To Entire Page
October 29, 2008 Egerton delivers laughs, enlightenment: “Enthusiastic writers, future comedians and somber students in need of a pick-me-up now have a home to explore the world of comedy at St. Edward’s University.”
October 17, 2008 Owen Egerton Named Best Local Author 2008: The Austin Chronicle readers have spoken, and Owen Egerton has once again been voted Best Local Author in the Chronicle’s 2008 Best of Austin Readers Poll.
October 12, 2007 Owen Egerton Voted Best Local Author: Austin readers name Owen Egerton, author of How Best to Avoid Dying, Best Author in the Chronicle’s 2007 Best of Austin Issue.
August 2007 Inside Scoop Live, Up Close and Personal with Owen Egerton: Juanita Watson of Reader Views interviews Owen Egerton, author of the satirical short story collection, How Best to Avoid Dying.
July 2007 Reader Views Interviews Owen Egerton, How Best to Avoid Dying: Today, Tyler R. Tichelaar of Reader Views is pleased to be joined by Owen Egerton, author of the short story collection, “How Best to Avoid Dying.”
July 18, 2007 On the DL, Owen Egerton: Sometimes it’s OK to laugh when people die — in fiction, anyway. Imagine a spelling bee where wild pigs devour the contestants when they miss a word, or a church camp where every other week a counselor dies in a freak accident meant to emotionally manipulate the campers into accepting Christ. Owen Egerton created these and many more twisted scenarios in his short story collection, How Best to Avoid Dying, and he hopes that when he reads them to you, you will snicker.
July 2, 2007 Owen Egerton headlines Houston’s BLOW magazine: Get a sneak peek here.
June 16, 2007 Owen Egerton’s How Best to Avoid Dying makes Local Best-Sellers List
“More popular than Khaled Hosseini or Ian McEwan, and nearing the status of Cormac McCarthy.” -Alison Kothe, BookPeople, in response to How Best to Avoid Dying’s recent status as their second best-selling fiction title
June 15, 2007 Egerton makes the cover of the Austin Chronicle’s Summer Reading Issue, and an Excerpt from How Best to Avoid Dying inside: From “The Martyrs of Mountain Peak” Kent is dead. All the kids at the camp are crying and singing and praying. They don’t know that it was my turn, not his.
June 15, 2007 Dying Words: Owen Egerton has written an interesting book of stories, How Best to Avoid Dying. Egerton is one of three Austin funnies who told jokes during movies as the now-defunct Sinus Show. I used to go see them when I lived in Austin, but I have to admit, that was because my roommate had a crush on one of the guys. (No, it wasn’t Owen.) (And no, she didn’t sleep with him.)
June 10, 2007 Owen Egerton local appearance: There was positive evidence of Owen Egerton’s popularity at BookPeople on May 17. The local comedian and NPR commentator drew more than 150 fans — from members of his Quaker Friends’ group to Austin Soup Peddler David Ansel to local writers/performers Spike Gillespie and Wayne Alan Brenner — to celebrate the release of “How to Best Avoid Dying,” his collection of absurdist short fiction. The Whip-In provided libations and singer/songwriter Southpaw Jones started things off with some hilarious ditties, including one inspired by the book, a 30-second “theme song” that’ll come in handy if “How to Best Avoid Dying” is ever turned into a TV series. There was even a fresh fruit platter.
June 4, 2007 Owen Egerton delivers! Yeah, the book was released about a month ago and the book-signing party hoopla is all finished, but some of us have other things to do besides sitting around reading books all day. So forgive me for getting to Owen’s collection of short stories a little later than most. Surely I’m not the only one, though, and that’s what I’m here to share with you, loyal reader.
May 16, 2007 Austinist Interviews Owen Egerton: While the book itself is worthy of celebration, so too is its author. Egerton is one of Austin’s renaissance men. That’s not just because he will occasionally doff tights and speak in a funny accent for the betterment of his fellow Austinites, but also because he does so much stuff. Whether as a writer, a comedic performer, a contributor to public radio, or a marriage rights activist, Egerton has been able to influence and be a part of many of the vital scenes that make up this city’s rich cultural landscape.
May 15, 2007 Owen Egerton paints life black with humor: Owen Egerton, one of the funniest guys in Austin, a founding member of the Sinus Show comedy team, has just published his first collection of short fiction — and every single story involves death. Death at a spelling bee. Death denied to a weary Lazurus in 21st-century New York City. Death and a Christmas puppy.
August 26, 2008 Rave reviews of Egerton’s stories won’t die soon: “How Best To Avoid Dying, a collection of short stories by Owen Egerton, is mind-blowing. This collection is not an escape from everyday problems; it is a celebration of them.”
March 2008 Rain Taxi Reviews Owen Egerton’s How Best to Avoid Dying: “This is a serious book, no question, about matters of faith and love and mortality, yet it is also playful, sardonic, silly, chatty, and sometimes curt. And while this work is clearly reminiscent of the best of its kind, in a strange and intoxicating universe that includes writers from Vonnegut to Barry Yourgrau, Egerton’s take is all his own.”
September 2007 Max Falkowitz Reviews Owen Egerton’s How Best to Avoid Dying: Rarely do stories complement each other so well as in this bizarre collection, which is at once darkly tragic, hoarsely satirical, exuberantly hilarious, and deeply moving. Egerton’s art is driven by a playfulness which rings throughout all these gems, but it far from undercuts the serious. The variety of genres in this volume from traditional short stories to blistering flash fiction, fairy tales to self-referential annotations, are all peppered with an abundance of moods and attitudes.
August 2, 2007 Rick Kleffel Reviews Owen Egerton’s How Best to Avoid Dying: Readers who come here to find the obscure but outstanding, rejoice! Owen Egerton offers some sterling but strange advice in his collection of short stories titled ‘How Best to Avoid Dying,’ and this is advice you’ll really enjoy hearing.
July 18, 2007 Rachael Byrd Reviews Owen Egerton’s How Best to Avoid Dying: From the first sentence, Owen Egerton’s new collection of short stories is bizarre, humorous, and compelling. The book is eighteen stories long, and each story is a drop of chocolate syrup on a pine needle.
July 2007 Victoria Kennedy Reviews Owen Egerton’s How Best to Avoid Dying: This is an eclectic bunch of stories about dying and the human condition. If that sounds boring…it’s not. Each tale is a journey itself through the human psyche. Some are bizarre, but thought provoking and entertaining.
