Motor City's M.L. Liebler returns to the wilds of Wyoming March 1

M.L. Liebler of Detroit

Jackalope of Wyoming

Our Detroit pal, M.L. Liebler, will be returning to Wyoming in March. His last stop in WYO was last June in Casper. Here's the info:

March 1, Friday at 7:00 pm M. L. Liebler with Grammy-winning Eminem producer and musician Steve King at Western Wyoming Rock Springs Community College in Rock Springs, WY. Free & open to all. We've warned M.L. to watch out for the Jackalopes on the highways to the gig as it's roundup time. Contact Professor Rick Kempa at RKEMPA@wwcc.wy.edu or go to http://www.wwcc.cc.wy.us/

THE Sweet Potato Queen drops in on the Jackson Hole Writers Conference

News from the 2013 Jackson Hole Writers Conference, June 27-29 at the Center for the Arts in Jackson:

Multiple #1 New York Times Bestselling Author, Jill Conner Browne, THE Sweet Potato Queen™, has created a global phenomenon — 6,300 chapter groups in 37 countries — based upon her philosophy and world-view as recounted through her rollicking, raucous and riotously funny essays. Women and smart men understand that the bawdy, sassy, down-to-earth humor is simply the vehicle by which the greater message is conveyed — that is, one of self-reliance and empowerment, inspiring all to do what makes their hearts sing.

FMI: http://www.sweetpotatoqueens.com/

"The Art of Storyelling" this weekend at Casper's Corridor Gallery and Wind City Books

"Glitch" by Karla Oceanak with illustrations by Kendra Spanjer. Spanjer's work will be featured in "The Art Of Storytelling"
art show and book sale in Casper Nov. 30-Dec. 1.

From the Nov. 23 Casper Star-Tribune Weekender section:

The Corridor Gallery and Wind City Books in downtown Casper present an art show and book signing celebrating “The Art of Storytelling.”

The gallery show features original artworks used in illustrated books by artists Bruce MacPherson, Aumi K. Perry, Zachary Pullen and Kendra Spanjer. In conjunction, Wind City Books will host these illustrators and many Wyoming authors in an all-day book signing.

MacPherson, of Vienna, Va., has illustrated for magazines, newspapers, games, books and national advertising campaigns. His clients include Mattel, National Geographic Society, New York Times, Texas Roadhouse Restaurants, Radio Shack, Red Robin Restaurants and many more.

Perry, of Casper, earned her fine arts degree from the University of Wyoming in 2001. She then studied drawing and painting under Hans-Peter Szameit and Sanna Tomac for three years. She has also studied with noted painters John Michael Carter and David Leffel. Aumi’s paintings have been featured in shows, galleries and private collections across the U.S.

Pullen’s character-oriented illustrations have been seen in The New York Times Book Review, Sports Illustrated, Esquire, GolfWorld, The Wall Street Journal and many other publications. His first picture book, “The Toughest Cowboy or How the Wild West was Tamed,” garnered a starred review from the School Library Journal and was placed on the Texas Blue Bonnet Master List for 2006-2007. His second book, “The Greatest Game Ever Played,” also received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. He lives in Casper.

Spanjer divides her time between being “a writer who illustrates” and “an illustrator who writes.” She and Karla Oceanak are the co-creators of an alphabetically-inspired graphic novel for middle grade readers: the Aldo Zelnick Comic Novel Series, published by Bailiwick Press. Titles so far include “Artsy-Fartsy” (December 2009), “Bogus” (June 2010), “Cahoots” (May 2011), "Dumbstruck” (August 2011), “Egghead” (May 2012), “Finicky” (September 2012) and “Glitch” (November 2012). She lives in Fort Collins, Colo.

Details:

Gallery show: Opening reception is 7 p.m. NOV. 30 at the Corridor Gallery, 120 E. Second St. The show will continue from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. DEC. 1. It is free.

Book signing: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. DEC. 1 at Wind City Books, 152 S. Center St. The art show illustrators will be joined by authors Craig Johnson, Gayle Irwin, Cat Urbigkit, Walter Jones, Curt Wendleboe, Kendra Spanjer, Bill Sniffin, Margo Bean and Gene Gagliano.

Info: www.windcitybooks.com, www.thecorridorgallery.com

Think "local arts" on Small Business Saturday

On Nov. 24 (or any day) in Wyoming, shop small, shop locally, shop creatively. Check out the links on our sidebar for artists, performers and writers in your community. Buy a homegrown painting, a CD, a book! Buy your loved one a ticket to a local play or concert. See more ideas on the Small Business Saturday Facebook page. You can get free downloadable signage at www.shopsmall.com. 

