FELLOWSHIP WINNERS ANNOUNCED: The recipients of the 2007 WAC creative writing fellowships in poetry are Jane Wohl, Sheridan; Myra L. Peak, Green River; and Jeffe Kennedy, Laramie. Honorable mentions go to Pat Frolander, Sundance; and Chavawn Kelley, Laramie. Rosemary Daniell, poet and memoirist from Savannah, Georgia, was the judge for this year’s competition. All fellowship applicants are invited to register for Rosemary’s “Zona Rosa” workshop set for Saturday, Oct. 21, 9 a.m.-noon, during the Equality State Book Festival/Casper College Literary Conference in Casper. Fee is $40 for non-students, $20 for students.

Here are details about the fellowship winners and honorable mentions:

Jane Elkington Wohl’s winning entry was entitled “Iraq Poems.” Her first book, "Beasts in Snow," came out last year, and it was named this week as the winner of the "Willa Award" (named after Nebraska’s Willa Cather) from Women Writing the West. The book recently received a glowing review in the May/June Utne Reader. Jane lives in Sheridan and was co-founder of the Young Writers Camp near Story, a week-long summer writing retreat for teens. She's entered WAC writing competitions for many years and this is her first award.

Myra L. Peak of Green River entered “Hold the Love of Coal.” She came to Wyoming as a coal mine foreman and now is writing a novel about the experience. She's published her poetry in High Plains Register, Owen Wister Review, and Peralta Press. She won a 2004 WAC Frank Nelson Doubleday Writing Award for women writers and first place in “free verse poetry” in the 2006 Wyoming Writers, Inc., competition. When not writing, she runs an environmental consulting firm.

Jeffe Kennedy of Laramie submitted a group of poems entitled “Grooming Lessons.” She won a 2005 WAC Doubleday award and is a roster artist for the Wyoming Arts Council. Her first book, a collection of essays entitled Wyoming Trucks, True Love, and the Weather Channel was published by University of New Mexico Press in 2004. She says in her bio that this was her "first attempt at poetry since her days of teenage angst."

Pat Frolander’s honorable mention entry was “Married Into It.” The Sundance resident describes herself as "a woman who has the best of all worlds: a great-grandmother, rancher, writer, teacher, and wife." She's a member of one of the most active writing groups in the state, Bearlodge Writers. Group members recently published their first anthology.

Chavawn Kelley of Laramie submitted “Estrella, Extrano” (“Star, Stranger”). She has won both a Doubleday Award and a creative writing fellowship from the Wyoming Arts Council. One of her poems was published in the 2006 issue of Owen Wister Review.

Judge Rosemary Daniell said this: “Reading the poems has been a near-painful pleasure -- there are so many good ones, and so many of them moved me immensely! What a repository of talent you have in Wyoming!"

“One interesting aspect was that all the winners, and one of the honorable mentions, had titled their collections, which leads me to think that these are serious poets who have book-length works. I know I always think in terms of a book-length collection, rather than in terms of individual poems, or groups of individual poems, and I've noticed among my students that this often a sign of seriousness of purpose.”

Each year, the Wyoming Arts Council awards up to three $3,000 fellowships to the most exciting new writing by Wyoming residents. The winners also receive a $500 stipend for traveling to the Equality State Book Festival/Casper College Literary Conference to read their work with the judge. Please attend this year’s reading on Friday, Oct. 20, 1-2:45 p.m. at the United Methodist Church in downtown Casper. It’s free and open to the public.