Poet and labor activist Mark Nowak wants to hear your story about "Working in Wyoming"

Poet, teacher and and labor activist Mark Nowak will serve as eminent writer-in-residence for the University of Wyoming creative writing program in February. He sent this info about the "Working (in Wyoming)" project he'll be conducting when he's in the state. Here it is:

Working (in Wyoming) is a community-building, creative investigation of what it means to labor in Wyoming.

A series of creative writing workshops will be held in southeastern  Wyoming (Laramie and Cheyenne) in February of 2013. These workshops will be facilitated by Wyoming writing instructors and students in the University of Wyoming's MFA program in creative writing. In these workshops, Wyoming workers of diverse backgrounds will have the opportunity to collaborate with others in the Wyoming community to create a short piece of creative writing (a poem, a parable, a short story, a piece of flash fiction/nonfiction, etc.).

Working (in Wyoming) will culminate in a large-scale yet intimate evening event in Laramie on February 28. Here working people from across the state will have the opportunity to share what it means to work in Wyoming with a presentation of pieces created in workshops.

FMI: Kay Northrop at knorthrop@uwyo.edu or Brie Fleming at briennafleming5@gmail.com

Read more on the project's Facebook page. 

Call for entries: Alpinist Magazine's "Why Do I Ice Climb?" writing contest

From Alpinist Magazine:

Does the sound of crunching leaves underfoot and a biting frost on your morning run have you itchin' to break out the pointy hardware and sniff out some vertical ice? Nostalgic for your first time swinging a tool? Eager to enjoy some meditation time on your front points? Tell us about it. We challenge you to put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, and share with us why you ice climb. What inner impulse, drive or desire has you consistently risking divorce and/or death during the winter months when all sane souls are ripping in two feet of fresh at the resort or mixing a stiff hot chocolate and enjoying a game of family Jenga. All entries must be received by November 20, and under 500 words, the writing will be judged by the editors of Alpinist Magazine. Winners are announced on December 1 and will be featured in "High Camp," and win a year subscription to Alpinist. Submit your entry via e-mail at bifwritingcontest@gmail.com

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

"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. 

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."

Mark Jenkins speaks about Mount Everest ascent Sept. 18 at UW

From a UW press release:

Author, adventurer and UW faculty member Mark Jenkins will discuss his 2012 expedition to the summit of Mount Everest Tuesday, Sept. 18, at 7 p.m. in the University of Wyoming College of Education auditorium. 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 different continents. He is 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. Prior to working for National Geographic, Jenkins wrote The Hard Way column for Outside magazine in addition to writing several books including “A Man’s Life,” “To Timbuktu” and “Off The Map.” The UW Outdoor Program sponsors Jenkins' talk. Call (307) 766-2402 for more information.

Photo: This is among the photos taken by Mark Jenkins during his ascent of Mount Everest. He will show slides of the expedition Tuesday, Sept. 18, at 7 p.m. in the UW College of Education auditorium.

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.

Welcome to the fall line-up of literary events around the state

Temps are still in the 90s and it may still seem like summer but fall is just around the corner. As we get ready to swing into fall, it's time to give our readers a head's up about some new and continuing Wyoming events that feature writers and books.

Michael Lanza

Central Wyoming College will wrap up the summer with its first-ever Wind River Outdoor Writers Conference Aug. 24-25 at Sink's Canyon Center. Presenters include blind adventurer Erik Weihenmayer, who has climbed the summit of the highest mountains on each of the seven continents. He will be the keynote speaker for the conference with a free public presentation at Lander Valley High School Auditorium on August 25 at 7 p.m. Other presenters are outdoor writers Michael Lanza and Shelli Johnson and editor Max Phelps.

Wyoming has two big fall literary events. The first has a long title: the Casper College/ARTCORE Equality State Book Festival and Literary Conference. The book festival takes place during even years, such as this one, offering readings, book signings, craft talks, panels, school visits by writers and a poetry slam. In odd years, Casper College and ARTCORE continue a decades-long partnership by putting on the literary conference, a series of workshops and craft talks by notable authors.

