Book Launch: Distinguished Office of Echoes by Lisa Olstein

Join poet Lisa Olstein for a reading from her latest work, Distinguished Office of Echoes (2025), and a discussion with Elizabeth McCracken. Book sales, a reception, and a signing will follow the program. Books will be sold onsite by Alienated Majesty Books.

This program is co-sponsored by the Texas Book Festival.

Lisa Olstein is the author of six poetry collections published by Copper Canyon Press: Radio Crackling, Radio Gone (2006), Lost Alphabet (2009), Little Stranger (2013), Late Empire (2017), Dream Apartment (2023), and Distinguished Office of Echoes (fall 2025). Her nonfiction includes Pain Studies (Bellevue Literary Press, 2020), a book-length lyric essay on the intersection of pain, perception, and language; and Climate (Essay Press, 2022), an exchange of epistolary essays co-written with Julie Carr. She is the lyricist for the rock band Cold Satellite, fronted by Jeffrey Foucault, and in 2025, Lost Alphabet for voice, five musicians, and electronics, an adaptation of her poems by composer Januibe Tejera, premiered with Ensemble Phace.

Olstein’s honors include a John S. Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, Pushcart Prize, Lannan Writing Residency, Hayden Carruth Award, Writers League of Texas Discovery Book Award, and Sustainable Arts Foundation award. She is the Ellen Clayton Garwood Centennial Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches in the New Writers Project and Michener Centerfor Writers MFA programs.

Please have your reservation confirmation ready upon entering. A reservation does not guarantee a seat. Line forms upon arrival of the first patron, and doors open 30 minutes in advance. Doors to our theater will open approximately 30 minutes before the event begins. No food or beverages are allowed inside our theater or gallery space.

Host or Publisher Harry Ransom Center