While the book itself is worthy of celebration, so too is its author. Egerton is one of Austin's renaissance men. That's not just because he will occasionally doff tights and speak in a funny accent for the betterment of his fellow Austinites, but also because he does so much stuff. Whether as a writer, a comedic performer, a contributor to public radio, or a marriage rights activist, Egerton has been able to influence and be a part of many of the vital scenes that make up this city's rich cultural landscape.

We were lucky enough to sit down with Owen Egerton to discuss How Best to Avoid Dying, the state of Austin, and many other amazing things. Behold, Austinist interviews Owen Egerton:

What kind of world is it where international disputes are resolved by spelling bees?

George Saunders, who is one of my favorite writers, I believe he said, or maybe it was said about him...he often writes about the world the way it is, but 20% more. And that particular story, ["Spelling," the first in How Best to Avoid Dying,] I felt that was kind of in that realm a little bit. Of course there’s sort of an exaggeration, but it’s not very far from our own world. The absurdity of public competition [exists] in that particular world too...

That particular story, and sometimes this happens with a story, it can have a novel around it. You can go “I’m not going to write that novel, but I’ll take story from it,” but you’re aware of the novel. So for me, I’m aware of that world, aware of a world where in mind a majority of the populace are not that educated. They really are dumbed down by the entertainment that they choose.

Sounds like total fiction to me...

I mean, we can see it if American Idol goes just a few more steps, we’ll have European Idol versus American Idol and that will decide what happens to Canada.

In terms of the new book, why did you choose short stories? Was it a project you had in mind or just a collection of things you’d been working on and put together?

Primarily, I’m more drawn to novels. I have one novel out, Marshall Hollenzer is Driving, and I’m currently shopping around my second novel and I’m at work on my third novel. While I was in graduate school, I was getting my MFA, I started thinking quite a bit about death. In fact, I wasn’t necessarily aware that I was thinking about it, but I found that in my short stories I kept on dealing with it, almost looking for loopholes or at least asking the questions: how should I think about death? how should I feel about death?

So it wasn’t a project from the beginning, I wasn’t aware that I kept on returning to this theme and questioning it and going from different angles until I was near the end. Then I suddenly realized as I looked back on all these stories, well look what I’ve been doing: I keep painting pictures of the same vase from different angles. That’s how the collection became the collection.

The first story concludes with the narrator about to die and sublimely wishing that the moment prior to death could last forever...that’s very poignant.

That first story was the last story written and I did see it very much as a collection at that point, that I was examining death. At that first story, I said: here’s where I want to enter into it. This is the first song on the album, a thematic album, and how do we go into it? How do we enter into these themes and walk through the door? So that last line, that last moment, was where I spent a lot of time feeling it out, finding out what was going on there. And the truth is that’s the really weird thing about death: you can be in this horrible situation, your life [can] be pretty miserable, and you’re hanging above hundreds of pigs that are going to devour you while these blank faces are watching you...all because you got a word wrong. Although it’s pretty horrible, you sure hope that moment lasts forever. Sometimes being right in the face of death makes you more hungry for life.

You mentioned George Saunders, who are your major influences in writing and in comedy?

In writing George Saunders, Kurt Vonnegut is a big one for me. I’m a big fan of Tim O’Brien and Barry Hannah and I got to study with them at Texas State. I think they’re excellent writers...and Dagoberto Gilb, especially in short stories, he can write a beautiful short story. So those are some of them, of course there’s Walker Percy and Flannery O’ Connor. Flannery O’Connor is perhaps the best short story writer I’m aware of, well, I don’t know, George Saunders might give her a run for the money.

