Cason E. O'Banion is an award-winning author of both fiction and creative nonfiction. His debut novel, Chinese New Year, was nominated for the 2023 Thurber Prize for American Humor, and his essays about his family, hometown, and favorite Mexican chain restaurants have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and published around the world. He lives in Baton Rouge, where he teaches writing at LSU and is always on the hunt for well-priced three-row vehicles for his wife and four children.

Schedule

1:15 pm to 2:00 pm
Bienville Building, Conference Center 118
Memoirs and Misadventures: Humorous Essays on Growing Up, Giving Up, and Getting Wiser
Lucie Frost, How the Hell Did I Not Know That?: My Midlife Year from Couch to Curiosity
Cason E. O’Banion, Fire Ants: Essays Around and About Texarkana
with moderator Stacey Balkun

2:15 pm to 3:00 pm 
Cavalier House Books Tent
Book Signing

Fire Ants: Essays Around and About Texarkana

Fire Ants: Essays Around and About Texarkana is a collection of 24 narrative non-fiction essays by Cason E. O’Banion that shine a sharp, funny, and heartfelt light on life in East Texas and the surrounding Bible Belt. The essays weave together personal stories of family, friends, and local legends—stretching from the everyday (a Waffle House fight, voicemail messages from family, pick-up basketball) to the extraordinary (ambition, faith, race, and the myths small towns carry).

At its core, Fire Ants captures the grit, humor, and contradictions of growing up and making a home in middle America. The collection balances comic misadventures with deeper questions of belonging, identity, and memory. Several of the essays have already been recognized with Pushcart Prize nominations and online publication, establishing the book as both a literary work and a portrait of a distinct region