Pat Frolander

Among the Sept. 14-15 bookfest participants are state 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 presents the Creative Writing Fellowship awards, which were judged by soldier-poet Brian Turner, and celebrates poetry this year. The 2013 fellowship recipients, Matt Daly, Claudia Mauro and W. Dale Nelson, will read from their award-winning work with Turner on Friday, Sept. 14, 1-3 p.m., in the Goodstein Foundation Library. Our friends at the Natrona County Library are sponsoring a visit from Iraq War veteran and author Luis Carlos Montalvan. Turner will join Montalvan at a panel about soldier-writers on Saturday, Sept. 15, 10 a.m.

Speaking of soldier-writers.... One of America's best writers, Tim O'Brien, will be a featured presenter at the annual Literary Connection at Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne Oct. 5-6. O'Brien is a Vietnam veteran best known for his novel, “The Things They Carried.” He will conduct a free writing workshop on Friday, Oct. 5, entitled “The Things We Carry.” John Calderazzo, a nature writer and essayist from Fort Collins, Colo., and fiction writer Cat Valente, will conduct other free workshops.

Every county library sponsors a series of events throughout the year. Connect with your local library through the Wyoming Library Asssociation. 

Mark Nowak

UW's creative writing program has a full slate of visiting writers, including Maggie Nelson, Mark Nowak, CA Conrad and Brian Leung. The program's fall schedule culminates on Nov. 9 with “Listening to Nature: an Evening of Readings and Visual Art by Scientists and Artists” features great writing and art focused on nature and the environment. Readers will include Chris Madsen, Emilene Ostlind, and Kristen Gunther. 

Western Wyoming Community College in Rock Springs sponsors its “Friday Night Live” literary series sponsored by the Louise Wesswick Foundation. English Professor and writer Rick Kempa does a great job coordinating these events. In February, WWCC hosted Utah author Katharine Coles who will also serve as judge for the 2013 Blanchan/Doubleday writing awards sponsored by the WAC (more info coming soon).

We have two statewide writing groups – WyoPoets and Wyoming Writers, Inc. – and they each sponsor annual conferences. WyoPoets conducts a writing workshop each spring and the WWInc conference launches the summer season the first weekend in June. The 2013 conference will be in Laramie.

The Jackson Hole WritersConference is held in late June and has become one of the foremost conferences in the country.

These are but the highlights of the Wyoming literary year. We’ll keep you posted as new events arise, and as conferences and events solidify their plans for 2013. If you have a literary event to publicize, let us know here at the WAC. We'll spread the word via this blog, Facebook, Twitter and our print newsletter. 

Tim O'Brien leads a writing workshop on "The Things We Carry" Oct. 5 at LCCC in Cheyenne

Want to take a free writing workshop with one of America's best writers?

Tim O'Brien, author of "The Things They Carried" and "Going After Cacciato," will be at the Literary Connection at Laramie County Community College on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 5-6. On Friday, between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., he will join two other award-winning writers -- John Calderazzo and Cat Valente -- who will each conduct a free workshop. Tim is a Vietnam veteran whose work continues to explore the legacy of that conflict on the American psyche. Here are the workshop details:

Tim O'Brien: The Things We Carry

"In this workshop I'll be discussing my approach to writing fiction and will touch on such topics as the use of autobiographical materials in fiction, the principle of simultaneity, animating a story, thematic gravitas, etc."

Tim O’Brien received the National Book Award in Fiction in 1979 for his novel Going After Cacciato. In 2005 The Things They Carried was named by the New York Times as one of the twenty best books of the last quarter century.

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

Jayme Feary leads July 14 "Writers in the Park" session

The Grand Teton Association invites you to join their Writers in the Park series every second Saturday of the summer months. Writers both serious and casual, working in all areas of interest are welcome. The workshops are free.

