(Virtual Readings Quarterly @ 7pm CST; RSVP link coming)
Each month, we feature one Texas author in conversation with another. We offer a vast array of storytellers who represent the spirit of the Lone Star State and continue to keep us on the literary map. In the past, we’ve featured novelists such as Kathleen Kent, Marisol Cortez, Joe Lansdale, and Antonio Ruiz-Camacho and Texas poet laureates such as Carmen Tafolla, Laurie Ann Guerrero, Jenny Brown, and Emmy Pérez.
Join us on Wednesday, August 19th, 2026, via Zoom for a conversation with Deb Olin Unferth, to discuss her new book, Earth 7 (Graywolf Press).
(Virtual Readings Quarterly @ 7pm CST)
RSVP
Deb Olin Unferth’s latest novel, Earth 7, is a bold and imaginative work of climate fiction that explores love, survival, and what remains of humanity on a nearly uninhabitable planet. As Earth sits on the brink, two unlikely figures—a woman raised in an ocean pod and another who may be a robot—form a connection in a world where some have fled to Mars and others seek digital immortality. At once poetic, strange, and deeply human, Earth 7 moves from the vast edges of the cosmos to the microscopic, asking urgent questions about consciousness, technology, and what it means to endure.
About the Author
Deb Olin Unferth is the author of Earth 7 and six other books, including the novel Barn 8 and the story collection Wait Till You See Me Dance. Her stories and essays have appeared in Harper’s, the Paris Review, Granta, and New York Times Magazine. She was a finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award and has received a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation. A professor at the University of Texas at Austin, she teaches for the Michener Center for Writers, the New Writers Project, and directs the Pen City Writers at a south Texas penitentiary.
About the Moderator
Fernando A. Flores was born in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico, and grew up in the South Texas borderlands. He is the author of the collections Death to the Bullshit Artists of South Texas and Valleyesque, along with the novels Tears of the Trufflepig and Brother Brontë, which was one of Kirkus’ Best of Fiction 2025 and longlisted for the 2026 PEN/Faulkner award for fiction. He lives in Austin, Texas.
See some of our past Big Texas Author Talks (formerly The Big Texas Read) at our YouTube Channel.
UPCOMING 2026 AUTHORS AND TITLES
Aug 19, Deb Olin Unferth
PREVIOUS AUTHORS AND TITLES
Lauren D. Woods, The Great Grown-Up Game of Make Believe
Cyra Dumitru, Words Make a Way Through Fire
Joaquín Zihuatanejo, Occupy Whiteness
Amanda Churchill, The Turtle House
Melissa Studdard, Dear Selection Committee
Octavio Quintanilla, The Impossible Hours
Kimberly Garza, The Last Karankawas
Carmen Calatayud, This Tangled Body
Anel Flores, Cortinas de lluvia/Curtains of Rain
Joshua Robbins, Eschatology in Crayon Wax
Ayokunle Falomo, Autobiomythography of
Sasha West, How to Abandon Ship
Ramona Reeves, It Falls Gently All Around
Alex Temblador, Writing an Identity Not Your Own: A Guide for Creative Writers
Glenn Blake, The Old and the Lost: Collected Stories
Cyrus Cassells, Is There Room for Another Horse on Your Horse Ranch?
Jason Stone, The Beauty of the Days Gone By
Mag Gabbert, Sex Depression Animals
Rudy Ruiz, Valley of Shadows
Carmen Tafolla, Warrior Girl
Katie Gutierrez, More Than You’ll Ever Know
Thomas H. McNeely, Pictures of the Shark
Rubén Degollado, The Family Izquierdo
Jehanne Dubrow, Taste: A Book of Small Bites
Richard Z. Santos, Trust Me
Andrew Porter, The Disappeared
Steve Adams, Remember This
Leticia Urieta, Las Criaturas
Vincent Cooper, Zarzamora
Allison Hedge Coke, Look At This Blue
Tomás Q. Morín, Let Me Count the Ways
Daniel Peña, Bang
Alexander Essbaum’s Hausfrau: A Novel
Carmen Tafolla and illustrator Regina Moya, The Last Butterfly
Laurie Ann Guerrero, I Have Eaten the Rattlesnake
Alexandra van de Kamp, Ricochet Script
Wondra Chang, Sonju
Johnnie Bernhard, Sisters of the Undertow
Barbara Ras, The Blues of Heaven
Mike Soto, A Grave is Given Supper
Deb Olin Unferth, Barn 8
Marisol Cortez, Luz At Midnight
Sergio Troncoso, A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son
Edward Vidaurre, Pandemia & Other Poems
Octavio Quintanilla, If I Go Missing
Sherry Kafka Wagner, Hannah Jackson
Nan Cuba, Body and Bread
Cliff Hudder, Pretty Enough for You
Rebekah Manley, Alexandra and the Awful, Awkward, No Fun, Truly Bad Dates A Picture Book Parody for Adults
Jenny Browne, Fellow Travelers: New and Selected Poems (TCU Poet Laureate Series)
Amanda Eyre Ward, The Jetsetters
Heather Harper Ellett, Ain’t Nobody Nobody.
Andrea Vocab Sanderson, She Lives in Music
Antonio Ruiz-Camacho: Barefoot Dogs
Wendy Barker: Gloss
Fowzia Karimi: Above Us the Milky Way
Joe R. Lansdale: Edge of Dark Water
Kendra Allen: When You Learn the Alphabet
Emmy Pérez: With The River on Our Face
Kathleen Kent: The Dime & The Burn
David Samuel Levinson: Tell Me How This Ends Well