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.

"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."

Katharine Coles will judge 2013 Blanchan/Doubleday writing competition

Katharine Coles in Antarctica

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

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 are being mailed today to those on the Wyoming Arts Council literary arts lists. A printable application is available on the WAC web site at http://www.wyomingartscouncil.org.

Coles will travel to Wyoming next spring or summer 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. Here is Coles speaking about her trip to Antarctica and how it influenced her writing:

In 2010, I was in Antarctica for a month during the Astral summer, returning home on the solstice that marks the Southern Hemisphere’s longest day and the Northern Hemisphere’s shortest.  I wanted to go the Antarctica for precisely the reason many people though I was crazy to do so: because it’s about as far “out there” as a person can get without actually leaving the planet.  In my own case, the voyage included a four-day boat trip each way across the Drake Passage, the world’s most notorious ocean crossing.  It was wonderful.  As a poet, I am most inspired by the places in which I am most foreign and least comfortable—and I’ve never been more foreign or less comfortable than when looking up sixty feet from the bottom of a trough to the top of its wave. 

Of course, while I was on the ice I thought and wrote about penguins and krill, about lichens and global climate change and the fragility of ecosystems.  I also thought and wrote about perception and illusion, about how we know what we think we know.

Though I have always written about nature, I haven’t until recently thought of myself as a “nature poet.”  This is partly because I’ve always been most interested in nature in the sense that scientists conceive it—as “Nature” with a capital “N,” which includes not only what we can observe with our senses also the deeper reality that gives rise to it, which is the proper object of study for physicists, mathematicians, neurologists, and philosophers.  In Antarctica, I was constantly dumbfounded by the gorgeous strangeness of the landscape around me, which was open to the gaze.  And, as I learned about the extent to which that landscape was an illusion made of light reflected and refracted by water, ice, and sky, I became even more astonished.  If what I could see was beauty, what was there to be understood was Beauty.  They are the same, but not exactly.

More info on the Wyoming Arts Council poetry fellowships

On Monday, the Wyoming Arts Council announced the recipients of this year’s creative writing fellowships in poetry. Here is some additional information on the three winners and two honorable mentions.

The three winning poets are Matt Daly and Claudia Mauro of Jackson and W. Dale Nelson of Laramie. They each will receive a $3,000 award plus a $500 stipend to travel to Casper to read their work at the annual fellowship reading on Sept. 14 at the Equality State Book Festival. They will be joined at the reading by fellowship judge Brian Turner, a soldier-poet who is the author of two poetry collections, Here, Bullet and Phantom Noise.

The fellowship judge also selected two writers for honorable mentions. They are Michael McIrvin of Cheyenne and Kristen Gunther of Laramie.

Matt Daly is the author of Wild Nature and the Human Spirit: A Field Guide to Journal Writing in Nature. His poetry, short fiction and essays have been published in To Everything on Earth, Stories of the Wild and Ahead of Their Time: Wyoming Voices for Wilderness. He grew up in Jackson Hole, teaches creative writing workshops for tweens, teens, and adults, and is a member of the Wyoming Arts Council's artist roster.

Claudia Mauro is founder and director of Whit Press, which publishes work by writers from ethnic, economic and social minorities, young writers and first-time authors. Before moving to Wyoming, she worked for nearly 20 years as a marine science tech and a backcountry pilot in support of private and public environmental projects in Alaska. She's published two poetry collections: Stealing Fire and Reading the River.

W. Dale Nelson’s poetry has been published in The New Yorker, The Nation and other magazines in the U.S., Australia and Canada. Finishing Line Press in Kentucky is publishing his chapbook, Range of Motion. He won a WAC poetry fellowship in 2004 and was the recipient of a 2010 Neltje Blanchan Memorial Writing Award for Nature Writers.

Michael McIrvin is the author of five poetry collections, including Optimism Blues: Poems Selected and New from Cedar Hill Publications, an essay collection and two novels. He's a free-lance editor. Kristen Gunther was born in Maryland and has called southeast Wyoming her home since 2009. She's a recent graduate of the University of Wyoming’s MFA program in creative writing. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cutbank and High Country News and has aired on Wyoming Public Radio.

