Steven Dunn (a.k.a Pothole, cuz he’s deep in these streets) is a Whiting Award winner who was shortlisted for Granta Magazine’s Best of Young American Novelists. He’s the author of three novels: Potted Meat (Tarpaulin Sky, 2016), water & power (Tarpaulin Sky, 2018), and Tannery Bay (FC2/University of Alabama Press, 2024), which is co-authored with his home Katie Jean Shinkle.
Potted Meat is a 2017 Colorado Book Award Finalist, VICE Magazine’s Best Books of 2016, and adapted into a short film by Foothills Productions called The Usual Route. The Usual Route has played at the LA International Film Festival, Houston International Film Festival, and others.
Co-authored with Katie Jean Shinkle. Enter a world where time stands still and summer never ends. In the enchanted town of Tannery Bay, it’s July 37, and then July 2 again, but the year is a mystery. Trapped in an eternal loop, the residents embark on an extraordinary journey of self-discovery, unity, and defiance against the forces that seek to divide them.
Otis and Joy, intrepid siblings, work with their family and friends to oppose a formidable adversary: The Owners. These cunning and ruthless old men, driven by insatiable greed, hold the town hostage, exploiting its resources and dividing its people.
In this powerful #OwnVoices narrative, Tannery Bay is a captivating tale of Black Joy and Queer Joy and the ways in which family is both biological and chosen, where love transcends boundaries, and where art is a vehicle for change.
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.
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.
The Usual Route, Directed by Cory Warner and co-written by Warner and Steven Dunn, is based off selections from Steven Dunn’s acclaimed novel, Potted Meat, a reflection on ideas of masculinity, loss of innocence, and the daily ups and downs of life in West Virginia. The short film follows a young man trying to balance the various influences around him as he contemplates his greater ambitions. The Usual Route explores themes of responsibility and choices through the eyes of a teenager entering adulthood in a small town.
Turn on the news & what do you find? Poverty, racism, homelessness, gun violence, climate change. Bad news on bad news. How do you cope? Author Steven Dunn has a unique solution: cataloging moments of softness. From West Virginia to Vietnam and Denver to Mount Fuji, this curated collection of softness will renew your faith in humanity & inspire YOU to lead a kinder, gentler, loving life. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at www.ted.com
The Etch A Sketch is my first love, loooong before I decided to be a writer. Etch A Sketching teaches me a lot about writing, mainly how to erase shit, to let shit go, and to be patient. It also teaches me to be in the moment. Most importantly, it teaches me to play and experiment. And to find freedom within certain constraints that I can’t change. It’s all writing! It’s all teaching! It’s all being a human!
Here are some of my sketches published in Meow Meow Pow Pow Lit
https://www.meowmeowpowpowlit.com/pup/steven-dunn
