Steven Dunn
A 2021 Whiting Award winner, and shortlisted for Granta magazine’s “Best of Young American Novelists,” Steven Dunn is the author of two books from Tarpaulin Sky Press: water & power (2018) and Potted Meat, which was a co-winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards, a finalist for the Colorado Book Award, and has been adapted for a short film entitled The Usual Route, from Foothills Productions. Steven was born and raised in West Virginia, and after 10 years in the Navy he earned a B.A. in Creative Writing from University of Denver.
Steven Dunn
A 2021 Whiting Award winner, and shortlisted for Granta magazine’s “Best of Young American Novelists,” Steven Dunn is the author of two books from Tarpaulin Sky Press: water & power (2018) and Potted Meat, which was a co-winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards, a finalist for the Colorado Book Award, and has been adapted for a short film entitled The Usual Route, from Foothills Productions. Steven was born and raised in West Virginia, and after 10 years in the Navy he earned a B.A. in Creative Writing from University of Denver.
Potted Meat
by Steven Dunn
Novel. 134 pages. Paperback. 2016.
Finalist, Colorado Book Award.
Co-winner, Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards.
A Small Press Distribution Bestseller.
Read excerpts in Columbia Journal | Granta
Potted Meat, a novel set in a decaying town in southern West Virginia, follows a young boy into adolescence as he struggles with abusive parents, poverty, alcohol addiction, and racial tensions. Using fragments as a narrative mode to highlight the terror of ellipses, Potted Meat explores the fear, power, and vulnerability of storytelling, and in doing so, investigates the peculiar tensions of the body: How we seek to escape or remain embodied during repeated trauma.
Potted Meat
by Steven Dunn
Novel. 134 pages. Paperback. 2016.
Finalist, Colorado Book Award.
Co-winner, Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards.
A Small Press Distribution Bestseller.
Read excerpts in Columbia Journal | Granta
Potted Meat, a novel set in a decaying town in southern West Virginia, follows a young boy into adolescence as he struggles with abusive parents, poverty, alcohol addiction, and racial tensions. Using fragments as a narrative mode to highlight the terror of ellipses, Potted Meat explores the fear, power, and vulnerability of storytelling, and in doing so, investigates the peculiar tensions of the body: How we seek to escape or remain embodied during repeated trauma.
101 pages of miniature texts that keep tapping the nails in, over and over, while speaking as clearly and directly as you could ask…. Zero indulgence, all formative. Bone Thugs, underage drinking, alienation, death, love, Bob Ross, dreams of blood: This thin thing is flooded with power (Blake Butler, VICE); Steven Dunn’s Potted Meat is full of wonder and silence and beauty and strangeness and ugliness and sadness and truth and hope. I am so happy it is in the world. This book needs to be read (Laird Hunt); A remarkable piece of work. Rarely does one encounter a book so evocative of place and so bracing in its ability to transform the quotidian into revelation. It is a beautiful whole in its sharp fragments, and its author’s focus and attention enlarged my world moment by moment, scene by scene (Kevin Powers); Potted Meat is an extraordinary book. Here is an emerging voice that calls us to attention. I have no doubt that Steven Dunn’s writing is here, like a visceral intervention across the surface of language, simultaneously cutting to its depths, to change the world. My first attempt at offering words in this context was to write: thank you. And that is how I feel about Steven Dunn’s writing; I feel grateful: to be alive during the time in which he writes books (Selah Saterstrom).
101 pages of miniature texts that keep tapping the nails in, over and over, while speaking as clearly and directly as you could ask…. Zero indulgence, all formative. Bone Thugs, underage drinking, alienation, death, love, Bob Ross, dreams of blood: This thin thing is flooded with power (Blake Butler, VICE); Steven Dunn’s Potted Meat is full of wonder and silence and beauty and strangeness and ugliness and sadness and truth and hope. I am so happy it is in the world. This book needs to be read (Laird Hunt); A remarkable piece of work. Rarely does one encounter a book so evocative of place and so bracing in its ability to transform the quotidian into revelation. It is a beautiful whole in its sharp fragments, and its author’s focus and attention enlarged my world moment by moment, scene by scene (Kevin Powers); Potted Meat is an extraordinary book. Here is an emerging voice that calls us to attention. I have no doubt that Steven Dunn’s writing is here, like a visceral intervention across the surface of language, simultaneously cutting to its depths, to change the world. My first attempt at offering words in this context was to write: thank you. And that is how I feel about Steven Dunn’s writing; I feel grateful: to be alive during the time in which he writes books (Selah Saterstrom).
water & power
by Steven Dunn
Novel | 5.25″x8″ | 180 pp. | Paperback | October 2018
Cover art by Jay Halsey.
