Author: peterwesley

Zombie Relay Day, this Saturday the 13th at 1PM

What will you do when the zombies come? Do you have a plan? If not...you're woefully under-prepared for the coming zombie apocalypse; good luck avoiding those grunting, feet-shuffling, brain-hungry masses. In order to properly prepare for the coming of the undead, join us this Saturday, March 13th at 1PM for the first annual Zombie Relays. We'll have some backyard Olympic style events (like three-legged zombie races, jello-brain eating, simulated zombie head smashing) and a zombie make-over station provided by Scare for a Cure.

Chainsaws, Slackers and Spy Kids; inside the Austin Film Industry

Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Slacker, Red Headed Stranger, Dazed and Confused, El Mariachi, Office Space...There's a long, long list of classic movies made in Austin by Austinites. Something about this city's culture has convinced a growing number of film-making mavericks to work at home. In her new book Chainsaws, Slackers, and Spy Kids: 30 Years of Filmmaking in Austin, Texas, Alison Macor, former film critic for the Chronicle, uses her pain-staking research and interviews with Richard Linklater, Tobe Hooper, Robert Rodriguez (and many others) to retrace Austin's cinematic history and remember the people that made it happen.

Behind the scenes of the 2008 election: an interview with the authors of Game Change

Seasoned political reporters John Heilemann and Mark Halperin interviewed over 200 sources for their best selling book Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime - a page turning tell-all about the scandals, decisions and drama of the 2008 presidential election. John and Mark will be here this Friday, March 5th at noon to discuss the election, it's key players and sign copies of the book. They were nice enough to answer a few questions for the blog.

Dave Eggers: Homework is the key

Supply and demand is an important concept for any business, and it is especially important to independent businesses. Local, smaller scale companies must be different from their mega size competition while still keeping in touch with larger trends. It’s hard, but almost forty years into this bookstore experiment, BookPeople is doing well. Thus far we’ve supplied what Austin has demanded from us, but we haven’t done it alone. We’ve received a lot of help, and no individual in the past ten years has been better for independent bookstores than Dave Eggers.

Author Barry C. Lynn takes a stand on Amazon

In this recent article (via CNN), Barry C. Lynn, author of Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction, calls out corporate giants like Amazon and Wal-Mart for their attempts to control the pricing structure of books and other media. Lynn says the showdowns between publishers and mega-retailers, "should deeply concern anyone who cares not merely about the health of this vital industry, but about concentration of political power in America."

Craig McDonald, Print the Legend, on Feb. 21

Craig McDonald is one of those writers like Megan Abbott and Eddie Mueller, who use their knowledge of crime fiction and its history to create great books of their own. He has two published sets of interviews, Art In The Blood and Rogue Males, with the likes of Ellroy, Crumley, and Leonard, and funneled his accumulated study into series character Hector “Lasso” Lassiter; a gun toting, WW1 vet, lost generation member, and pulp crime writer from Texas.

Austin Chronicle Short Story Winners Ceremony Feb. 10th

The judges have decided. The Austin Chronicle's 18th annual Short Story Contest will hold it's winners ceremony at BookPeople on February 10th at 7 pm. First, second and third place winners will read their award-winning unpublished manuscripts at the event.  Honorable mentions will be announced and refreshments will be provided.  Winners get to collect those … Continue reading Austin Chronicle Short Story Winners Ceremony Feb. 10th →