What Would Walt Read Out Loud?

High School students from throughout Wyoming will participate in the state finals of the "Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest," at 7 p.m., March 5, at the Plains Hotel in downtown Cheyenne.

Winners of this year’s competition will be announced at an awards ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda at 8 a.m., March 6. The public is invited to attend both the evening competition and awards ceremony.

During the state finals, contestants will recite works they selected from an anthology of more than 400 poems. It includes old favorites by Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, as well as poems by dynamic living authors who've read their work or conducted workshops in Wyoming, such as Joy Harjo, Jorie Graham, Robert Bly, and Li Young-Lee. You can read those poems -- or memorize them yourselves -- by going to the Poetry Out Loud web site.

The Wyoming Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation are co-sponsors of POL. It's a national program that encourages high school students to learn about poetry through memorization, performance and competition. This is the second consecutive year that Wyoming has participated in Poetry Out Loud.

Poetry Out Loud encourages mastery of great poetry by offering educational materials and a dynamic competition to high schools across the country. The process begins at the classroom level. Those winners advance to a school-wide competition, then to the state capital competition, and ultimately to the National Finals in Washington, D.C. More than 250,000 students across the country are expected to take part this year.

The NEA and Poetry Foundation created a standards-based teacher’s guide, a comprehensive website and a CD featuring poetry recitations by well-known actors and writers such as Anthony Hopkins, Alyssa Milano, N. Scott Momaday and Rita Dove.

FMI: Wyoming Arts Council at 307-777-7742.

Labels: awards, Poetry Out Loud, poets, Wyoming

- posted by Michael Shay @ 11:56 AM 2 comments

 
Teton County Library Hosts Fantasy Author

T.A. Barron, who writes "epic tales of young heroes on their paths to self discovery," will conduct a talk and book signing at the Teton County Public Library in Jackson from 7:30-8:30 p.m. on Friday, March 2, in the Ordway Auditorium. The program is free and open to the public.

"Barron’s talk will explore how he finds great inspiration in the wonders of nature and the heroic potential of every person," says Lara Lovett, Young Adult Coordinator. "During the talk, he will illustrate his words with pictures and welcome questions from kids, teens and parents."

Lovett says that Barron’s stories of heroic young people set in a variety of places and times have proven to be a popular pick among the library’s young adult readers. "Fantasy fans have devoured The Lost Years of Merlin epic and are equally enthusiastic about Barron’s most recent trilogy," says Lovett. The new trilogy, The Great Tree of Avalon, has become a New York Times bestseller, while Barron’s The Lost Years of Merlin is being developed as a feature film.

Barron says that he cultivated a love of the outdoors while growing up on a ranch outside Colorado Springs, Colo. In elementary school, he wrote, illustrated and printed his own magazine called The Idiot’s Odyssey. He continued to write in college and during backpacking journeys through Asia and Africa.

Barron took a detour through the business world where he worked as president of a venture capital firm in New York. In 1989, Barron moved back to Colorado where he now lives with his wife and five children on a small farm. Barron has been awarded the Wilderness Society’s highest honor, the Robert Marshall Award, for his efforts to protect America’s wilderness heritage.

While in town, Barron will also make presentations for Jackson Hole Middle School, Summit School and Journeys School students.

FMI: Lara Lovett at 733-2164 ext. 221 or via e-mail

Labels: book discussion, readings, writers, Wyoming

- posted by Michael Shay @ 11:53 AM 0 comments

 
Brush Up on Your Writing at YWC

Micah Wyatt in Laramie informs me that the dates have been set for the 2007 Young Writers Camp at the scenic Thorne-Rider Youth Camp near Story.

Writers (ages 15-18) will gather June 16-23 at the camp. Instructors/mentors/chaperones will be the same as last summer. Micah, a writer and YWC alumnus, returns as director. Danica Wyatt, a fine essayist, physicist, and Micah's sister, will be there, as will poet Jesse Loesberg from San Franscisco.

Guest teachers are wont to drop in. Last June, I joined the teachers and students for some mysterious homemade stir fry and we sat around the fire pit on a balmy evening and discussed short story writing. Everyone read a sample of his/her work.

Here's where I have to admit that my son, Kevin Shay, is a YWC alumnus. He says he'd love to come back as a visiting writer and may someday because he's a pretty good writer (I'm biased) and is working towards a career as a high school language arts teacher. As we speak, he's taking courses at Pima County Community College in Tucson, a place he enjoys very much in the winter months but not so much in July.

Sign up for the 2007 camp by going to the Young Writers Camp web site and downloading the printable application. It's open to teen writers who live in WYO and elsewhere.

Labels: poets, students, writers, writing conferences, Wyoming

- posted by Michael Shay @ 12:01 PM 0 comments

 
Memoirs Highlighted at NWC Writers Series

The Northwest College Writers Series in Powell will feature these writers during the spring semester:

Mary Clearman Blew (pictured at right), author of the memoir "All But the Waltz" and professor at University of Idaho, Tuesday, Feb. 20 at 7:30 p.m. Fagerberg Building, Room 70.