This is the 27th year for the creative writing fellowships sponsored by the Wyoming Arts Council. Next year’s category will be creative nonfiction. Applications will be available in spring 2013.

For more information, contact Michael Shay at 307-777-5234 or mike.shay@wyo.gov

WAC announces winners of creative writing fellowships in poetry w/update

The Wyoming Arts Council is pleased to announce the recipients of this year’s creative writing fellowships in poetry.

They are Matt Daly and Claudia Mauro of Jackson and W. Dale Nelson of Laramie. They each will receive a $3,000 award plus a $500 stipend to travel to Casper to read their work at the annual fellowship reading Sept. 14 at the Equality State Book Festival. They will be joined at the reading by fellowship judge Brian Turner, a soldier-poet who is the author of two poetry collections, “Here, Bullet” and “Phantom Noise.”

Honorable mentions in this category go to Michael McIrvin of Cheyenne and Kristen Gunther of Laramie.

This is the 27th year for the creative writing fellowships sponsored by the Wyoming Arts Council. Next year’s category will be creative nonfiction. Applications will be available in spring 2013.

For more information, contact Michael Shay at 307-777-5234 or mike.shay@wyo.gov.

UPDATED 8/8/2012: http://wyomingarts.blogspot.com/2012/08/more-info-on-wyoming-arts-council.html

Western & Jahiel team up for Wyofile profile of custom bridle and bit craftsman Tom Balding

Tom Balding in his shop. Photo by Adam Jahiel.

Two Wyoming Arts Council fellowship winners teamed up to profile custom bridle and bit craftsman Tom Balding in the latest issue of WyoFile.

The story was written by Sheridan’s Sam Western, a 2012 creative writing fellowship recipient in fiction and author of Pushed off the Mountain and Sold Down the River: Wyoming’s Search for its Soul. The excellent photos were shot by Adam Jahiel of Story. Adam has received two WAC visual arts fellowships and his “Cowboys on the Range” exhibit was seen in 2008 at the Wyoming State Museum in Cheyenne.

Sam explores Tom Balding’s intriguing life and delves into the details of his craft:

His passion for the last 28 years… has been horses and what riders use to influence their behavior: bits and spurs. Some of the world’s top riders use his custom-crafted products.

Balding’s snaffle bits, many made with gleaming bits of stainless steel, have a stark, sleek look. They feature mouthpieces of copper inlaid sweet iron, a cold-rolled carbon steel preferred by horses because the rusting tastes sweet.

His shanks, western-style bits connected together by a metal bar, range from bare-bones pieces of modern art to the more ornate, decorated with silver plate or initialed in bronze. They go by the name of Switchback, Steamboat, and Diamond Cross.

That's just a sample. Read the entire story at http://wyofile.com/2012/06/tom-balding-custom-bridle-bit-craftsman-was-inspired-when-bucked-off-a-horse/

Postmark deadline for Wyoming Arts Council poetry fellowships is June 8

Brian Turner. Listen to a March 27, 2009, BBC Radio "Poetry from the Front Line" podcast featuring Turner.

Friday, June 8, is the postmark deadline or the Wyoming Arts Council creative writing fellowships in poetry.

To apply, you must be a Wyoming resident, 18 or older, and not enrolled as a full-time student pursuing high school, college or university art-related degrees. There is no entry fee.

Up to three, $3,000 awards will be given. Winning poets also will receive a $500 stipend to attend the Equality State Book Festival in Casper Sept. 14-15 and read from their work with fellowship judge Brian Turner.

Turner is a soldier-poet and the author of two poetry collections, Phantom Noise (2010) and Here, Bullet (2005). His work is drawn from his seven years in the U.S. Army, including one year as an infantry team leader in Iraq with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. Prior to that, he was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1999-2000 with the 10th Mountain Division. Turner was also featured in Operation Homecoming, a unique documentary that explores the firsthand accounts of American servicemen and women through their own words. He earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Oregon and has lived abroad in South Korea.

At the book festival in Casper, Turner will participate on a panel about soldier-writers with Luis Carlos Montalvan, U.S. Army Iraq War veteran and author of Until Tuesday: The Story of a Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him.