Saturday workshop at Laramie County Library outlines steps to getting your novel published

Local writers are staging a one-day conference "designed to help you navigate the next steps toward the publication of your novel." It will be held on Saturday, Nov. 10, 10:15 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Laramie County Public Library, 2200 Pioneer Ave., Cheyenne.

Presenters include Mary Gillgannon, who writes historical novels as well as Celtic and Regency romances; Liz Roadifer, mystery and sci-fi fantasy novelist; Amanda Cabot, author of Christian romances; teen novelist and library board member Tina Ann Forkner; "Saucy Lucy" series mystery novelist Cindy Keen Reynders; and memoirist and sci-fi writer Marjie Smith.

The workshop is free. The day includes a lunch-hour book signing, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the Laramie County Library Foundation. You can brown-bag it, or get a delicious lunch at the library cafe. 

FMI: 307-634-3561.

Are you reader enough for "Five Question Friday?"

Get over to Facebook and enter our drawing for a free novel and a chance to be interviewed for "Five Question Friday." Go to http://www.facebook.com/wyomingartscouncil

Two Wyoming authors takes home High Plains Book Awards

This news comes from a press release from the High Plains Book Awards in Billings, Mont.:

Winners of the prestigious 2012 High Plains Book Awards, a project of the Parmly Billings Library, were announced Saturday, October 20, in Billings, Mont., at a banquet held at the Yellowstone Art Museums. Award winners included Shann Ray's American Masculine, which won in two categories: Best First Book and Best Short Stories. Each winner received a $500 cash prize.  Other winners included Hand Raised: The Barns of Montana by Chere Jiusto & Christine W. Brown for Best Nonfiction, The Ringer by Jenny Shank for Best Fiction, Songs of Unreason by Jim Harrison for Best Poetry, Married Into It by Patricia Frolander for Best Woman Writer, and Arapaho Journeys: Photographs and Stories from the Wind River Reservation by Sara Wiles for Best Art & Photography. Emeritus Award winner was Tom McGuane.

Eighty-eight books were nominated for the 2012 High Plains Book Awards in seven categories from publishers in the United States and Canada. Finalists were selected after each nominated book war read and evaluated by community readers. Winners were selected by a panel of published writers with connections to the High Plains. Many finalists and winners participated in a day-long series of readings at the Yellowstone Art Museum as part of the High Plains BookFest. All nominated books were published for the first time in 2011.

Award sponsors include the Parmly Billings Library, Friends of the Parmly Billings Library, Montana State University-Billings, the Parmly Billings Library Foundation, the Ucross Foundation, the Writer's Voice of the Billings Family YMCA, the Yellowstone Art Museum, and the Zonta Club of Billings.

More information about the High Plains Book Awards is available at: http://highplainsbookawards.org.  Nominations for the 2013 High Plains Book Awards will be accepted January 14, 2013-March 15, 2013 for books first published in 2012.

About the High Plains Book Awards
The Parmly Billings Library Board has established the High Plains Book Awards to recognize regional authors and/or literary works which examine and reflect life on the High Plains including the states of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, and Kansas, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.

Here are details about the Wyoming winners:

MARRIED INTO IT by Patricia Frolander
Best Woman Writer
Married Into It
Patricia Frolander
High Plains Press

What happens when a young urban woman marries into a fourth generation rural ranching family and must learn the traditions, customs, and lifestyle of the land, all under the scrutinizing eye of its close knit community? Author Patricia Frolander's clear-eyed poems chronicle her years of challenges and triumphs, bruises and breakthroughs, as she moves from outsider to neighbor.

Patricia Frolander, Wyoming's poet laureate, tries to balance family, ranching, and writing and have a passion for each of them. She and her husband own his family ranch in the Black Hills of Wyoming where ties to land and livestock have provided a wonderful variety of subjects to journal and pen.

ARAPAHO JOURNEYS: PHOTOGRAPHS AND STORIES FROM THE WIND RIVER RESERVATION by Sara Wiles
Best Art & Photography
Arapaho Journeys: Photographs and Stories from the Wind River Reservation
Sara Wiles
University of Oklahoma Press

Award-winning photographer Sara Wiles captures that life on film and in words in Arapaho Journeys, an inside look at thirty years of Northern Arapaho life on the Wind River Indian Reservation in central Wyoming.  Through more than 100 images and 40 essays, Wiles creates a visual and verbal mosaic of contemporary Northern Arapaho culture. Depicted in the photographs are people Wiles met at Wind River while she was a social worker, anthropology student, and adopted member of an Arapaho family.