Read excerpts in Granta Magazine Issue 142: Animalia & Issue 145: Ghosts
Navy veteran Steven Dunn’s second novel, water & power, plunges into military culture and engages with perceptions of heroism and terrorism. In this shifting landscape, deployments are feared, absurd bureaucracy is normalized, and service members are consecrated. water & power is a collage of voices, documents, and critical explorations that disrupt the usual frequency channels of military narratives.
water & power
by Steven Dunn
Novel | 5.25″x8″ | 180 pp. | Paperback | October 2018
Cover art by Jay Halsey.
Navy veteran Steven Dunn’s second novel, water & power, plunges into military culture and engages with perceptions of heroism and terrorism. In this shifting landscape, deployments are feared, absurd bureaucracy is normalized, and service members are consecrated. water & power is a collage of voices, documents, and critical explorations that disrupt the usual frequency channels of military narratives.
Dunn’s remarkable talent for storytelling collapses the boundaries between poetry and prose, memoir and fiction. Dunn reveals, exacerbates, and speculates on the gargantuan mythology of a legendary branch of the American armed forces: The Navy. How is a superpower created and maintained? Who maintains it? What stories are told, buried or collected along the way — stories of survival, violence, duty and ethics? Among the interviews, photographs, and journal entries Dunn shows us an intimate portrait of power: like water, you are never quite sure who is claiming control beneath the surface. (Nikki Wallschlaeger) Dunn unrelentingly captures the difficult, funny, abject, exhilarating, heartbreaking and maddening aspects of Navy life, both on and off duty. Read this book and understand the veterans in your life better, understand the aggressive disconnection the armed forces demands, and retain a much clearer picture of the people who wear the uniform in America’s name — as who we are, complex and bold and conflicted and powerful and terrified and tough and human. (Khadijah Queen)
Dunn’s remarkable talent for storytelling collapses the boundaries between poetry and prose, memoir and fiction. Dunn reveals, exacerbates, and speculates on the gargantuan mythology of a legendary branch of the American armed forces: The Navy. How is a superpower created and maintained? Who maintains it? What stories are told, buried or collected along the way — stories of survival, violence, duty and ethics? Among the interviews, photographs, and journal entries Dunn shows us an intimate portrait of power: like water, you are never quite sure who is claiming control beneath the surface. (Nikki Wallschlaeger) Dunn unrelentingly captures the difficult, funny, abject, exhilarating, heartbreaking and maddening aspects of Navy life, both on and off duty. Read this book and understand the veterans in your life better, understand the aggressive disconnection the armed forces demands, and retain a much clearer picture of the people who wear the uniform in America’s name — as who we are, complex and bold and conflicted and powerful and terrified and tough and human. (Khadijah Queen)
Readings
&
Events
(reverse chronology)
14 April 2021
The Whiting Awards
Online Ceremony
3 May 2019: Fort Collins, CO
Steven Dunn
Northern Colorado Writers Conference
26 April 2019: Grand Junction, CO
Steven Dunn
7pm @ Colorado Mesa University
25 March 2019: Vancouver, BC
Steven Dunn with Soma Feldmar, Katrina Otounye
7pm @ Massy Books
14 January 2019: Denver, CO
Rebecca Brown
University of Denver
– 2018 –
14 December 2018: Seattle, WA
Rebecca Brown w/ Mark Petterson, Suzanne Morrison & Fr. John Whitney
7pm @ St Joseph Church Parish Center
723 18th Ave E
8 December 2018: Greely, CO
Steven Dunn
7pm @ University of Northern Colorado
15 November 2018: Ft. Collins, CO
Writer’s Harvest Reading
with Rebecca Brown
Colorado State U
11 November 2018: Denver, CO
Bookbar
Steven Dunn with Richard Froude, Camille Dungy
8 November 2018: Lakewood, CO
Steven Dunn
1pm @ Red Rocks Community College
5 November 2018: Laramie, WY
Steven Dunn
7pm @ University of Wyoming
1 November 2018: Littleton, CO
Steven Dunn
4pm @ Arapahoe Community College
27 October 2018: Portland, OR
Rebecca Brown w/ Kevin Sampsell
7pm @ Mother Foucault Books
523 East Morrison St,
25 October 2018: Valencia, CA
Rebecca Brown
CalArts
23 October 2018: North Adams, MA
Steven Dunn
7pm @ Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts
22 October 2018: North Adams, MA
Steven Dunn
7pm @ Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts
18 October 2018: Philadelphia, PA
7pm @ Tire Fire Reading Series
Steven Dunn with Oki Sogumi, Quinton Lawrence, Warren Longmire
15 October 2018: Seattle, WA
Rebecca Brown w/ Jennifer Borges Foster
7pm @ Elliot Bay Bookstore
1521 10th Ave
13 October 2018: Seattle, WA
Pistil Books 25 year Anniversary Party and Reading
Rebecca Brown w/ Stacey Levine
(RSVP [email protected] for time & place)
13 October 2018: Denver, CO
7pm @ Counterpath
Steven Dunn book launch with Julia Madsen, Nancy Stohlman, Jason Arment
11 October 2018: Seattle, WA
Seattle Lit Crawl
w/Rebecca Brown, Richard Chiem, and JM Miller
(time & place TBD)
6 October 2018: Olympia, WA
5-Track in Argan Band
11am @ Olympia Arab Festival
28 September 2018: Seattle, WA
Music(k)!
