Each year, the editors and staff of American Short Fiction host a grand party that recognizes literary excellence, extraordinary literary service, a brilliant new story collection, and a debut writer from Texas. We’re so excited to celebrate The Stars a Night with everyone at on April 1, 2023, at the Tudor Cottage in Austin’s Pease Park.
The Stars at Night is our favorite event of the year because it’s intimate, festive, community-fueled, and inspiring. We always serve up good eats, fine drinks, special treats, spectacular company, and of course great country music to dance to. It’s the most down-home, sophisticated literary spectacular on the map.
We are hopeful that this gathering will be an important moment to bring together award-winning authors, aspiring writers, avid readers, and literary supporters—and a reminder of why literature is vital in creating a better, more just, and more connected world.
All proceeds will support American Short Fiction, a nonprofit literary publisher of the best voices in contemporary short fiction.
General Admission: $95 – One admission to our 2023 Stars at Night Celebration.
Party kicks off at 7 p.m.
Leading Lights: $230 – One VIP admission to our 2023 Stars at Night Celebration, including VIP pre-party, limited edition tote, books, and other swag!
6-7 p.m.
PLEASE NOTE: While ticket-buyers will receive a receipt for their purchase via email, there is no physical ticket for this event. We ask that guests check in at our will-call table upon arrival, where we’ll confirm your ticket(s).
The Stars at Night 2023 Honorees
Manuel Muñoz’s new collection of short stories, The Consequences, was published by Graywolf Press in 2022 to great acclaim. The author of two previous collections of short stories, Zigzagger and The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue, and a novel, What You See in the Dark, Muñoz has been recognized with a Whiting Writer’s Award, three O. Henry Awards, and an appearance in Best American Short Stories. His frequently anthologized work has appeared in The New York Times, Virginia Quarterly Review, American Short Fiction, ZYZZYVA, and Freeman’s. A native of Dinuba, California, Muñoz currently lives and works in Tucson, Arizona
Dalia Azim is the author of the novel Country of Origin. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, American Short Fiction, Aperture, Columbia Journal, Glimmer Train, and Other Voices, among other places. She lives in Austin, Texas, where she is the deputy director of the Texas Book Festival.
Jonathan Escoffery is the author of the critically acclaimed debut story collection If I Survive You (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), a September 2022 IndieNext Pick, also named a Best Book of September by Amazon and Apple Books. His next book is the forthcoming novel, Play Stone Kill Bird. Both books will be published in the UK and Commonwealth by 4th Estate Books, in Canada by McClelland and Stewart, and will be published in translation in France by Albin Michel and in Germany by Piper Verlag. Escoffery is the winner of The Paris Review’s 2020 Plimpton Prize for Fiction and is the recipient of a 2020 National Endowment for the Arts (Prose) Literature Fellowship. His story “Under the Ackee Tree” was among the trio that won The Paris Review the 2020 ASME Award for Fiction from the American Society of Magazine Editors, and was subsequently included in The Best American Magazine Writing 2020. His most recent stories have appeared in The Paris Review, Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, Zyzzyva and American Short Fiction.
Amanda Johnston is the founder and executive director of Torch Literary Arts – a nonprofit dedicated to creating advancement opportunities for Black women writers. A former board president of Cave Canem Foundation and member of the Affrilachian Poets, Johnston earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine and is the author of two chapbooks, GUAP and Lock & Key, and the full-length collection Another Way to Say Enter. Her work has appeared in numerous online and print publications, among them, Callaloo, Poetry Magazine, Puerto del Sol, Muzzle, and the anthologies, Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry and Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism. She has received fellowships, grants, and awards from the Cave Canem Foundation, Hedgebrook, Tasajillo, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, The Watermill Center, and the Austin International Poetry Festival.
A registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts organization, American Short Fiction relies on the generous support of individuals, foundations, and corporations to support and promote the literary arts in Texas and beyond. If you or your organization is interested in helping us further our mission of finding, publishing, and promoting today’s best writers and writing, you can download our sponsorship package here.
For more information about sponsorships, please contact us by email at amanda.faraone[at]americanshortfiction.org.