Printable applications are available on the Wyoming Arts Council web site at http://www.wyomingartscouncil.org/. To receive in the mail, call the WAC at 307-777-7742. For more information, contact Michael Shay, 307-777-5234 or mike.shay@wyo.gov.

Deadline is June 8 for Wyoming Arts Council poetry fellowships

The postmark deadline is June 8 for the Wyoming Arts Council creative writing fellowships in poetry.

To apply, you must be a Wyoming resident, 18 or older, and not enrolled as a full-time student pursuing high school, college or university art-related degrees. There is no entry fee.

Up to three, $3,000 awards will be given. Winning poets also will receive a $500 stipend to attend the Equality State Book Festival in Casper Sept. 14-15 and read from their work with fellowship judge, Brian Turner.

Turner is a soldier-poet and the author of two poetry collections, Phantom Noise (2010) and Here, Bullet (2005). His work is drawn from his seven years in the U.S. Army, including one year as an infantry team leader in Iraq with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. Prior to that, he was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1999-2000 with the 10th Mountain Division. Turner was also featured in Operation Homecoming, a unique documentary that explores the firsthand accounts of American servicemen and women through their own words. He earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Oregon and has lived abroad in South Korea.

At the book festival in Casper, Turner will participate on a panel about soldier-writers with Luis Carlos Montalvan, U.S. Army Iraq War veteran and author of Until Tuesday: The Story of a Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him.

Printable applications are available on the Wyoming Arts Council web site at http://www.wyomingartscouncil.org/. To receive in the mail, call the WAC at 307-777-7742. For more information, contact Michael Shay, 307-777-5234 or mike.shay@wyo.gov.

Clarification: Creative writing fellowships for this year are in the poetry category

Every so often, there is a typo that gets past the WAC staff. That happened with the creative writing fellowship application that was sent out in February. The header at the top of the application page on page 3 reads: "2013 Creative Writing Fellowships in Fiction." That should, of course, read: "2013 Creative Writing Fellowships in Poetry." Sorry about the error. And please get your poetry submission postmarked to the WAC by June 8. Find the corrected application blank online at http://wyoarts.state.wy.us/pdf/2013cwfellowshipapplication.pdf. Get more info at http://wyoarts.state.wy.us/Artists/Literature.aspx or call Mike Shay at 307-777-5234.

Abbie Miller's "Zipped" opens May 25 at the NIC in Casper

Abbie Miller's exhibit "Zipped" will be shown at the Nicolaysen Art Museum in Casper May 25-September 9. Abbie's work was included in the Wyoming Arts Council fellowship biennial show held last year at the Center for the Arts in Jackson.

Abbie Miller's artwork draws equally from the world of fashion and textile manipulation as it does from sculpture. She creates sculptural forms through man-made textiles and clothing and explores the dynamic intersection between form, texture, surface, sculpture and the human body.

Artist Statement

At the site of connection there is a stitch. Action and material, verb and noun, praxis and theory, the stitch is the DNA of my art.

Using clothing construction techniques, I design sculptures, garments and interactive objects that examine the relationship between structure, form and surface. By altering ubiquitous, mass-produced materials into unfamiliar sensuous objects, I invite viewers to question the nature of materiality.

My use of repetition, synthetic material and design relate visually and methodically to tactics of commercial display marketing. I'm interested in these tactics for the non-verbal, instinctual reactions they stimulate. In this way my work is reflexive of mass-produced consumer culture and novelty.

Conversely the physicality and labor present in my work asks the viewer to look longer and question the value of craft and labor in relationship to material and the body. My sculptures play on design strategies, but the construction techniques suggest a tacit bodily connection beyond the physical surface.

Postmark deadline for WAC poetry fellowships is one month away

Attention poets -- postmark deadline for the 2013 creative writing fellowships in poetry is June 8, 2012. Open to Wyoming poets only. Read guidelines here. Get application here. Brian Turner is the judge. Get info on Brian at http://wyomingarts.blogspot.com/2012/03/soldier-poet-brian-turner-is-judge-for.html

2012 Equality State Book Festival announces confirmed slate of authors and illustrators

Holly Wendt & Laurie Lye, co-directors of the 2012 Equality State Book Festival, send word that the bookfest web site has been updated with some exciting news to share about September's event in Casper:

The Equality State Book Festival organizers are pleased to announce this year's festival date has been set for Sept. 14-15 in Casper. This celebration marks the 26th anniversary of the annual Casper College/ARTCORE Literary Conference, which has been called "The Equality State Book Festival" every other year since 2006, this being our fourth venture in that spirit.