5-Track in MKB ULTRA w/ Maklak (CD release), Kid Leather, Summoned By Giants
8pm @ Substation, Frelard
28 September 2018: Seattle, WA
UW Bothell Convergence Conference Group Reading
ft. Rebecca Brown, Steven Dunn, Danielle Dutton, Dao Strom, Pimone Triplett, Srikanth Reddy, Terri Witek, Anida Yoeu Ali, Jeanne Heuving and Natalie Singer
7pm @ Elliot Bay Books
28 September 2018: Seattle, WA
Steven Dunn
Convergence Conference
9am @ UW Bothell
6 March 2018: Macomb, IL
Fred Ewing and Lola Austin Case Writer-in-Residence presents
Steven Dunn, Keith Lesmeister, and Ben Percy
Western Illinois University
1 University Circle
(Fiction Panel Discussion and Q&A is 3pm in the Sherman Hall Auditorium. Reading is 5pm in Taylor Hall downtown, next door to Sullivan Taylor.)
5 August 2017: Denver, CO
Steven Dunn at The Myths & Legends Convention
(Panels and readings)
Ramada Plaza Denver North
10 E 120th Ave
25 July 2017: Brooklyn, NY
Cool As F*** Reading Series
featuring Claire Donato & Steven Dunn
Pete’s Candy Store
709 Lorimer St
30 June – 2 July 2017: Denver, CO
Steven Dunn at Denver ComiCon
700 14th St
27 June 2017: Denver, CO
Tattered Cover Bookstore
2526 East Colfax Avenue
featuring David Hicks, Courtney Morgan, Steven Dunn, and Erika T. Wurth
12 May 2017: Denver, CO
Colorado Book Award Finalist Reading
featuring Mona Awad, Steven Dunn, Carolina Ebied, Ruth Ellen Kocher, and Steven Schwartz
