Dalton Publishing participates in Peer Pressure

March 24, 2010

Dalton Publishing is thrilled to be participating in the upcoming event: Peer Pressure: Indie Presses Unite.This event is being held in honor of Small Press Month, a nationwide celebration highlighting the high quality works produced by independent publishers.

The evening will be emceed by award-winning Dalton author, Owen Egerton, and will also feature Dalton author, Michael Gilmore, reading from his collection of visceral and visual poetry, Restless Astronomy. You can read excerpts of Michael Gilmore’s Restless Astronomy and Owen Egerton’s books on Scribd.

In addition to Dalton’s authors, actress Kelli Bland will read a hilarious piece from American Short Fiction’s newest issue. Monofonus Press will lend their teleporting expertise to the evening and broadcast a reading from renowned author Dan Chaon. And locals Cindy St. John and Bradley Strahan will represent their independent presses with awe-inspiring poetry.

Seth Woods, the Whiskey Priest, will begin the evening with a set of his gorgeous indie-Americana songs. Together, the night will be full of wit, humor, diverse writing, and amazing local music. You won’t want to miss it!

Saturday, March 27, 2010
7 - 10pm

Club de Ville
900 Red River
Austin TX

Tweet This Post  Delicious This Post  Digg This Post  Stumble This Post 

Revisting a Celebration of Life, Loss, and Love

April 16, 2009

by Neil Kahn

Though a week stale, I want to recap the incredible evening hosted by Cafe Caffeine celebrating Stricken: The 5,000 Stages of Grief on Thursday, April 9.

Our wonderful co-editor Katherine Tanney emceed the event, introducing local Stricken writers and a staple of local creatives who read aloud from essays written by out-of-towners. Playwright C. Denby Swanson kick-started the emotional evening, reading from Los Angeles author Rachel Resnick’s essay “Touch Me.” To follow, our own Owen Egerton, diverging from his typically hilarious prose, shared an excerpt from “Holiest of Times,” a heartwarming account juxtaposing the recent birth of his daughter with the death of his grandfather — at the time, the youngest and the oldest in the family. Local actress Amanda Poston shared from Mylene Dressler’s “Flying Dutchman,” and Victoria Hendricks left the audience teary eyed and wet faced, sharing a letter written to her first husband who she lost to cancer twenty one years ago. And, true to expectations, performance artist and poet David Jewell entertained with his interpretation of author Jim Krusoe’s “Memorial - for L.H.”

Sandy Silver shifted the mood, speaking without a mic, sharing memories of her son Chris, to whom Stricken is dedicated, and offering bits of advice for helping others in grief. Leslie Belt, local filmmaker and funny person, read aloud from Amy Friedman’s essay of unconventional love, “New Year’s Day,” and to follow David Zuniga, the first westerner ordained a priest in the largest lineage of Korean Zen, spoke on life and death from a Buddhist perspective. Dalton senior editor, poet, and author Ric Williams shared the heart-wrenching epigraph he contributed to the book, and in closing, Katherine Tanney brought the audience to simultaneous bouts of laughter and tears as she read from her essay, “The End of Grief,” a re-telling of the last conversation she and her mother shared before her mother’s death.

Thank you to everyone who read and attended! You made this such a special and moving evening.

View photos of the event here

Tweet This Post  Delicious This Post  Digg This Post  Stumble This Post 

Owen Egerton at Howson Library Tonight

March 10, 2009

Award-winning Dalton author Owen Egerton will discuss his collection of short stories How Best to Avoid Dying and his novel Marshall Hollenzer is Driving at the Howson Library (2500 Exposition) Book Club meeting tonight at 7 p.m.

Tweet This Post  Delicious This Post  Digg This Post  Stumble This Post 

Three Small Presses, One Big Read

March 2, 2009

by Neil Kahn

Showcasing the thriving literary and musical talents in Austin, Dalton Publishing, American Short Fiction, and Bat City Review come together to celebrate Small Press Month. Held annually in March, Small Press Month highlights the innovative and exciting work produced by small publishers.

Dalton author and humorist Owen Egerton (How Best to Avoid Dying) will emcee the evening featuring six writers reading both newly published and yet to be published works. The musical stylings of alt-country band Jenny and the Corn Ponies will kick off the evening, and Southpaw Jones, whose music is at once hilarious and heartbreaking, will bring the festivities to a close. From Dalton Publishing, Ric Williams shares tales from his forthcoming novel Woman in the Tower, and stuntman Gary Kent entertains with his insider’s view on revolutionary Hollywood, reading from the much-anticipated Shadows & Light. Smith Henderson and Amelia Gray, two writers featured in the Spring 2009 issue of American Short Fiction, offer a taste of delectable, unconventional short fiction. And, breathing poetic air into the evening, Josh Morison and Elyse Fenton of Bat City Review deliver lyrical and contemplative poetry.

Stacey Swann, editor of American Short Fiction, organized this brand new event to recognize the small presses, who she says “are motivated by a love of books and literature,” allowing them to “take greater risks” than big publishers. “In the current economic crisis,” Swann says, “support of these [small] presses is even more important.” While mainstream publishers are putting a freeze on acquisitions, small presses need to seize the opportunity and fill in the gap.

American Short Fiction is a literary journal that publishes short fiction written by some of the finest authors of contemporary literature. It is printed quarterly by the independent non-profit Badgerdog Literary Publishing, Inc. and distributed nationally. Bat City Review is the literary magazine of UT Austin’s Creative Writing graduate students. The nationally-circulated magazine publishes the best in contemporary short fiction and poetry.