Wiles's essays weave together tribal history, personal narratives, and traditional knowledge to describe modern-day reservation life and little-known aspects of Arapaho history and culture, including naming ceremonies and cultural revitalization efforts. This work broaches controversial topics, as well, including the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians.

Sara Wiles is an independent photographer, writer, and scholar who holds a master s degree in anthropology from Indiana University. Her photographs, including the images published here for the  first time, have been exhibited nationally. She is the recipient of a Wyoming Governor's Arts Award.

Deadline approaches for WAC Blanchan and Doubleday writing awards

B/D judge Katie Coles knows poetry and prose and icebergs.

Call for entries to writers in Wyoming!

The postmark deadline for applications for the Blanchan and Doubleday writing competitions is Nov. 2 -- a week from this Friday. Here is some info about the contests and this year's judge.

These awards are designed to bring attention to writers who have not yet received wide recognition for their work, and to support emerging writers at crucial times in their careers. Poets, fiction writers, essayists, and script writers who have published no more than one book in each genre and who are not students or faculty members are invited to apply by submitting manuscripts and an entry form by the deadline.

The Neltje Blanchan Award, $1,000, is given for the best poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or script which is informed by a relationship with the natural world.

The Frank Nelson Doubleday Award, $1,000, is given for the best poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or script written by a woman author.

POSTMARK DEADLINE IS NOVEMBER 2, 2012

Applications have been mailed to those on the Wyoming Arts Council literary arts lists. A printable application is available on the WAC web site at 
http://wyoarts.state.wy.us/Artists/Index.aspx

Katharine Coles will serve as the judge for the 2013 Neltje Blanchan and Frank Nelson Doubleday writing awards.

Coles will travel to Wyoming next spring for a reading with the Blanchan and Doubleday awardees. Details will be available in February 2013. 

Katharine Coles’ fifth and sixth collections of poems, The Earth Is Not Flat and Flight, are forthcoming in 2013 and 2015 from Red Hen Press.  Her poems, essays, and stories have appeared in such journals as The Paris Review, The Gettysburg Review, Poetry, Image, Seneca Review, North American Review, Southwest Review, DIAGRAM, and Ascent.  In 2009-10, she served as the inaugural director of the Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute for the Poetry Foundation. She is a professor at the University of Utah, where she founded and co-directs the Utah Symposium in Science and Literature. She is a 2012 Guggenheim Foundation Fellow.

In 2010, she traveled to Antarctica to write poems under the auspices of the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program

Author Brian Leung visits UW to speak about his novel based on 1885 "Chinese Massacre" in Rock Springs

From a UW press release:

Acclaimed author Brian Leung will visit the University of Wyoming Wednesday, Oct. 24, and Thursday, Oct. 25, for a reading of his work and campus visits.

His campus visit is sponsored by the UW MFA Program in Creative Writing, University Libraries, American Heritage Center and Multicultural Affairs.

Leung will give a free public reading at 7 p.m. Oct. 25, in William Robertson Coe Library, Room 506. A book sale and signing of his latest novel “Take Me Home” follows his presentation. A reception also is planned.

The book presents a fictionalized version of the “Chinese Massacre”-- the riot and killings of Chinese miners -- that occurred in Rock Springs in 1885. Leung conducted much of the research for his novel at the UW American Heritage Center and Coe Library.

Interested students and staff can meet with Leung Oct. 24, in the Wyoming Union’s Rainbow Resource Center (RRC) and the Multicultural Resource Center (MRC). The RRC will host an hour-long reception at 10:30 a.m. From noon- 1 p.m., the MRC will have a question-and-answer luncheon with Leung about his latest novel.

He also will visit with writing students in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at noon Oct. 25.

Leung was born and raised in California’s San Diego County -- a somewhat unlikely location, given that his mother was born in Battleground, Wash., and his father escaped from China in 1949. By coincidence, as a teenager in 1980, Leung took a train trip to visit relatives in Rock Springs -- the very town at the core of his “Take Me Home” novel, which won the Willa Award for Historical Fiction.

