Send titles of new books by Wyoming authors

Editors of the WAC's Artscapes newsletter are looking for information on new books by Wyoming authors to include in the August issue. We're specifically interested in fall titles, due to be released September through December, 2009. Please e-mail the following info to either Linda Coatney or Mike Shay by July 31: Book title, author, ISBN number, category (romance, poetry, children's, etc.) and projected release date.

We are always interested in books, publications, exhibits, concerts, performances or any news about creative people in Wyoming. Just send it our way.

Electronic books a no-go for students

From Nancy Curtis, owner and publisher of High Plains Press:

here is a tidbit I thought was interesting: Northwest Missouri State University had a pilot project last year in which some 200 students were given Sony Readers that contained textbooks for four courses. "NMSU students reported the devices limited their ability to highlight, skip sections and take notes, and 40 percent said they studied less than they would have with hard-copy books, the university noted." From: Shelf Awareness, July 7, 2009

William Missouri Downs' "Seagulls in a Cherry Tree" at Casper College

Laramie playwright (and recipient of a Wyoming Governor's Arts Award) William Missouri Downs presents "Seagulls in a Cherry Tree," the hilarious tale of two Hollywood writers who find themselves at an Idaho artist's colony attempting to adapt Anton Chekov's "The Cherry Orchard" for the Silver Screen. It is here that the writers fall in with the wackiest cast of characters this side of Moscow, Idaho. Can they save the failing artist's colony whilst dealing with issues of love, art, alcohol, sex, and Hollywood without getting bored?

"Seagulls in a Cherry Tree" is being directed by Richard Burk. Performances are May 1-2 and 5-9, 7:30 p.m., in Casper College's Krampert Theatre.

Tickets are $12 adults, $10 children/students (5-18). Special savings: Two tickets for the price of one on Tuesday and Wednesday. $2 discounts for groups of 20 or more. Patron sales: Ticket sales begin April 20. General ticket sales start April 27.

FMI: Call the box office at 307-268-2500 at 1-800-442-2963. Krampert Theatre Box Office (M-F, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., or at the door). Tickets mailed for $1 per order.

Bush and Bin Laden meet in Hix poems

From a University of Wyoming press release:

President George W. Bush and al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden have never had a conversation.

Until now.

In his latest book, "God Bless," released this month by Etruscan Press, UW English Professor H.L. Hix pits excerpts from Bush speeches against arguments from bin Laden in a unique poetic dialogue that embraces politics, literature, language and culture.

"These are two people who ought to be talking but aren't, so I'm going to make up a dialogue between them," says Hix, who also serves as director of UW's Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. "I think there's important dialogue that hasn't happened, and I'm trying to generate that dialogue."

In his book, Hix, a finalist for this year's National Book Award, creates poems using Bush's own words from speeches, executive orders and other public statements. He also constructs poetry from the letters, speeches and other discourses of bin Laden.

"God Bless" also includes candid interviews with a diverse panel of experts, ranging from M. Javad Zarif, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, to CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen.

"It's a weird book. It was even a weird book for me," says Hix, whose previous 10 books were poetry, philosophy or literary criticism. "I've never done anything like it before, and I don't think I'll ever do anything like it again."

He laughs and adds, "I don't know how it started happening, I just sort of found myself doing it."

As part of his research for the book, Hix says he read more than 8,000 pages of speeches by the president, obtained from the official White House Web site, and "pulled out language usage that I thought was interesting."

He then studied bin Laden's words and wrote what he called "interleaves" that use both direct quotations and reconstruction.

Unlike his previous books, Hix believes "God Bless" could receive mainstream media attention because of uniqueness and subject matter.

But, he says, "I have absolutely no idea what to expect because my previous books are philosophy, literary criticism and poetry and those types of books have tiny audiences, very few sales and very small press runs. In my 'fantasy life,' I hope it gets some real play and will be a prompt for dialogue."

"God Bless" is available for purchase at local bookstores or through Etruscan Press. The cost is $19.95.

Tina Welling inks two-book deal

This article appeared in the June 11 issue of Publishers’ Weekly. It includes some good news for Jackson’s Tina Welling, who received the 2003 Frank Nelson Doubleday Award from the Arts Council for an excerpt from her first novel, Crybaby Ranch, published in 2006 by Ghost Road Press. Read on:

Although at age 63 Susan Wasson is semi-retired, she still maintains the mystery book section at Albuquerque's Bookworks, orders its mass market titles, and writes reviews for the store's Web site and newsletter. But what makes her unique in the eyes of both large and small publishers is her unofficial role of agent. In the past decade, three novels acquired by New York houses were initially released by small presses and brought to the attention of the larger companies by Wasson. The most recent deal occurred this past spring, when Penguin acquired Crybaby Ranch by Wyoming author Tina Welling.

Welling's debut novel was published in 2006 with a 750-copy print run by Ghost Road Press in Denver. After Wasson read Crybaby Ranch last year, she passed it on to Penguin sales
rep Eric Boss, who, in turn, passed it on to executive editor Ellen Edwards at Putnam's NAL imprint, which eventually led to a two-book deal.

“I love it when a bookseller's enthusiasm leads to our discovery of a terrific new writer,” Edwards said. Crybaby Ranch will be released in trade paper in January as part of the NAL Accent line of women's fiction.

Prompted by Wasson, the Bantam Dell Publishing Group has acquired two novels, each initially released by a small feminist press. In 1997, BD acquired Into the Forest by Jean Hegland, which had a 3,000-copy printing when it was first published in 1996 by Calyx Books. BD acquired the title in a two-book deal that netted the author $700,000. Five years later, BD bought The Elegant Gathering of White Snows by Kris Radish, first published with a 3,000-copy run by Denver's Spinsters Ink. BD, which reports 200,000 copies in print, published The Sunday List of Dreams, Radish's fourth novel, with a 100,000-copy run in January. “One of the most remarkable things about Susan,” said Bantam Dell publisher Irwyn Applebaum, “is that she's a book lover and parlays this into a knowledge of what will sell a book. It's not enough to like a book, we've got to be able to sell it. Not everyone in this business can make that leap. She's one of a kind.”