Texas Book Festival is pleased to host free quarterly event series Book Tips and Sips at Prohibition Creamery in Austin. We’re bringing together Central Texas authors and members of the literary community to talk about their favorite books at four unique, themed events hosted at Prohibition Creamery, a delicious cocktail and ice cream bar on east seventh street. Join us for book recommendations, ice cream, cocktails and community!
These events are all free and open to the public. Enjoy “A Sidecar Named Desire,” Prohibition Creamery’s literary take on the sidecar cocktail, made with brandy, pine-infused gin, hibiscus, and lemon, and a portion of your drink purchase will support the Texas Book Festival.
Prohibition Creamery is located at 1407 East 7th St in Austin. The shop is open to all ages.
Book Tips and Sips: Literary Libations
August 13, 2019 – 5:30PM
Join us for Literary Libations! We’re gearing up for this year’s Lit Crawl Austin with a lively book discussion featuring several friends from literary organizations around town, and of course, Prohibition Creamery’s signature literary-themed cocktail, A Sidecar Named Desire. Join us at Prohibition Creamery as we welcome Lit Crawl partners from American Short Fiction, Austin Bat Cave, Black Poets Speak Out, and Chicon Street Poets to talk about the books they’re reading and what it means to have a strong literary community in Austin. TBF Literary Director Julie Wernersbach will also give a sneak peek of some of the best and biggest books hitting shelves this Fall!
Speakers:
Adeena Reitberger, American Short Fiction
Adeena is a writer, editor, and teacher in Austin, Texas. Her stories and essays have appeared in Black Warrior Review, Mississippi Review, Cimarron Review, Nimrod International, Third Coast, Sierra Nevada Review, Smokelong Quarterly, and other magazines, and her work has been recognized in the Best American series. She is the coeditor and director of American Short Fiction.
Ali Haider, Austin Bat Cave
Ali is the Executive Director of Austin Bat Cave, a nonprofit that connects local writers with students through creative and engaging writing workshops. His fiction has appeared in Cimarron Review, Glimmer Train, and Juked. Roxane Gay published his essay “Porkistan” on The Toast’s vertical The Butter.
Amanda Johnston, Black Poets Speak Out
Amanda earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine. She is the author of two chapbooks, GUAP and Lock & Key, and the full-length collection Another Way to Say Enter. Her poetry and interviews have appeared in numerous online and print publications, among them, Callaloo, Poetry, Puerto del Sol, Muzzle, Pluck!, No, Dear and the anthologies, Small Batch, Full, di-ver-city, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, and Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism. Honors include the Christina Sergeyevna Award from the Austin International Poetry Festival, a joint finalist for the Freedom Plow Award for Poetry & Activism from Split This Rock, and multiple Artist Enrichment grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women, Amanda is a member of the Affrilachian Poets and has received fellowships from Cave Canem Foundation and the Austin Project at the University of Texas. Johnston is a Stonecoast MFA faculty member, a cofounder of Black Poets Speak Out, and founder / executive director of Torch Literary Arts. She serves on the Cave Canem Foundation board of directors and currently lives in Texas.
Sam Treviño, Chicon Street Poets
Sam Treviño is a writer, poet and literary organizer from Austin, Texas. He is the founder and organizer of Fresh Meat Poets Showcase in Austin, a former Editorial Contributor for Paper Darts Magazine, and has been published by Paper Darts, DigBoston, Scout Magazine in Cambridge and Somerville, and Sybil Journal. His debut chapbook, Werewolf Mask, was published in 2016 by Weekly Weird Monthly. He is currently Community Outreach Director of Chicon Street Poets, a literary nonprofit based in East Austin, and oversees the Aural Literature reading series for Austin Public Library, where he is a Library Associate. He currently lives in Austin with his librarian superhero wife and their anxious cat.
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Holiday Book Swap!
December 2019
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, the season when we get to buy books for all of our family and friends! We understand that selecting the perfect read for someone you love can be daunting. Texas Book Fest is here to help! Join two local authors, along with TBF Literary Director Julie Wernersbach, as they share the books they’re giving to the readers on their lists this season. Of course, in the spirit of the holiday, we want everyone to take home a gift for themselves, so we’re hosting a holiday book swap! Bring a book you loved and want to share, add it to the swap, and take home a new read of your own. Merry reading!
We love putting together free programming in support of authors and readers here in Texas. If you believe in strengthening a love of literature and keeping arts programming free and open to the public in Texas, please consider supporting the Texas Book Festival.