7pm @ The BookBar
4280 Tennyson Street
15 April 2017: Boulder, CO
Steven Dunn hosts Vi Khi Nao, Elizabeth Hall, and Caroline Swanee Swanson
4pm – 5pm MT
Innisfree Bookstore and Cafe
1301 Pennsylvania Ave
19 January 2017: Marquette, MI
Steven Dunn and Ginny MacDonald
Bards & Brews Reading Series
6pm at Ore Dock Brewing Company
114 W Spring St
18 January 2017: Philadelphia, PA
Steven Dunn with Caren Beilin, Hilary Plum, Vi Khi Nao, and Matt Jakubowski
Marginalized Work, Innovate Critique
Hosted by Full Stop Magazine
6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
University of Pennsylvania
3805 Locust Walk
15 January 2017: Denver, CO
Steven Dunn at Regis University
Regis University Lowell Campus
3333 Regis Blvd. / Park in Lot 4 (off of Lowell Blvd.)
15 October 2016: Northampton, MA
House Reading
w/ Steven Dunn, Alex Benke and Brian Lupo
7:00pm 9:00pm
36 Forbes Ave
13 October 2016: Pittsfield, MA
Steven Dunn
2:00pm 3:00pm
Berkshire Community College
1350 West St
28 July 2016: Fort Collins, CO
Steven Dunn and Mathias Svalina
Time & location TBA
24 July 2016: Denver, CO
Gina Tron’s release for Eggolio and Other Fables
w/Steven Dunn and Ben T. Karge
Syntax Physic Opera
554 S Broadway
July TBA: Boulder, CO
Steven Dunn and Mathias Svalina
Innisfree Bookstore
25 June 2016: Denver, CO
Steven Dunn Reading, Q&A, Booksigning
Mutiny Information Bookstore
2 So. Broadway
18 June 2016: Santa Fe, NM
Santa Fe Tarpaulin Sky Book Launch
Steven Dunn, Dana Green, and Kim Parko
With guest readings/performances/artwork by:
Meg Tuite, Jamie Figueroa, Autumn Gomez, Anna Yarrow, Collestipher Chatto, Edie Tsong, and Jamison Chas Banks
6pm at El Zaguán
Historic Santa Fe Foundation
545 Canyon Road
23 April 2016: Longmont, CO
Adult Story Time
featuring
David S. Atkinson, Angela Buck, Steven Dunn, Dana Green, Katie Jean Shinkle, and Khadijah Queen
7:00pm to 9:00pm
Still Cellars Distillery & Art House
1115 Colorado Ave
19 April 2016: Denver, CO
Steven Dunn hosts FBOMB, featuring Brian Lupo
7:00pm to 9:00pm
Mercury Cafe
16 April 2016: Denver, CO
Tarpaulin Sky Press Book Launch at Counterpath Press
featuring
Kim Parko, Dana Green, and Steven Dunn
7:00pm to 9:00pm
Counterpath
7935 East 14th Ave
Steven Dunn in the Media
Steven Dunn in the Media
Readings
&
Events
(reverse chronology)
14 April 2021
The Whiting Awards
Online Ceremony
3 May 2019: Fort Collins, CO
Steven Dunn
Northern Colorado Writers Conference
26 April 2019: Grand Junction, CO
Steven Dunn
7pm @ Colorado Mesa University
25 March 2019: Vancouver, BC
Steven Dunn with Soma Feldmar, Katrina Otounye
7pm @ Massy Books
14 January 2019: Denver, CO
Rebecca Brown
University of Denver
– 2018 –
14 December 2018: Seattle, WA
Rebecca Brown w/ Mark Petterson, Suzanne Morrison & Fr. John Whitney
7pm @ St Joseph Church Parish Center
723 18th Ave E
8 December 2018: Greely, CO
Steven Dunn
7pm @ University of Northern Colorado
15 November 2018: Ft. Collins, CO
Writer’s Harvest Reading
with Rebecca Brown
Colorado State U
11 November 2018: Denver, CO
Bookbar
Steven Dunn with Richard Froude, Camille Dungy
8 November 2018: Lakewood, CO
Steven Dunn
1pm @ Red Rocks Community College
5 November 2018: Laramie, WY
Steven Dunn
7pm @ University of Wyoming
1 November 2018: Littleton, CO
Steven Dunn
4pm @ Arapahoe Community College
27 October 2018: Portland, OR
Rebecca Brown w/ Kevin Sampsell
7pm @ Mother Foucault Books
523 East Morrison St,
25 October 2018: Valencia, CA
Rebecca Brown
CalArts
23 October 2018: North Adams, MA
Steven Dunn
7pm @ Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts
22 October 2018: North Adams, MA
Steven Dunn
7pm @ Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts
18 October 2018: Philadelphia, PA
7pm @ Tire Fire Reading Series
Steven Dunn with Oki Sogumi, Quinton Lawrence, Warren Longmire
15 October 2018: Seattle, WA
Rebecca Brown w/ Jennifer Borges Foster
7pm @ Elliot Bay Bookstore
1521 10th Ave
13 October 2018: Seattle, WA
Pistil Books 25 year Anniversary Party and Reading
Rebecca Brown w/ Stacey Levine
(RSVP [email protected] for time & place)
13 October 2018: Denver, CO
7pm @ Counterpath
Steven Dunn book launch with Julia Madsen, Nancy Stohlman, Jason Arment
11 October 2018: Seattle, WA
Seattle Lit Crawl
w/Rebecca Brown, Richard Chiem, and JM Miller
(time & place TBD)
6 October 2018: Olympia, WA
5-Track in Argan Band
11am @ Olympia Arab Festival
28 September 2018: Seattle, WA
Music(k)!
