Austin Bunn, an assistant professor in the Department of , is nominated for an Audio Publishers Association Audie® Award for his short-story collection The Brink: Stories (published by Blunder Woman Productions via ACX). The audiobook, narrated by Austin Bunn, Luke Daniels, Tanya Eby, Ralph Lister, Amy McFadden, Mikael Naramore, and Nick Podehl, is a finalist in the Short Stoies/Collections category.
"I love audiobooks, but it's an exceptionally traditional form—one author, one voice," says Bunn. "[Audio producer] Tanya Eby had this idea to reflect the range of the stories with genuinely different voices. I'm so impressed and honored by all the work the voice actors put into it, and I'm thrilled that the Audio Publishers Association saw fit to include it as a finalist."
The Audies recognize high achievement in audiobooks and spoken-word entertainment. Winners will be announced at the 2017 Audies Gala in New York City on June 1, hosted by comedian and author Paula Poundstone.
About The Brink: Stories, from the publisher:
A brilliant, inventive debut story collection in the vein of Kevin Wilson and Wells Tower.
Brimming with life and unforgettable voices, the stories in Austin Bunn's dazzling collection explore the existential question: what happens at the end, and what lies beyond it? In the wry but affecting "How to Win an Unwinnable War", a summer class on nuclear war for gifted teenagers turns a struggling family upside down. A young couple's idyllic beach honeymoon is interrupted by terrorism in the lush, haunting "Getting There and Away". When an immersive video game begins turning off in the heartbreaking "Griefer", an obsessive player falls in love with a mysterious player in the final hours of a world.
Told in a stunning range of voices, styles and settings - from inside the Hale-Bopp cult to the deck of a conquistador's galleon adrift at the end of the ocean - the stories in Bunn's collection capture the transformations and discoveries at the edge of irrevocable change. Each tale presents a distinct world, told with deep emotion, energizing language and characters with whom we have more in common that we realize. They signal the arrival of an astonishing new talent in short fiction.
Includes a bonus monologue, "Basement Story".
Bunn is a screenwriter (Kill Your Darlings), former journalist (New York Times Magazine, Wired and elsewhere) and performer, whose work has been performed at The Moth, WBEZ and public radio.