This feast of words and music will transpire in the heart of south Austin at Cafe Caffeine (909 W. Mary) on Friday, March 6 at 7 p.m.

Tweet This Post  Delicious This Post  Digg This Post  Stumble This Post 

The World’s Most Dangerous Improv

January 26, 2009

Dalton Publishing funny man Les McGehee (Plays Well With Others) teams up with Owen Egerton (How Best to Avoid Dying) and the Alamo Drafthouse Downtown tonight to present The World’s Most Dangerous Improv. The show, conceived by improv genius McGehee, highlights the cream of the local improv crop and special guests from TV and film on one stage for a night of comedic challenges that include “Oxygen Deprivation,” “Mousetrap,” and “Swinging Pendulum Of Death.” Megan Flynn (GirlsGirlsGirls!, ComedySportz) will join McGehee and Egerton.

The show is tonight, January 26 at 7:30 p.m. at the Alamo Drafthouse Downtown (320 E Sixth St.)

Tweet This Post  Delicious This Post  Digg This Post  Stumble This Post 

Joe O’Connell and Owen Egerton Represent The Dalton Gang at Texas Book Fest ‘08

October 27, 2008

Two very special Dalton authors, Joe M. O’Connell and Owen Egerton, will take part in the festivities of Texas Book Festival 2008! Beginning this Saturday, November 1, with events scheduled throughout the weekend, the Texas Book Festival is a celebration and exhibition of the best published works the Lone Star State has to offer.

Joe O’Connell will be on-site as he is a finalist for the Writers’ League of Texas Violet Crown Book Award in Fiction. The WLT will announce this year’s winner in the State Capitol Building at 3pm on Saturday, November 1. O’Connell has earned this honor for his best-selling novel Evacuation Plan. The Violet Crown Award honors outstanding published books written by members of the Writers’ League of Texas. It is presented annually in the following categories: fiction, nonfiction, literary prose & poetry.

Congratulations for this achievement, Joe! We’re still rooting for you!

On Sunday, November 2, Owen Egerton will moderate a panel discussion on adolescence-themed literature entitled “The Worst Years of Your Life: Writing about Adolescence.” This event comes as part of the 2008 Texas Book Festival and is hosted by the Austin Bat Cave (1807 W. 11th St.), where the event will occur. Open and free to the public, the discussion will get underway at 8pm. Owen will guide the evening’s discussion of angst, depression, growing pains, and all other things that makes growing up so hard. The panelists will discuss what makes writing about adolescence such a unique and challenging undertaking.

Tweet This Post  Delicious This Post  Digg This Post  Stumble This Post 

Owen Egerton Named Best Local Author…Again!

October 27, 2008

We at Dalton Publishing are incredibly proud to announce that one of our own talented authors has once again been named Best Local Author in Austin. For the second year in a row, the readers of the Austin Chronicle have named Owen Egerton the Best Local Author in the Best of Austin Readers Poll, saying his “biting wit and spin on the world make for intelligent humor and foreshadow a long career in the written, spoken, and comedic worlds.” The Dalton Gang couldn’t agree more!

Owen first garnered attention and praise in the 1990s as a part of Austin’s comedy scene, and he is doing the same now as an essential element in Austin’s burgeoning literary landscape. Dalton Publishing recognized his talents as a comedian and his gift for writing early on, and we were delighted to publish his first collection of short stories How Best to Avoid Dying in the summer of 2007. Labeled “one of the funniest guys in Austin” by the Austin American-Statesman, critics and readers alike appreciate this humorist’s “deft touch,” comparing him to the likes of George Saunders and David Foster Wallace. We are proud to see that Owen is enjoying the acclaim and admiration he is so deserving of!

Next month, Owen will participate in the Austin Public Library’s Meet the Author Series at 7pm on Monday, November 17th at the Spicewood Springs Branch of the Austin Public Library. This is a great opportunity to meet Austin’s own Best Local Author and hear him read from his award-winning collection of short stories, How Best to Avoid Dying.

Tweet This Post  Delicious This Post  Digg This Post  Stumble This Post 

Find Funnyman Owen Egerton at BookPeople

September 16, 2008

There is no questioning it, Austin is chock-full of fabulously talented writers. But, on Thursday, September 18 at 7pm, BookPeople will showcase the Funniest Fiction (and Non-Fiction) in Austin! Dalton’s own humorist, Owen Egerton will host the event, which pretty much guarantees a night of non-stop laughter. Seasoned comedian Les McGehee will join the mix with Spike Gillespie, a staple author in the Austin writing community who will join the Dalton Gang in January 2009 with the release of Stricken: The 5,000 Stages of Grief, an anthology of essays. Other authors on the roster include Mary Jo Pehl and Tony Vigorito. Be prepared for a lot of fun, as anything goes at an event like this.

And, in honor of Banned Books Week, you can find Owen at BookPeople again on Sunday, September 28 at 2:30 pm for the kick-off readings. Banned Books Week is intended to celebrate the wonderful freedom to read that we all enjoy. Leave it to BookPeople to devote an entire day to the celebration of these many unprecedented and historically influential books. Joining Egerton in reading passages from their favorite banned books are Texas Monthly editor Evan Smith, award-winning author Amanda Ward, and many more Austin authors and celebrities.

Tweet This Post  Delicious This Post  Digg This Post  Stumble This Post 

• Subscribe to Our Feed