Leung’s other works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry have appeared in multiple magazines and reviews. His “World Famous Love Acts” won the Asian American Literary Award in 2005 and the Mary McCarthy Award for Short Fiction in 2002. He also has published another novel, “Lost Men.”

Leung’s short fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in Indiana Review, Runes, Crazyhorse, The Connecticut Review, Gulf Stream, Mid-American Review and numerous other publications. Leung recently was the recipient of the Lambda Literary Foundation Mid-Career Novelist Award.

Since 2000, he has taught in Cincinnati and Los Angeles, and currently is a University of Louisville associate professor. Leung earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from California State University, and an M.F.A from Indiana University.

More information about Leung can be found at http://www.readbrianleung.com/.

For more information about his campus visit, call the MFA Program in Creative Writing at (307) 766-6453.

Photo: Brian Leung

Dr. Mark Miller speaks about "Military Sites in Wyoming 1700-1920" on Oct. 25

We can't wait to read the published book, as Dr. Miller is a fine writer:

Dr. Mark Miller, Wyoming’s State Archaeologist, will celebrate National Archaeology Day with a lecture at the Wyoming State Museum, October 25 at 7 p.m.

From the earliest carved and painted images on stone cliffs to locations dating to the 20^th Century, Wyoming is dotted with hundreds of sites that bear witness to military activities.

In his talk, Dr. Miller draws from his recently completed book “Military Sites in Wyoming 1700-1920.” The slide show and lecture summarizes a study of more than 300 sites that have been incorporated into this historic context, beginning with early evidence of military activity in Native American rock art.

The discussion culminates with a discussion of sites related to Wyoming’s role in the United States entry into World War I.

Dr. Miller is a Carbon County native and adjunct professor of Anthropology at the University of Wyoming.

This program is presented by the Wyoming State Museum, State Historic Preservation Office and Office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist. It is free and open to the public.

The Wyoming State Museum is located in the Barrett Building, 2301 Central Avenue in Cheyenne. For more information about this and other State Museum programs, please call 777-7022.

"A Visit from the Goon Squad" author Jennifer Egan visits Jackson Nov. 30-Dec. 1

The Teton County Public Library's next Page to the Podium presentation will feature Jennifer Egan, 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “A Visit from the Goon Squad,“ for an evening talk at 6 p.m. on Friday, November 30, 2012 at Four Seasons Resort. Free tickets will be available beginning Thursday, November 15 at 5 p.m. at Teton County Library & Alta Branch with the presentation of a library card or library card number.

Teton County Library Foundation will also present an Breakfast Author Chat at 9 a.m. on Saturday, December 1, with Jennifer Egan in the Four Seasons Lobby Lounge. A continental breakfast will include an interview of Egan by local architect and music lover, Nona Yehia, who will also facilitate an audience Q & A with the author. Book signing to follow.

Tickets are $50 (with a portion supporting the Library Foundation) available by calling 307-732-5000, starting November 1. For a special overnight rate at Four Seasons Resort 11/30 and/or 12/1 call reservations: 732-5000.

Cheyenne author Amanda Cabot hosts book fair Nov. 3 and joins other local writers for a publishing conference Nov. 10

Cheyenne author Amanda Cabot will host a book fair at Barnes and Noble for her new novel Christmas Roses, on Saturday, Nov. 3. Proceeds will benefit the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens and Paul Smith Children’s Village. Come on out for a delightful afternoon with Amanda and finish (or begin) your Christmas shopping at the same time. 

The following Saturday, Nov. 10, Amanda will join some of her fellow Laramie County authors for a publishing conference at the Laramie County Public Library. This conference is "designed to help you navigate the next steps toward publication of your novel." It will be held from 10:15 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Laramie County Public Library. Feel free to brown-bag your lunch or purchase it at the library cafe. The event is free. Authors will be selling and signing copies of their books. FMI: 307-634-3561. 

Author Bill Betenson will be at WWCC Oct. 12 for book signing and slide show

The Western Wyoming Community College English Department and the Arlene and Louise Wesswick Foundation present Bill Betenson, author of Butch Cassidy, My Uncle, for a slide show and book-signing event this Friday, October 12, at 7:30 p.m. in Room 1302 at WWCC.

October lecture series at American Heritage Center focuses on 400th anniversary of King James Bible

Third Annual Sagebrush County Fiber Arts Revival set for Oct. 6 in Evanston

Galapagos Islands finches topic of Sept. 27 UW speech by top evolutionary researchers/authors

From a UW press release:

Two of the world’s leading evolutionary researchers, Peter and Rosemary Grant, will speak at 4 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27, in the University of Wyoming Berry Center auditorium.

