΅

Unlike Wise, who is a fifth-generation native Texan with roots dating back to Houston in 1836, neither Gwynne nor Harrigan are native to Texas. Harrigan has called Texas home since the age of 5 and Gwynne moved here as an adult. Both Gwynne and Harrigan, like Wise, have resumes as long as your arm and yet all three are warm, witty and approachable.

Gwynne worked for Time Magazine as a correspondent, bureau chief, national correspondent and senior editor. He has written for just about every prestigious publication imaginable including extensively for Texas Monthly where he was executive editor for eight years. Prior to that he taught French and was an international banker. And yet, having traveled all around the world, Gwynne happily chose Texas as his home.

The wide-eyed wonderment of a newcomer is what Gwynne brings to his writing. “It’s great history (Texas history). I didn’t know anything about it when I came here. I mean, I am a Connecticut Yankee. So it was interesting to learn all the events. It’s great. It’s incredible history. It’s the opening of the American West. It’s so very, very different from where I grew up.”

Gwynne is probably best known for his books on American history. His book “Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History” spent 82 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Notably, Taylor Sheridan of “Yellowstone” fame will bring “Empire of the Summer Moon” to the screen after battling to acquire the chance to do so for a decade.

Gwynne’s book “Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson” was also a New York Times Bestseller.

Harrigan is a longtime writer for Texas Monthly and his work has appeared in an extensive list of well-known publications including The Atlantic, Outside, The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Conde Nast Traveler, Audubon, Travel Holiday, Life, American History, National Geographic and Slate.

Twelve books of fiction and nonfiction are to Harrigan’s credit and awards for both his journalism and his books are numerous. His book “The Gates of the Alamo,” was a New York Times bestseller and Notable Book. “The Gates of the Alamo” won the TCU Texas Book award, the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum and the Spur Award for Best Novel of the West. Harrigan’s award winning “Big Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas,” is considered by many to be the consummate book on Texas history — a riveting tale of events.

Harrigan has written many movies for television including HBO’s award-winning “Last of His Tribe,” starring Jon Voight and Graham Greene, and “King of Texas” for TNT starring Patrick Stewart, Marcia Gay Harden and Roy Scheider. His latest work for television is an adaptation of “The Which Way Tree” by Elizabeth Crook. Harrigan and Crook collaborated on the screenplay with Robert Duvall as producer.

BSHC hosted Harrigan in 2022 for its Ramay-Macatee Series. “I am just really thrilled to be back. Yeah, I have been there by myself once, but it’s really going to be fun with Sam and Ken. I think you know we all know each other. It will be fun for us to talk and I hope it will be fun for other people to listen.”

Wise was the Ramay-Macatee speaker in fall 2023. He looks forward to returning as well. “I want them (Gwynne and Harrigan) to talk about their process, but I also want them to talk about their view of historical events, because it is very interesting to learn how they view history, because everyone views it a little bit differently, depending on how history is useful to you.”

Tickets to “An Evening with Gwynne, Harrigan and Wise” are available online at granburylive.com. or at 800-340-9703. General admission seats are $75, VIP seats are $100, and seating is limited. Discounts on group rates are available. B.Y.O.B., but no wheeled coolers are allowed.