TULSA, Okla. — Magic City Books celebrated the launch of Tulsa native and well-known actor Tim Blake Nelson’s book, “City of Blows,” on Wednesday evening.

The book surrounds a modern depiction of the film industry while also exploring the characters’ different motivations to join the movie-making world and how their diverse backgrounds played into their choices and outcomes.

The event was held at Congregation B’nai Emunah near East 17th Place and South Peoria Avenue.

Buyer and author program coordinator for Magic City Books Pat Cawiezell said this was a very exciting event for their store to take part in.

“So we were really excited that this book had been announced a while back. The debut for Tim Blake Nelson, Tulsa native, a person who has a lot of ties still back to Tulsa, a lot of family here, a lot of friends here and in a city that’s really supported him through the years. It’s been on our radar since like early last fall, even late summer that this was going to be coming along,” Caweizell said.

Nelson was born in Tulsa and graduated from Holland Hall in 1982. He also attended the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute in Lone Wolf.

He is widely known for his roles in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”, “Holes” and HBO’s “Watchmen,” along with many other films and television shows.

In 2009, Nelson was inducted as an honorary member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society at the University of Tulsa.

“I think that it’s a really special thing. I mean, one of the things he said right when he got on stage is, you know, he’s doing a few events for this and this one’s a meaningful one for him,” Cawiezell said. “I know that through the years he’s come and done some things … with smaller groups or private groups … he’s worked with a lot of students and and done some things, but there haven’t been a lot of occasions to be able to get a big audience out and be able to hear stories and hear from him that way.”

Cawiezell said he hopes this will lead to other similar events or excite people about other Magic City Books programs.

“I think that it is great to be able to come out when there’s gonna be 400 people in the room and have that excitement. There’s a lot of great programs that happened in the store as well and, you know, might only have 40 people there, but you get a little bit more time with the author or hear some of those same stories and it might be a book that you’re that you’re really interested in,” Cawiezell said. “So we hope that people see the big things and then, you know, that piques their interest and their curiosity about what other things might be going on and come check out something that maybe they didn’t know anything at all about.”

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