American Short Fiction presents Tennessee writer Kevin Wilson tonight at BookPeople, reading from his first novel The Family Fang. The book has been generating both commercial and critical hype and was selected to be a part of Barnes and Noble's "Discover Great New Writers" series, in addition to being named a New York Times Bestseller. more ›

The 35th annual O. Henry Pun-Off will be held tomorrow in the backyard of the O. Henry and Susanna Dickinson Museums downtown. This is where the punniest punsters of Austin unite to hone their homonyms and dish out double entendres in order to compete for prizes. more ›

Erotic fiction is hot right now, with recent novel Fifty Shades of Grey crossing over to the mainstream via Twitter and the New York Times. Characterized as Romance with explicit sex scenes meant to titillate a mostly female audience, fiction erotica has eased its way into public places like Barnes & Noble, Wal-Mart, and the park. more ›

Publish or perish. And these days, apparently, being twelve is no excuse. Thanks to local non-profit Badgerdog Literary Publishing, some of Central Texas' youngest writers are about to see their name in print. Come out to St. David's Episcopal Church this Saturday to hear readings by the 3rd through 12th graders featured in the latest Badgerdog-published anthologies, Rise and Emerge. more ›

Don’t miss notable Texas native and former CBS anchorman Dan Rather at BookPeople tonight, signing copies of his latest memoir Rather Outspoken: My Life in the News. more ›

It’s rare that a book event offers its audiences a chance to get decked out and enjoy a million-dollar view along with their fresh fiction more ›

Ben Marcus is something of a new god in the world of fiction, and especially so to those who consider themselves fans of the “experimental.” Though Marcus shies from being viewed as a leader of some sort of movement, his first two books, The Age of Wire and String and Notable American Women have thrust him into flag-bearer position as representative of an increasing freedom of style in American literature. The New York resident is now touring in support of his latest (and most “conventional”) book, The Flame Alphabet, so we called him up prior to his reading for the New Fiction Confab to talk religion and the future of literature, as well as getting pissed off about expectations. more ›

On tour promoting and reading from her first book The Underside of Joy, debut novelist Seré Prince Halverson is hitting BookPeople tonight. Described as "an exploration of the complex relationship of two mothers," this book sets the desires of two mothers against one another in a complex battle over the custody of two children. more ›

Your eight-year-old prefers Hemingway to Harry Potter and has read The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, twice. Lately he’s taken to carrying around a notebook he scribbles in every time you use a cliché. Other people think he’s socially awkward, but you're certain he’s a budding artiste. Time to sign him up for Badgerdog’s Spring Break Creative Writing Program where published poets, playwrights and fiction writers can cultivate his nascent literary talent. more ›

Resident blackout poet Austin Kleon has a new book out called Steal Like An Artist. Kleon presented many of the ideas in the new work as a talk in April of last year at Broome Community College, and he has expanded on these ideas and pulled it all together in print form. See the book trailer after the jump. more ›

You have an idea for the next Great American Novel, one you like to describe at cocktail parties as a sort of Jack Kerouac-meets-Jack London-meets-Jack Handey picaresque, even though you’re not exactly sure what that even means because, well, you haven’t gotten around to writing the thing yet. And who can blame you? Between life at the office and raising babies toddlers teenagers, who can find the time to write an entire book? You can barely finish a memo. more ›

Who was it that said love and death were the only things worth writing about? While stories about death might be a bit morose for a Saturday night, love rather fits into the whole Valentine's Day theme that’s been popping up—for better or for worse— in retail stores lately.

Don’t bother fighting it; there’s no use. Go ahead and order that carton of chocolate-covered strawberries and while you’re at it, stop by BookPeople tonight to hear author Dave Isay read from his latest book All There Is: Love Stories from StoryCorps. more ›

Find out who, out of all 567 entries, stood out the most in this year's contest at the Winners’ Party tonight at BookPeople (losers also welcome). Stay to hear first, second and third place read their winning pieces; afterwards, shmooze with local literati and enjoy free snacks. more ›

If you’re wondering what to do with your Saturday night, why not make good on your New Year's resolution (the one that says: Read more, Facebook less) and get thee to a local bookstore. ZZ Packer makes an appearance at BookPeople tonight at 7 pm, thanks to American Short Fiction, where she'll be talking with writer Jacqueline Luckett about Luckett’s second novel, Passing Love more ›

What is wrong with kids these days? In Ben Marcus' new book The Flame Alphabet their words have become toxic to just about anyone who would utter such a question. The epidemic has spread across the country, and found it's way into the Upstate New York community of our narrator, Sam, through his 14 year-old daughter Ester. His wife Claire and he have become very ill over the past few weeks. Their daughter laughs at their frailty, off-put by how meek and quiet they are. more ›