In comedy, again I’d say Kurt Vonnegut and George Saunders. One of the things they’re able to do with their humor is involve compassion. Saunders is particularly good at that. He will have a character that you’re laughing at quite a bit, but he’s not cruel with his comedy. He’s able to bring in compassion which is a difficult and amazing thing to do... In comedy overall, I’m a huge fan of Woody Allen. I think Woody Allen just cracks me up and makes me think while making me laugh...if I’m laughing, cringing and thinking at the same moment, well that can be the best part of my day. I’m also a huge fan of Monty Python and anyone who can take a good pratfall. I admire someone who can fall down and be funny doing it.

You get around quite a bit, having done the Sinus Show, some Sing Alongs, and performing in and directing Plays Well With Others, as well as screen writing and reading for public radio. How do you think that fits in with Austin? Is Austin a city that’s conducive to doing so much or do you think that you could do this anywhere?

No, NO! I’m a huge fan of Austin...for one thing there are enough people who are living in Austin and surviving on an income smaller than the average corporate income and do not need that larger income, that’s brilliant. So there are a lot of people who are actually living their creative dreams. So a lot of the boxes, cubicle boxes and lifestyle boxes, that exist in Dallas don’t exist in Austin and that allows for a lot of freedom and a lot challenges. There are opportunities to do what you want to do. Austin has been great in providing me opportunities to do that.

Anything new on the horizon? Performance activities? Screenwriting?

Yeah, I’m actually performing at Esther’s Follies. Les McGehee and I, who [Les] put together the Plays Well With Others show, we’re doing a show... the first weekend of June called "Abnormal Austin." We’re doing a show with some our favorite weird performers in town for a couple of nights at Esther’s Follies. That should be really good... then a television show I co-wrote with some really creative people is having scenes filmed with Tony Hale from Arrested Development and Stranger Than Fiction. I got some screenplays and stuff like that, primarily though, I’m really behind this book [How Best to Avoid Dying]. So I’ll be doing some readings, I’m actually going on a book tour this summer as well, up the east coast.

Whereabouts on the east coast are you planning to tour?

I’m going to buy a van and make my way city to city. There’ll be a lot: New Orleans; I’m doing something in Houston in June; just up the coast to Asheville, North Carolina; DC and up through New York and Boston.

Let’s talk more about this reading at BookPeople... is this going to be your standard pipe and jacket affair? Or pipe and jacket and no pants?

A well-placed pipe!

I know you have Southpaw Jones playing and some beer, anything else in store?

Well, my brother who recently moved to town, Gareth, wrote a song on guitar called “I’m Dying to Buy This Book.” So he’ll play that. I just heard from the Whip In who is supplying the beer and wine. They’ve got a really good beer, they’re bringing a Welsh ESB, which is a really nice, dark beer. I’m planning on reading. I’ll probably be reading that first short-story [Spelling] and I’m sure there’ll be some surprises, I don’t know what they are yet so it would be impossible for me to give them away. I’m really excited about the night though, it should be a lot of fun.

It’s not only about the art and the comedy with you, you’re involved in some very socially responsible activities... can you tell me more about Right to Marry?

Yeah, basically if you remember back to when prop 2 passed in Texas making it an official part of the Texas state constitution that marriage be defined being between a man and a woman. I felt incredibly sick about it. I felt sick that the state I lived in was making that kind of comment to its citizens and my neighbors. So my wife, Jodi, and I discussed what the proper reaction to this [would be]. I talked to my friends in Sinus, Jerm and John, and we discussed different things. Do we just leave Texas? How do we pay taxes to a state that’s saying these kinds of things? Denying rights, not just the right to call someone your wife or husband, but tax benefits, adoption benefits, certain hospital visitation rights... denying things that are just good for people who care about each other. Jodi said if you really want to say something about well, then burn your marriage license. Say that we won’t take the rights denied to other people. So Right to Marry was born out of that. We started gathering different ideas. We joined forces with folks at Equality Now and some of the other groups in town working for equal marriage rights. Instead of having a mass burning of licenses, why not have a mass wedding? And that’s what we did. On Valentine’s Day we had gay couples asking for marriage licenses and being denied and on that Saturday we had a mass wedding on City Hall, it was beautiful...