Kim Barnes, an Idaho native whose memoir, "Into the Woods," was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Thursday, March 29 at 7:30 p.m., Fagerberg Building, Room 70.

Garry Wallace teaches biology and English at NWC and will read from his memoir, "Biography of a Bird Dog," on Tuesday, April 10 at 7:30 p.m. Listen to a live interview with Garry on Tuesday, April 3, on KODI’s Party Line show at 9 a.m. (1400 AM on the dial; simulcast on KZMQ 1140 AM).

Wyoming Poet Laureate David Romtvedt on Friday, April 20, 7:30 p.m., in the Nelson Performing Arts Building. David will be interviewed at 9 a.m. on April 16 on KODI’s Party Line show.

All the events are free and open to the public. FMI: http://www.northwestcollege.edu/hum/writers.htm

Labels: Idaho, memoir, poets, writers, Wyoming

- posted by Michael Shay @ 10:25 AM 0 comments

 
Kevin Holdsworth of Rock Springs will read from his new book, Big Wonderful: Notes from Wyoming, on Friday February 2, 7 p.m. at Second Story Books in downtown Laramie and on Saturday, February 3, 2 p.m., as part of the Rocky Mountain Land Series at the Tattered Cover Bookstore, 1628 16th Street at Wynkoop in Lower Downtown (LoDo) Denver. Big Wonderful was released Nov. 30 by University Press of Colorado (ISBN: 0870818465, hardcover, $26.95).

Labels: Colorado, writers, Wyoming

- posted by Michael Shay @ 4:36 PM 0 comments

 
Courtroom Helped McKinzie Refine Story Skills

Clinton McKinzie, University of Wyoming Law school grad and Denver-based district attorney, was profiled by writer Karen Cotton in the Jan. 12 "What’s Up" section of the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle. He’s the author of the Antonio Burns mystery series set in Wyoming. He was on the mystery writing panel with C.J. Box, Craig Johnson, and Michael and Kathleen Gear at last fall’s Equality State Book Festival in Casper. We nicknamed that panel "Four Guys (and One Gal) in Hats," because they were wearing their trademark headgear. Little-known fact: if you write mysteries set in Wyoming, you have to wear a cowboy hat (or something similar). This doesn't apply to writers in other genres, although I know at least one poet who wears a black beret (beatnik flashback) and a writer of historical western novels who wears an historical top hat made of beaver.

In the WTE article, McKinzie gave his law background credit for his story-telling abilities. "When you’re speaking to a jury, you learn how to tell them in a way that has an impact on them, so they feel what the victim felt. Speaking to a jury is like plotting a book. You have to keep their attention and you keep them involved. You have to think about pacing and climax."

It makes sense. And also explains why we have so many attorneys writing mysteries and thrillers. John Grisham and Scott Turow, for example.

Labels: Colorado, mystery, University of Wyoming, Wyoming

- posted by Michael Shay @ 10:17 AM 0 comments

 
Voicings From The High Country is now accepting poetry submissions for the 2007 edition. The deadline is February 1. Guest poet this year is Terry Rasmussen from Casper College. For guidelines, contact Ella Cvancara, 4920 South Oak St., Casper, WY 82601.

Labels: poetry, poets, Wyoming

- posted by Michael Shay @ 9:46 AM 0 comments

 
Celebrating 50 Years of On the Road

Jenny Shank reports in New West Dec. 19 about a series of events in the Denver area commemorating the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.

The Denver Public Library will display the On The Road scroll January through March. According to a press release, the library will exhibit "the original 120-foot scroll on which Kerouac wrote his first typewritten draft of On The Road."

Says Shank: "The book is significant for Denver because a good portion of it takes place here, where Kerouac meets up with pal Neal Cassady, who is called Dean Moriarty in On The Road. Kerouac writes that Moriarty ‘used to beg in front of Larimer alleys and sneak the money back to his father, who waited among the broken bottles with an old buddy, then when Dean grew up he began hanging around the Glenarm poolhalls; he set a Denver record for stealing cars and went to the reformatory.' "

It must be noted that a short stretch of On the Road takes place in Cheyenne during Frontier Days (called "Wild West Days" in the book).

The opening ceremony for the scroll exhibit will feature musician and friend of Kerouac David Amram (January 6, 2-3:30 p.m., Denver Central Library). The Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library will screen the beat film "Pull My Daisy," (January 5, 8-10 p.m.). Amram will perform a concert entitled "The Musical Roots of Kerouac's Prose" at El Chapultepec (January 6, 6-8 p.m.). A walking tour about the places Kerouac haunted in town entitled "A Lilac Evening, Jack Kerouac in Denver" will embark from the Central Library (January 7, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.), and finally there will be a tribute to Hunter S. Thompson ("From Kentucky to Colorado - The Literary and Journalistic Legacy of Hunter S. Thompson") at the Central Library (Sunday, January 7, 2:30-4 p.m.).

Shank also suggests that Kerouac fans to check out the website Neal's Denver, which features an online walking tour of the places where Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac hung out.

Labels: Colorado, writers, Wyoming

- posted by Michael Shay @ 9:42 PM 0 comments