At the Apple live education event today, the tech giant announced three major items: iBooks2, iBooks Author, and iTunes U. Here's a quick rundown. iTunes U offers full courses with video, documents, apps and book. Users can see a syllabus and follow assignments while teachers create posts and update tasks. Its integrated with iBooks notes. iBooks 2 (free) is Apple's attempt at "reinventing the textbook". Citing the iPad's already astounding impact on teachers and students (1.5 iPads in schools, over 20,000 apps used), the app enables you to "read in a text-heavy portrait or picture-biased landscape mode and there's also the option to have random pop-quizzes appear to keep you on your toes. Annotations is an integral part of the system: you can add stickies to individual pages and aggregate them into virtual 3 x 5-inch note-cards for revision during finals. You'll also get the same purchase, download and re-download rights you enjoy in the company's other stores." iBooks Author (free) allows you to start with a simple template and create an iBook with minimal tech know-how. Users will combine their templates, photos, presentations, widgets and videos using HTML5, JavaScript and publish to the iBookstore. Follow the conversation about Apple's announcements this morning and learn more about the new education-focused applications at Macworld, Slashgear, TechCrunch and Engadget. more ›

If you were wondering what ever happened to that chick from The Blair Witch Project, the one who really screwed it up for everybody out there in the woods (Jo-osh? Josh? JOSH?), you'll be glad to know actress-now-author Heather Donahue is alive and well and headed to BookPeople tonight at 7 p.m. to read from her new memoir Growgirl: How My Life After The Blair Witch Project Went to Pot. The book follows her life after the unexpected success of Blair Witch, a low budget horror film that grossed over 200 million dollars and spawned books, comics and computer games. more ›

“A mother, after all, is your entry into the world. She is the shell in which you divide and become a life. Waking up in a world without her is like waking up in a world without sky: unimaginable.” - Meghan O'Rourke, The Long Goodbye more ›

Tomorrow night the Paramount is hosting The Moth, a reading series from New York that is now on the road. Tomorrow's presentation will feature readers on the following topic - "Made to Be Broken: Stories About Disobedience." Contributors to this reading include Lt. Dan Choi, Elna Baker, Mike Daisey and George Dawes. Former Austinist columnist Spike Gillespie submitted a piece but will not be performing with the program after all, a choice she discusses on her blog. more ›

Not to get all inside baseball on you, but this review of Shelley Seale's memoir/reportage from her time in India was delayed by an almost tragicomic set of circumstances seemingly destined to keep this book from getting reviewed at all. Throughout it all, Seale was polite but persistent, and after we (finally) had the book in our hands and read it, her dedication to the work came into a wider perspective. Most books have something of import to communicate to the reader, but this true life account of Seale's trips to India in the middle and end of the last decade exposed her to not just tremendous poverty, but to its most helpless and legion victims, children, many of whom are also having their years of innocence wiped away by plagues of disease, forced labor and nothing short of sexual slavery. more ›

On Monday night poet Naomi Shihab Nye spoke and read from her latest book of ultra-short stories, There is no Long Distance Now. The Mabee Ballroom at St. Edward's University was filled with students and fans, young and old. more ›

Note: This post is by new contributor Andrew Hilbert. Tonight, award-winning Texas poet Naomi Shihab Nye will be speaking and signing her latest collection of stories There is No Long Distance, Now. more ›

Those of us feeling bereft and searching for literary meaning after the closing of the Texas Book Festival won't have to wait long at all to get our next book fix. The 28th Annual Austin Jewish Book Fair opens on today, less than two weeks after the conclusion of this year's Festival. more ›

In this Internet age, censorship isn’t much of a going concern in America. Yet, things were different in this country back when cars had a rumble seat, a lady never went out without her gloves and telephones still plugged into the wall. more ›

First up, please read Austinite Michelle Mirsky's second installment of her column "No Fear of Flying: Kamikaze Missions in Death, Sex, and Comedy" on McSweeneys, entitled "My Real Passion Is Improv Comedy." It's heavy, though, so be prepared for that. more ›

Come see Austin-based novelist and short story writer Oscar Casares give a reading tonight at 7:30 p.m. in The Maloney Room at St. Edward's University as part of the Visiting Writers Series. A Brownsville native and Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate, Casares now directs the new MFA in English at the University of Texas. more ›

Martha Stallman, a Texas State Master's student and UT-Austin grad has won Playboy's 2011 College Fiction Contest. Her story, Hot Damn (featuring illustrations by Charles Chaisson), tells the tale of a man trying to pick up a social security check. Needless to say, something unexpected happens. Stallman's story is featured in the November issue of the magazine, and she's also won a $3,000 prize. For more information about the contest, go here. more ›

The Harry Ransom Center has acquired novelist J.M. Coetzee’s archives (at an estimated $1.5 million), making him the ninth Nobel laureate to be housed at the HRC -- a lofty list that includes T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, and Doris Lessing. The archives contain over 150 boxes and filing cabinets of journals, manuscripts (including two Man Booker Prize winning novels: Life & Times of Michael K and Disgrace), as well as letter correspondence, interviews, digital and audiovisual materials, and family photographs covering a fifty-year career. more ›