Saturday, July 14th, Jayme Feary will lead the workshop with discussion and writing exercises.

We will meet at 9:00am at the flagpole in front of the park Visitors Center in Moose rain or shine. From there we will go to a good place to write and talk together. Bring paper and pen, appropriate outdoor clothing for variable weather conditions and perhaps water and something to sit on. The workshop ends at noon.

Jayme Feary specializes in narrative nonfiction. He is a frequent magazine contributor. The Wyoming Arts Council awarded him a 2011 Fellowship in Creative Nonfiction. He earned an MFA from the University of Montana, where he taught composition and creative nonfiction. He lives in Jackson, Wyoming.

Jayme's workshop is titled: "Storytelling--The Secret Behind 'Show, Don't Tell'"

He says, "Have you ever wondered how to write a great scene that transports readers so deeply into the story that they forget they are reading? The key is the application of the oft-taught 'Show, Don't Tell' rule. But what is this rule really saying? How can we shift our writing from telling to showing? We'll practice writing a scene and will discuss how we can improve. Educational, practical, and fun.

Hope to see you there.

Author and visionary Ray Bradbury dies at 91

Ray Bradbury in his L.A. office in 2008

Gone is the author of the classics "Fahrenheit 451" and "The Martian Chronicles." See this article by Rick Schindler in Today Books: Ray Bradbury foresaw the future — and didn’t trust it. Excerpt:

Ray Bradbury was the last of the giants of mid-20th century American science fiction, a select fraternity that also comprised Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and Isaac Asimov. The most literary of that pantheon, his work spanned many media, including science fiction pulp magazines, episodic television, and motion pictures -- but passion for the written word and fear for its survival may be his most enduring legacy.

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.

"Writers in the Park" series begins

The Grand Teton Association invites you to join its Writers in the Park series every second Saturday of the month, June through September. Writers both serious and casual, working in all areas of interest, are welcome. The workshops are free.

On Saturday, June 9, Wyoming's past Poet Laureate, David Romtvedt, will be conducting the writing workshop in Grand Teton National Park.

David says, "My workshop and talk will focus on really old Chinese poetry. The poetry of the moongazing half-mad half-Buddhist half-Taoist country scholars. These were writers who on full moon nights went out in small boats and chanted poems to the moon. Sometimes they drank too much wine and fell out of their boats. Our workshop will not require boats much less falling out of them. But we'll talk about some of those old poems and the way they integrated the life of the individual with the natural world in which the individual lives.

"I'm a writer and musician. My most recent book is one I edited on the lives of Basque immigrants to northern Wyoming. It's called Buffalotarrak: an Anthology of the Basques of Buffalo, Wyoming. It appeared in 2011 from the University of Nevada Center for Basque Studies. My most recent book of poetry is Some Church from Milkweed Editions. I served as poet laureate of Wyoming from 2003 to 2011. With the band The Fireants I play dance music of the Americas."

We will meet at 9:00am at the flagpole at the Craig Thomas Visitor's Center (formerly the Moose Visitor's Center). From there we will go to a good place to write and talk together. Bring paper and pen, appropriate outdoor clothing for variable weather conditions and perhaps water and something to sit on. The workshop ends at noon.

From the blogs: Jack Nicholson and Josh Brolin attached to star in C.J. Box's "Blue Heaven"

Local writer Karen Cotton has posted on her blog a nifty Q&A with mystery writer C.J. Box. It's all about writer's block ("a writer without ideas") and news about upcoming films made from C.J.'s novels. Are you ready for Jack Nicholson, Joe Pesci and Josh Brolin in "Blue Heaven?" We are... C.J. says that they are "attached" to the film which is Hollywood-speak for an almost-done deal. Wonder if Josh Brolin will be playing the part of rancher Jess Rawlins? Seems like a great fit. Go to http://lifeisassweetascottoncandy.wordpress.com/2012/05/17/380/

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.