So, I recently discovered this nifty networking site. Think it’s got potential. Follow me @beneaththeneon.
Silver Pen Award
I was recently told I won a Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. Established in 1996, the award recognizes mid-career writers who’ve “already shown substantial achievement.” (I’m flattered!)
The Silver Pen will be awarded Nov. 17 on the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno. Congrats to Hall of Fame inductee Waddie Mitchell, a nationally known cowboy poet (how Nevada is that?), and fellow Silver Pen awardee David Mullins, a short story writer who grew up in Vegas.
For more info on the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame and the Silver Pen Award, visit:
My books in French
French publisher Inculte (www.inculte.fr), which specializes in contemporary literature, sociology and philosophy, bought the rights to Beneath the Neon and My Week at the Blue Angel and is in the process of translating the books. They’re both scheduled to be published in late January.
As part of the deal, I’ll travel to Paris for a week to help promote the books when they’re released. I’d love to venture into the catacombs/quarries. If you know someone who could serve as my guide, please pass along their contact info. I’d gladly return the favor with a tour of the Vegas drains.
Thanks!
Dear, Decatur Book Fest attendees: Thanks for making my homecoming and birthday weekend a very special one! Nice turnout at the talk, sold some books and drank some beer and caught up with friends and family. Good times! Much love!
Books and a guitar
Following the July floods, having lost everything but the clothes on their back, a few folks from a drain under the south Strip got in HELP of Southern Nevada’s program. One of them, Mike (mid-50s, chronically homeless, drug-addicted), is now clean and living in a one-bedroom apartment near UNLV. I dropped by yesterday and was impressed: a comfortable couch, static-free TV, and full-size bed (which beats the hell out of the chaise lounge he slept on in the tunnel for several months). The only things he really needs, he said, are some readable nonfiction or thriller titles and an acoustic guitar. (He’s a musician who used to play on the pedestrian overpasses for tips; no crazy costume necessary.)
If you have books you can spare or a guitar you can donate or that I can buy for cheap, and you can meet me downtown in the next few days, let me know. Thanks.
Book fest release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 2, 2011
Former Atlantan Shines a Light on the Darker Recesses of Las Vegas
Matthew O’Brien, who graduated from Decatur High School in 1988, is returning over Labor Day Weekend to participate in the 2011 Decatur Book Festival. Matt will read from and discuss his latest book, My Week at the Blue Angel: And Other Stories from the Storm Drains, Strip Clubs, and Trailer Parks of Las Vegas (Huntington Press, 2010), a collection of creative-nonfiction stories set in the darker corners of Sin City that most visitors, and even Las Vegas locals, seldom see or hear about.
O’Brien, who played on Georgia State University’s 1991 NCAA tournament basketball team, moved to Las Vegas in 1997 and quickly became one of the city’s best-known journalists. In 2007 he authored his first book, Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas, which garnered international interest and acclaim for chronicling the city’s underground flood-channel culture, which he explored for more than four years after discovering a subterranean parallel universe co-existing beneath the bright lights of the famous Las Vegas Strip.
Matt is also founder of Shine a Light, a community project that provides housing, drug counseling, and other services to the hundreds of people who live in the drains. The project is a collaboration between O’Brien and charity organization HELP of Southern Nevada.
Matt’s reading and talk will take place from 11:15 a.m.-12 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 3, in the auditorium of Decatur High School. He will sign copies of both books immediately afterward.
For more information, visit www.beneaththeneon.com or contact Jessica Roe at 702-252-0655 or jessica@huntingtonpress.com.
Decatur Book Fest II
This should be fun: 11:15 a.m.-12 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 3 (the day before my birthday) … in the auditorium of Decatur High School (my alma mater) … a solo talk focused on my latest book, My Week at the Blue Angel, and my adventures in off-the-beaten-path Vegas … with a book signing immediately afterward.
Hope to see some of my old friends and classmates there. Start spreading the word!
Rain Taxi review
In its spring online edition, Rain Taxi raved about Las Vegan Alissa Nutting’s Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls. In its summer print edition, it turned its attention to My Week at the Blue Angel. Unfortunately, the print edition isn’t available online, but here’s a blurb:
“Though [Hunter S.] Thompson wrote about real events under the moniker of fiction, O’Brien’s book invokes the fictional aspects of narrative by representing reality in a mystified way. In this way, My Week at the Blue Angel offers itself up to infinite interpretation. One can read his stories as brutally honest portrayals of lost souls or as an allegory about what happens to a human (and humanity) when it is subsumed into an unfeeling capitalist machine, replete with poker chips, show girls, bright lights, and plenty of sewage.”
To read the review, which is a full page, pick up a hard copy of Rain Taxi. For more info, visit www.raintaxi.com.
A ‘Human’ touch
A quick thanks to the folks at “Human Experience,” the Monday night poetry, art and music event at the Beat coffee shop. In May and June, they held a donation drive for Shine a Light and collected a box full of socks, batteries, flashlights, canned goods and other items. I’ll be giving out the items to people in the tunnels over the next few months.
For more info on “Human Experience,” visit www.lasvegaspoets.org and click on the “Monday” tab.
Decatur Book Fest
A quick heads up: I’ll be participating in the Decatur (Ga.) Book Festival (www.decaturbookfestival.com) this year. The festival takes place from Sept. 2-4, Labor Day Weekend, on and around the Decatur Square. Not yet sure of the exact date of my panel discussion and book signing, but I’ll most likely be talking about authors and activism (i.e., my books and community project Shine a Light).
Really looking forward to coming home and catching up with everyone. I’ll keep you updated on the details.