Please note that this event has passed. Please visit our Stars at Night page for information about this year’s event.
Join us on the night of Thursday, November 2nd, for our second annual The Stars at Night, a beer-and-boots gala celebrating American Short Fiction, our Texas heritage, and our city’s writers and those who champion them.
Come for the live country music and dancing (courtesy of the great Weldon Henson and his band!), and stay for the open bar, delicious food, and the bright view of the city skyline. The event will kick off at 6.30pm with a VIP pre-party featuring our honorees and other writerly luminaries, literary tarot readings, and a swag bag including a copy of Dan Chaon’s Ill Will, a limited-edition poster, and more, followed by the general admission Stars at Night bash at 7.30pm.
We are thrilled to honor three stars at this year’s event: the award-winning author Dan Chaon will receive the Literary Star award for his haunting and masterful new novel Ill Will; Joe W. Bratcher III, owner of Malvern Books and cofounder of Host Publishing, will receive the Community Star award for his generous service to Austin’s literary legions; and Anushka Jasraj, an up-and-coming writer you will want to know if you don’t already, will receive our first ever Emerging Star award for writers in Central Texas.
Here’s a little more about our honorees:
Dan Chaon’s most recent book Ill Will, has been hailed as the scariest novel of the year. Other works include the short story collection Stay Awake (2012), a finalist for the Story Prize; the national bestseller Await Your Reply; and Among the Missing, a finalist for the National Book Award. Chaon’s fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize Anthologies, and The O. Henry Prize Stories. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award in Fiction and the Shirley Jackson Award, and he was the recipient of an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Chaon lives in Ohio and teaches at Oberlin College.
Joe W. Bratcher III was born in Fort Worth and grew up in Austin. He received his Bachelors degree in Philosophy from Tulane University in New Orleans and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Texas at Austin. In 1987 he founded Host Publications, a press dedicated to bringing readers the best in international literature and exciting writing from the United States and later cofounded and edited the literary journal The Dirty Goat, which features cutting-edge drama, prose, visual art, and interviews from across the globe. In October 2013 Joe opened Malvern Books, realizing his dream to run a bookstore that would “stock the kind of books Host produces.” Malvern Books focuses on fiction and poetry from small, independent presses and has a large collection of works in translation. Malvern is also home to many events and book clubs and enjoys hosting both local and visiting authors and readers.
Anushka Jasraj grew up in Mumbai, India. She holds a BFA in Film Production from NYU, and a MFA in Creative Writing from the New Writers Project at the University of Austin-Texas. She was a 2015-16 fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and a regional winner of the Commonwealth short story prize for Asia in 2012 and 2017. Her work has been published in Granta online, The Lifted Brow, and Adda Stories. She is currently based in Austin where she is a graduate student in the Women’s & Gender Studies program at UT.
All proceeds from the event go toward funding American Short Fiction‘s mission to support and promote the literary arts and writers and to offer more opportunities to enjoy literature in our community. It will be a grand old countrified kick-off to a wonderful Texas Book Festival weekend in Austin.
FAQS
Where is the Zilker Clubhouse?
The Zilker Clubhouse is just west of Mopac on the edge of Zilker Park. Its address is: 200 Zilker Clubhouse Road, Austin, TX 78746.
Are there ID requirements or an age limit to enter the event?
There is no age limit to enter the event, but you must be at least 21 years old with a valid ID to be served alcohol.
What are my transport/parking options getting to the event?
There is limited parking for 60 cars at the event. We STRONGLY encourage you to carpool. There is no parking on neighborhood streets.
We would like to thank our sponsors: Yeti, Real Ale Brewing Company, Tequila 512, Matthew Bradford—Hank + Tank Photography, Aragi, Inc., Forrest Preece and Linda Ball, Miguel Ortiz—Austin Mutual Agency, HEB Central Market, and Typewriter Tarot. Contact editors@americanshortfiction.org for more information on sponsorship opportunities.
This project is supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department.