They will discuss “Evolution of Darwin’s Finches.” UW Zoology Professor Craig Benkman will host their presentation as part of the L. Floyd Clarke Memorial Lecture Series.

The Grants’ research on evolution in the Galapagos Islands, where they have spent six months of every year since 1973, is well-known. Capturing, tagging and taking blood samples of the finches on the island of Daphne Major, the two Princeton University emeritus professors continue the evolutionary work of Charles Darwin in the place that inspired his theory of evolution.

"The Grants' three-year study of the evolution of Galapagos Island finches and their adaptive responses to environmental change is one of the classic studies in biology,” says Scott Seville, zoologist and UW Outreach School associate dean. “Their work has been featured in many documentaries and was the focus of the Pulitzer prize-winning book ‘Beak of the Finch’ by Jonathan Wiener."

In 2008, the Grants were among 13 recipients of the prestigious Darwin-Wallace Medal, which is bestowed every 50 years by the Linnean Society of London. They received the Kyoto Prize in basic sciences, an international award honoring significant contributions to scientific, cultural and spiritual betterment of mankind. They have written numerous articles and books on their discoveries.

For more information, call (307) 766-5627.

Photo: Peter and Rosemary Grant will discuss their research of the evolution of Galapagos Island finches. (Princeton University)

Spotted at the Equality State Book Festival: Poetry fellowship recipients

From the 2012 Equality State Book Festival at Casper College (from left): Michael Shay, Wyoming Arts Council; fellowship recipients W. Dale Nelson (Laramie), Matt Daly (Jackson), Claudia Mauro (Jackson), and fellowship judge and poet Brian Turner. Nelson, Daly and Mauro read their award-winning work with Turner on Sept. 14 at the bookfest. Shay served as emcee.

National Book Festival Sept. 22-23 in D.C. features NEA Literature Fellows

The National Endowment for the Arts sends this info about this weekend's National Book Festival:

At this year's National Book Festival, many of the poets and writers at the Poetry & Prose Pavilion will celebrate their roles as NEA Literature Fellows, one of the nation's most prestigious competitive awards for new and established authors. The Poetry & Prose Pavilion, sponsored by the NEA, is part of the Library of Congress’s twelfth annual literary festival, which takes place on September 23-24, 2012, on the National Mall in Washington, DC. 

This year's lineup at the Poetry & Prose Pavilion includes T.C. Boyle (San Miguel), Giannina Braschi, (United States of Banana), Junot Díaz (This Is How You Lose Her), Stephen Dunn (Here and Now), Jeffrey Eugenides (The Marriage Plot), Nikky Finney (Head Off & Split), Paul Hendrickson (Hemingway’s Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost: 1934-1961, Laura Kasischke (Space, In Chains), Philip Levine (News of the World), Margot Livesey (The Flight of Gemma Hardy), Thomas Mallon (Watergate), and Colson Whitehead (Zone One).

Nine of this year's presenters are NEA Literature Fellows (Boyle, Braschi, Dunn, Eugenides, Hendrickson, Jones, Kasischke, Levine, and Livesey); Jones and Hendrickson just received their Fellowships in 2012.

"[This] program ... I feel is essential to fostering the arts -- particularly for beginning or out-of-the-way artists whose work is not immediately apprehended in a commercial way," said author and Creative Writing Fellow (78, 83) T.C. Boyle in the NEA Literature Fellowships publication.

Also at the Poetry & Prose Pavilion, student state champions from the 2012 Poetry Out Loud National Finals.  Kristen Dupard, who earned both the 2012 Poetry Out Loud National Champion and Mississippi State Champion titles, along with second-place winner and Vermont State Champion Claude Mumbere, and third-place winner, Utah State Champion MarKaye Hassan will recite classic and contemporary poetry that earned them titles during this year’s national poetry recitation contest. Poetry Out Loud is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. 

Visit the National Endowment for the Arts and Library of Congress websites for interviews with current and past Book Festival authors, audio clips, downloadable materials, and interactive features. The NEA (@NEAarts) will live-tweet from the NEA Poetry & Prose Pavilion via Twitter. Look for #natbookfest – the official National Book Festival hashtag – to follow news from the festival.

