Nov. 14 (at Cheer Up Charlies)

Literary Death Match is once again teaming with the wonderful Texas Book Festival for a Saturday night spectacular at Cheer Up Charlies as part of Lit Crawl Austin! Expect dazzling prose, hilarious commentary, and a ridiculous finale to determine who'll claim the LDM Austin crown. And best yet (in this economy!?): it's FREE!

What is Literary Death Match? Part literary event, part comedy show, part game show, Literary Death Match brings together four of today’s finest writers to compete in an edge-of-your-seat read-off critiqued by three celebrity judges, and concluded by a slapstick showdown to decide the ultimate champion.

ALL-STAR JUDGES:

Literary Merit: Isaac Fitzgerald, New York Times bestselling author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts, winner of the New England Book Award, and frequent contributor to The Today Show. His latest: American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed.

Performance: Tanya Bush, writer, pastry chef, and co-founder of the James-Beard Award-winning print magazine Cake Zine. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, The New York Times Magazine, and elsewhere. Her debut book: Will This Make You Happy: Stories & Recipes from a Year of Baking.

Intangibles: Beowulf Sheehan, acclaimed photographer who's photographed more than 1,000 writers from over 60 countries, with work appearing in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Time. His latest: The Father of the Man: The Last Author Portrait Sitting with Cormac McCarthy.

Super-Intangibles: Zena Cardman, NASA astronaut, marine scientist, and the first poet in space! Commander of NASA's SpaceX Crew-11 mission, she spent 167 days aboard the International Space Station, returning to Earth in January 2026. She's studied everything from deep-sea microorganisms to Antarctic ecosystems, and earned honors in creative writing. 

ALL-STAR READERS:

Round 1:

* Jenny Tinghui Zhang, National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree and author of the acclaimed Four Treasures of the Sky, named Idaho Book of the Year. Her latest: Superfan, a darkly compelling novel about K-pop fandom, obsession and the dangerous illusion of being seen.

* TBA

Round 2:

 * Deb Olin Unferth, acclaimed novelist and short-story writer whose books include Barn 8 and Wait Till You See Me Dance. A Guggenheim Fellow and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, her latest is Earth 7, a wildly inventive love story set on a dying planet.

* Jim Shepard, award-winning author of The Book of Aron and Like You'd Understand, Anyway, winner of The Story Prize and finalist for the National Book Award. His latest: The Queen of Bad Influences, a collection of 12 stories exploring catastrophe, heartbreak and humanity at its most vulnerable.

Hosted by LDM creator Adrian Todd Zuniga. Produced by Richard Santos.

Where: Cheer Up Charlies, 900 Red River St, Austin (map)
When: November 14, 8:30pm sharp (over by 9:55pm)
Cost: Free!