For the two-day event, more than 15 authors and illustrators will share their talents, giving readings, leading craft talks, emceeing a poetry slam, visiting local schools, and participating on panels. This year's group includes poets, novelists, memoirists, essayists, illustrators, and publishers. 

Among the participants slated are state-wide and regional favorites: Pat Frolander, current Poet Laureate for Wyoming; Zak Pullen, Cat Urbigkit, Kendra Spanjer and Karla Oceanak who will be making school visits; Alyson Hagy and David Romtvedt, faculty from University of Wyoming's MFA program, who will give readings and lead craft talks; and essayist and poet Linda Hasselstrom. From further regions, we are also joined by Rebecca O'Connor and Renee d'Aoust.

The Wyoming Arts Council will be announcing their annual Creative Writing Fellowship awards which celebrate poetry this year and will be judged by Brian Turner. Our friends at Natrona County Public Library are sponsoring a visit from Luis Carlos Montalvan. 

We hope you can join us to appreciate the good company of fellow readers and writers and help celebrate books and the written word Sept. 14-15, 2012, at Casper College and a few other Casper locations, all to be detailed on this web site soon.

For more book festival information, please contact Laurie Lye at llye@caspercollege.edu or 307-268-2639.

UW Writer-in-Residence Mark Jenkins departs for Everest Expedition

 

Mark Jenkins in Ireland

From a UW press release:

The last time Mark Jenkins tried to climb Mount Everest, he was pursuing a master's degree in geography at the University of Wyoming. He was unable to reach the summit of the world's highest mountain on that 1986 expedition but, as part of his research into acid snow, he collected snow samples at a higher elevation than anyone had before.

In the 26 years since, the Laramie resident has traveled the world as an adventurer and writer. Jenkins' excursions have included ascents of some of the globe's other tallest peaks, dangerous trips to some of the world's last remote regions, and travel by foot or bicycle across continents. He's an internationally recognized author and journalist now working as a field staff writer for National Geographic -- and as writer-in-residence for the UW master's degree program in creative writing .

And he's heading back for another try at Mount Everest.

Read the rest of the story at http://www.uwyo.edu/uw/news/2012/04/uw-writer-in-residence-departs-for-everest-expedition.html

EDITOR'S NOTE: Mark has received two creative writing fellowships from the Wyoming Arts Council. The WAC wishes him well on his latest adventure.

2012 Visual Arts Fellowship Awards anounced by Wyoming Arts Council

At a Fellowship Awards Banquet during last weekend's CLICK! Symposium for Visual Artists in Pinedale, the Wyoming Arts Council announced the 2012 Visual Arts Fellowship Recipients and Honorable Mentions. Work by all of these artists, plus next year's Fellowship Recipients and Honorable Mentions, will be included in the next Biennial Fellowship Exhibition which will be hosted by the Nicolaysen Art Museum in Casper in the fall of 2013.

The 2012 Fellowship Recipients are:  

Joe Arnold, painter from Laramie
Chuck Kimmerle, photographer from Casper
Jenny Wuerker, painter from Buffalo

Honorable Mentions were given to: 
Suzanne Morlock from Wilson who creates sculptures from recycled materials
Cat Urbigkit, photographer from Pinedale

The Jurors for the 2012 Visual Arts Fellowships were:  
Leanne Goebel, an arts writer based in Pagosa Springs, Colo.
Napoleon Jones-Henderson, an artist, educator, activist and "Citizen of the Universe" from Boston
Karen Rogers, a gallerist and artist consultant from Santa Fe, N.M.

The jurors, who made their selections at an all-day jury process on Friday, March 30, were all impressed by the depth and breadth of the work by Wyoming artists.  From painting, sculpture, ceramics and photography through environmental art and film, the artist entries were varied and exciting.  While even the jurors were surprised at their final selection of more traditional artists this year, they were very inspired by the contemporary work being done in Wyoming.  