The Poetry & Prose Pavilion is one of several pavilions where more than 100 writers and illustrators will discuss their work. Pavilions include Children, Teens, Fiction & Mystery, History & Biography, Contemporary Life, Poetry & Prose, SciFi Fantasy & Graphic Novels and Special Programs pavilions, plus the Family Storytelling Stage featuring authors and musical acts popular with young children. Last year, more than 100,000 book fans attended the festival.

The 12th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival will be held on the National Mall between 9th and 14th Streets on Saturday, Sept. 22, 2012, from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and on Sunday, Sept. 23 from noon to 5:30 p.m., rain or shine. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the National Book Festival Information Line at 888-714-4696 or visit the National Book Festival website.

"Active Duty, Active Voices" book festival panel teams up Iraq War soldier-writers Brian Turner and Luis Carlos Montalvan

Luis Carlos Montalvan, author of "Until
Tuesday" with his service dog, Tuesday

The Wyoming Arts Council has been a partner in the Equality State Book Festival since its launch in 2006. The 2012 edition makes for an action-packed two days in Casper. Most of the events will be held in Casper College's shiny new Gateway Building. I urge you to attend for the many reasons spelled out in this line-up of events.

 Here are some of the highlights:

A craft talk by David Romtvedt, poet and musician, gets things going on Friday. David, who was Wyoming Poet Laureate for eight years, will speak about "Invisible Craft, Ordinary Language." I'll be introducing him in my role as Wyoming Arts Council literature guy. I'll also be sticking around to learn some things, as poets have much to teach us prose writers about craft and language.

Current Poet Laureate Pat Frolander will discuss revising, Rebecca O'Connor conducts a craft talk about "Finding your writing through blogging and journaling, and Renee d'Auost explores writing and dance. 

Readings by Romtvedt and Linda Hasselstrom enliven the afternoon. Things get started with a 1 p.m. reading by the Wyoming Arts Council's poetry fellowship winners Matt Daly and Claudia Mauro of Jackson and W. Dale Nelson of Laramie. They'll be joined by soldier-poet and fellowship judge Brian Turner, author of "Here, Bullet" and "Phantom Noise."

The happenings head downtown that evening with a reception at The Corridor Gallery, a reading by Frolander at 7:30 at Metro Coffee Company followed by a poetry slam at 8:30. The slam is always the highlight of the bookfest as you never know who's going to show up. It's been rumored that there will be music as well as poetry.

Brian Turner, author of "Here, Bullet"
 and "Phantom Noise"

Saturday is panel discussion day. Two biggies go head-to-head at 10 a.m. "Active Duty, Active Voices" features Iraq War veterans and writers Brian Turner and Luis Carlos Montalván talking about writing and war. The panel will be moderated by Casper College Professor and miltary veteran Patrick Amelotte. If you write children's books (or are thinking about it), you'll want to catch the publishing panel with Cat Urbigkit, Zak Pullen, Karla Oceanak and Kendra Spanjer.

Fiction writer and UW Creative Writing Program Professor Alyson Hagy will be the luncheon speaker -- this is the only event that has a fee.

The afternoon features a number of readings. At 3:30 p.m., there is a panel discussion, "Writing Nature, Writing Self," with four writers who know both subjects well: Frolander, Hasselstrom, O’Connor and Urbigkit. The events wrap up with a 5 p.m. book signing.

This is the fourth edition of Wyoming's statewide book festival, held each even year. It's a fantastic event with something for everyone who loves books.

"Rogue's Pawn" by Jeffe Kennedy is "clever, imaginative and fun"

One-time Wyomingite Jeffe Kennedy, recipient of a Blanchan/Doubleday writing award and a creative writing fellowship, has a new book. Here's the info (from Deborah Nemeth, freelance editor at Carina Press):

Fantasy romance Rogue's Pawn by Jeffe Kennedy is clever, imaginative and fun. A discontented college professor finds herself suddenly transported to Faerie, discovers she has magical powers, and is immediately forced to bargain for her life in an unsettling world. I love the way the smart and resourceful heroine applies the scientific method to learn about her magical abilities and limitations.

It might sound like a contradiction to describe this novel as both dark and humorous, but Jeffe Kennedy manages to pull off this dichotomy with style. She captures the darkness lurking beneath the Disneyfied land, its frivolous but merciless inhabitants, and the mysterious, sexy fae lord hero.

The Bookpushers gave this title a thoughtful joint review, calling it "a fantastic and engrossing read…multi-layered and cerebral as well as dreamy…with memorable characters in a dark seductive world filled with wit and passion and rich imagination."