What’s your take on the Austin literary scene?

I think there’s something about to burst on the scene. There are some very cool people doing some really great writing in town. Some of them are getting national attention, like Dao Strom and Karen Olsson, others are a little more underground and getting on the scene bit-by-bit, Matt Stewart, Mark Barr, some other folks. I enjoy the way Austin is flavoring the writing. In that same way I would love to see Austin be as known for a particular style and attitude towards literature as it is known for a style and attitude towards music. I think it’s on the forefront...I'm excited about that, I'm really proud to be a part of it. I'd love to be known on the national scene as an Austin writer.

How did your time as an MFA student help your writing?

It was a great time. I was writing long before that, so I went into the program already with some writing habits and some things published. A few more years, I was about 30 when I entered the program, 29, and I what I got there was some incredible influence, not just from the writers around me and what they were writing, but also what they were reading, introducing me to different writers and genres and pockets I wasn't familiar with. And also it was a community of encouragement. All of the sudden you're sitting with these guys, the same with your friends that you're usually drinking too much with and staying up too late with anyway, at 2AM yelling at each other [about] Faulkner versus Hemmingway, those are your drunken brawls, and then you're throwing pages at each other. You read mine, I'll read yours [kind of thing]...there was something really great with that and a lot of these folks too had such a good time in Austin, such a positive reaction to the vibe in Austin, that they stayed. Which is great, if Austin gets to claim them when some of these guys come out, that's good for Austin.

What's the best Texas has to offer outside of Austin?

There's no other place than Austin that I'd rather live. I love Austin. I just think the city is one of the finest places on Earth, with some of the most exciting things happening right now in the world. So exciting in some ways that we might not realize it for another 50 years, but we'll look back on it in a way that we say: Oh, the 1920s, Paris was the place to be or in the 1950s New York was so cool...there's also the Big Bend area, which is very beautiful. Marfa has some beautiful things. In fact, the novel that I'm writing right now is about the end of the world. It turns out that the soul navel of the planet earth is actually Marfa, Texas.

What's the worst?

I don't know. Like any place, Texas has pockets of racism and Republicanism and conformity, which is kind of disturbing. Probably the parts Texas that disturb me the most look very similar to the parts of Kansas...New Hampshire...Oregon that disturb me the most. Where I can find a WalMart, McDonald's and a Chili's, then another WalMart, another McDonald's and another Chili's...and those are the parts that kind of bug me, where a community loses itself to corporate facelessness. It's a hard thing to fight against. I think it can be fought against. I don't think the big boxes are going to win. They'll put up a good fight, they've got a lot of money...

Do you think that's the biggest problem facing Austin now, they way we're developing? You say we'll look back 50 years at Austin fondly, what do you think could jeopardize that? What could make it better?

I'll tell you what could make it better...an examination of the property tax laws. I live in the Bouldin Creek neighborhood and I love it, it's an old neighborhood. People have been there for generations and generations living in shacks. Next door someone who has bought a shack and knocked it down will build, sometimes, a beautiful, cool house. If you could freeze-frame it now, that's a pretty diverse, eclectic neighborhood, where one person's life income matches one person's yearly income and they're neighbors and they have to, in someway, interact. The problem is, it won't stay that way because the property tax will be so inflated that the person who has been there for three generations will no longer be able to afford living in the house that they own. That's a pity. That means we're building barriers...living only next to...folks who make similar incomes to ourselves, that's dangerous.

The only other thing, I think Austinites are really good about supporting cool, local businesses. We have these great things in town and it's important to make sure you get them, to buy that CD by the Orange Mothers or the Small Stars. Buy the Small Stars before you buy... the... Justin Timberlake?

Hey, JT helps me get my dance on...

Okay, okay, we all like Justin. Download Justin and buy the Small Stars [in a local, independent music retailer].

Photo and book jacket provided by Dalton Publishing