The three jurors, along with Lisa Hatchadoorian, Art Curator for the Nicolaysen Art Museum in Casper, held one-on-one meetings with artists and art students on Sunday morning to review the artists' work and offer constructive criticism, ideas and encouragement.

Writer and workshop leader Page Lambert profiled in The Denver Post

One-time Wyoming resident and Wyoming Arts Council creative writing fellowship winner Page Lambert was profiled yesterday in The Denver Post. Read the interview here.

Soldier-poet Brian Turner is judge for 2013 WAC creative writing fellowships in poetry

Brian Turner will be the judge for the 2013 Wyoming Arts Council creative writing fellowships in poetry. He is a soldier-poet who is the author of two poetry collections, Phantom Noise (2010) and Here, Bullet (2005) which won the 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award, the New York Times “Editor's Choice” selection, the 2006 Pen Center USA "Best in the West" award, and the 2007 Poets Prize, among others. Turner served seven years in the U.S. Army, including one year as an infantry team leader in Iraq with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. Prior to that, he was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1999-2000 with the 10th Mountain Division. Turner's poetry has been published in Poetry Daily, The Georgia Review, and other journals, and in the Voices in Wartime Anthology published in conjunction with the feature-length documentary film of the same name. Turner was also featured in Operation Homecoming, a unique documentary that explores the firsthand accounts of American servicemen and women through their own words. He earned an MFA from the University of Oregon and has lived abroad in South Korea. In 2009, Turner was selected as one of 50 United States Artists Fellows.

At the Casper College Literary Conference Sept. 14-15, 2012, Brian Turner will read from his work together with the fellowship winners. He also will participate on a panel about soldier-writers with Luis Carlos Montalvan, U.S. Army Iraq War veteran and author of "Until Tuesday: The Story of a Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him."

Here’s what critics had to say about Here, Bullet:

 "In sharp, straightforward, yet lyrical language, Turner exposes the many costs of war.” — Library Journal

“The day of the first moonwalk, my father's college literature professor told his class, ‘Someday they'll send a poet, and we'll find out what it's really like.’ Turner has sent back a dispatch from a place arguably more incomprehensible than the moon—the war in Iraq—and deserves our thanks...” — New York Times Book Review

Printed fellowship applications have been mailed to those of the WAC creative writing fellowship list. Printable apps will also be available next week on the WAC blog and web site.

The postmark deadline is June 8, 2012.

For more information, contact Michael Shay, 307-777-5234 or mike.shay@wyo.gov, or visit the WAC web site at www.wyomingartscouncil.org.

Visual arts fellowship deadline one month away

Postmark deadline for the Wyoming Arts Council's 2012 visual arts fellowships is March 16 -- one month from today!

Info at http://wyomingarts.blogspot.com/p/2012-visual-arts-fellowship-guidelines.html

Printable application at http://wyomingarts.blogspot.com/p/2012-visual-arts-fellowship-application.html

Lander artist and CWC prof Matt Flint opens show in Park City, Utah, on Feb. 24

From County 10: Central Wyoming College Art Professor Matt Flint has a solo showing of his recent paintings at Gallery Mar in Park City, Utah. The show, “Up Close and Far Away,” opens February 24. The Gallery is located at 436 Main St., in Park City.
From the WAC: Matt was awarded a 2009 visual arts fellowship from the Wyoming Arts Council. His work was featured in the 2009-2010 WAC fellowship biennial show at the Wyoming State Museum in Cheyenne.

Latest info on CLICK! conference in Pinedale

CLICK! A Weekend for Wyoming Visual Artists is an event designed to engage Wyoming artists in strengthening and building their careers.  Held in conjunction with the Wyoming Arts Council's Visual Arts Fellowship awards ceremony, CLICK! will challenge seasoned and emerging artists alike to consider how they might take control of their professional careers through strategic planning, community building and networking. Peers and invited experts will present ideas and opportunities both within and outside the state for professional artists dedicated to living and working in Wyoming. Find up-to-date info at http://wyomingarts.blogspot.com/p/click-conference-details.html