5-Track in MKB ULTRA w/ Maklak (CD release), Kid Leather, Summoned By Giants
8pm @ Substation, Frelard
28 September 2018: Seattle, WA
UW Bothell Convergence Conference Group Reading
ft. Rebecca Brown, Steven Dunn, Danielle Dutton, Dao Strom, Pimone Triplett, Srikanth Reddy, Terri Witek, Anida Yoeu Ali, Jeanne Heuving and Natalie Singer
7pm @ Elliot Bay Books
28 September 2018: Seattle, WA
Steven Dunn
Convergence Conference
9am @ UW Bothell
6 March 2018: Macomb, IL
Fred Ewing and Lola Austin Case Writer-in-Residence presents
Steven Dunn, Keith Lesmeister, and Ben Percy
Western Illinois University
1 University Circle
(Fiction Panel Discussion and Q&A is 3pm in the Sherman Hall Auditorium. Reading is 5pm in Taylor Hall downtown, next door to Sullivan Taylor.)
5 August 2017: Denver, CO
Steven Dunn at The Myths & Legends Convention
(Panels and readings)
Ramada Plaza Denver North
10 E 120th Ave
25 July 2017: Brooklyn, NY
Cool As F*** Reading Series
featuring Claire Donato & Steven Dunn
Pete’s Candy Store
709 Lorimer St
30 June – 2 July 2017: Denver, CO
Steven Dunn at Denver ComiCon
700 14th St
27 June 2017: Denver, CO
Tattered Cover Bookstore
2526 East Colfax Avenue
featuring David Hicks, Courtney Morgan, Steven Dunn, and Erika T. Wurth
12 May 2017: Denver, CO
Colorado Book Award Finalist Reading
featuring Mona Awad, Steven Dunn, Carolina Ebied, Ruth Ellen Kocher, and Steven Schwartz
7pm @ The BookBar
4280 Tennyson Street
15 April 2017: Boulder, CO
Steven Dunn hosts Vi Khi Nao, Elizabeth Hall, and Caroline Swanee Swanson
4pm – 5pm MT
Innisfree Bookstore and Cafe
1301 Pennsylvania Ave
19 January 2017: Marquette, MI
Steven Dunn and Ginny MacDonald
Bards & Brews Reading Series
6pm at Ore Dock Brewing Company
114 W Spring St
18 January 2017: Philadelphia, PA
Steven Dunn with Caren Beilin, Hilary Plum, Vi Khi Nao, and Matt Jakubowski
Marginalized Work, Innovate Critique
Hosted by Full Stop Magazine
6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
University of Pennsylvania
3805 Locust Walk
15 January 2017: Denver, CO
Steven Dunn at Regis University
Regis University Lowell Campus
3333 Regis Blvd. / Park in Lot 4 (off of Lowell Blvd.)
15 October 2016: Northampton, MA
House Reading
w/ Steven Dunn, Alex Benke and Brian Lupo
7:00pm 9:00pm
36 Forbes Ave
13 October 2016: Pittsfield, MA
Steven Dunn
2:00pm 3:00pm
Berkshire Community College
1350 West St
28 July 2016: Fort Collins, CO
Steven Dunn and Mathias Svalina
Time & location TBA
24 July 2016: Denver, CO
Gina Tron’s release for Eggolio and Other Fables
w/Steven Dunn and Ben T. Karge
Syntax Physic Opera
554 S Broadway
July TBA: Boulder, CO
Steven Dunn and Mathias Svalina
Innisfree Bookstore
25 June 2016: Denver, CO
Steven Dunn Reading, Q&A, Booksigning
Mutiny Information Bookstore
2 So. Broadway
18 June 2016: Santa Fe, NM
Santa Fe Tarpaulin Sky Book Launch
Steven Dunn, Dana Green, and Kim Parko
With guest readings/performances/artwork by:
Meg Tuite, Jamie Figueroa, Autumn Gomez, Anna Yarrow, Collestipher Chatto, Edie Tsong, and Jamison Chas Banks
6pm at El Zaguán
Historic Santa Fe Foundation
545 Canyon Road
23 April 2016: Longmont, CO
Adult Story Time
featuring
David S. Atkinson, Angela Buck, Steven Dunn, Dana Green, Katie Jean Shinkle, and Khadijah Queen
7:00pm to 9:00pm
Still Cellars Distillery & Art House
1115 Colorado Ave
19 April 2016: Denver, CO
Steven Dunn hosts FBOMB, featuring Brian Lupo
7:00pm to 9:00pm
Mercury Cafe
16 April 2016: Denver, CO
Tarpaulin Sky Press Book Launch at Counterpath Press
featuring
Kim Parko, Dana Green, and Steven Dunn
7:00pm to 9:00pm
Counterpath
7935 East 14th Ave