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Port Townsend Writers' Conference
The Port Townsend Writers' Conference was founded in 1974 by novelist Bill Ransom. It is held every summer at Fort Worden State Park, within the city limits of Port Townsend, on the inner tip of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. The conference is presented by Centrum, the multidisciplinary arts organization that also presents Jazz Port Townsend, the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, and other week-long and weekend workshops and festivals. The Conference features morning workshops in literary fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, and afternoon workshops in a wide variety of literary topics. Annual attendance averages 200 writers. Numerous readings, craft lectures, special events, and guided freewrites are a part of the Conference. in addition to founder Ransom, other program directors have included Jim Heynen, Carol Jane Bangs, Sam Hamill, Carla Vander Ven, and Jordan Hartt. Noted authors who have been associated with the Port Townsend Writers' Conference over the years incl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bill Ransom
Bill Ransom (born 1945 in Puyallup, Washington) is a science fiction writer . Early life and education He began full-time employment at the age of eleven as an agricultural worker. He attended Washington State University on track and boxing scholarships, and the University of Puget Sound on a track scholarship. He received his BA in Sociology and English Education from the University of Washington in 1970, and MA in English from Utah State University in 1997. Work From 1965 to 1970 Ransom worked as an expeditor on a Quick Engine Change team, building and repairing military and commercial jet engines. He studied American Minority Literature and Old and Middle English on an NDEA Title IV fellowship at the University of Nevada, Reno, then began a pilot project with the Poetry in the Schools program in Washington state. He received his MA in English from Utah State University. He founded and directed the popular Port Townsend Writers Conference for Centrum and appeared in two featur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver Jr. (May 25, 1938 – August 2, 1988) was an American short story writer and poet. He contributed to the revitalization of the American short story during the 1980s. Early life Carver was born in Clatskanie, Oregon, a mill town on the Columbia River, and grew up in Yakima, Washington, the son of Ella Beatrice Carter (née Casey) and Clevie Raymond Carver. His father, a sawmill worker from Arkansas, was a fisherman and a heavy drinker. Carver's mother worked on and off as a waitress and a retail clerk. His brother, James Franklin Carver, was born in 1943. Carver was educated at local schools in Yakima. In his spare time, he read mostly novels by Mickey Spillane or publications such as '' Sports Afield'' and '' Outdoor Life'', and hunted and fished with friends and family. After graduating from Yakima High School in 1956, Carver worked with his father at a sawmill in California. In June 1957, at age 19, he married 16-year-old Maryann Burk, who had just ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terry Tempest Williams
Terry Tempest Williams (born 8 September 1955), is an American writer, educator, conservationist, and activist. Williams' writing is rooted in the American West and has been significantly influenced by the arid landscape of Utah. Her work focuses on social and environmental justice ranging from issues of ecology and the protection of public lands and wildness, to women's health, to exploring our relationship to culture and nature. She writes in the genre of creative nonfiction and the lyrical essay. Early life, education, and work Terry Tempest Williams was born in Corona, California, to Diane Dixon Tempest and John Henry Tempest, III. Her father served in the United States Air Force in Riverside, California, for two years. She grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, within sight of Great Salt Lake. Atomic testing at the Nevada Test Site (outside Las Vegas) between 1951 and 1962 exposed Williams' family to radiation like many Utahns (especially those living in the southern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Guterson
David Guterson ( ; born May 4, 1956) is an List of American novelists, American novelist, short story writer, poet, journalist, and essayist. He is best known as the author of the bestselling Internment of Japanese Americans, Japanese American internment novel ''Snow Falling on Cedars''. Early life Guterson was born May4, 1956 in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington the son of criminal defense lawyer Murray Guterson. He attended Seattle Public Schools and Roosevelt High School, then the University of Washington, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in English literature and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing. He is also a Guggenheim Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellow. Teaching, writing Before writing professionally, Guterson worked as a teacher for 10 years at Bainbridge High School (Washington), Bainbridge High School. During that time he began having stories and essays published in small magazines and periodicals, and eventually sold pieces to ''Esquire (magazine), Esquire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sherman Alexie
Sherman Joseph Alexie Jr. (born October 7, 1966) is a Spokane- Coeur d'Alene-Native American novelist, short story writer, poet, screenwriter, and filmmaker. His writings draw on his experiences as an Indigenous American with ancestry from several tribes. He grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation and now lives in Seattle, Washington. His best-known book is ''The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven'' (1993), a collection of short stories. It was adapted as the film '' Smoke Signals'' (1998), for which he also wrote the screenplay. His first novel, '' Reservation Blues'', received a 1996 American Book Award. His first young adult novel, '' The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian'' (2007), is a semi-autobiographical novel that won the 2007 U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the Odyssey Award as best 2008 audiobook for young people (read by Alexie). His 2009 collection of short stories and poems, '' War Dances'', won the 2010 PEN/Faulkner ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marvin Bell
Marvin Hartley Bell (August 3, 1937 – December 14, 2020) was an American poet and teacher who was the first Poet Laureate of the state of Iowa. Biography Bell was raised in Center Moriches, Long Island. He served in the U.S. Army from 1964 to 1965 at the rank of First Lieutenant, and he was a licensed amateur radio operator. He earned his bachelor's degree from Alfred University, his master's degree from the University of Chicago, and an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. He was the author of more than 20 books of poetry, including ''The Book of the Dead Man'' (Copper Canyon Press, 1994), ''Ardor: The Book of the Dead Man, Vol. 2'' (Copper Canyon Press, 1997), ''Nightworks: Poems 1962–2000'' (Copper Canyon Press, 2000), ''Mars Being Red'' (Copper Canyon Press, 2007), and ''Vertigo: The Living Dead Man Poems'' (Copper Canyon Press, 2011). Bell's first nationally distributed book, ''A Probable Volume of Dreams'', was awarded the Lamont Poetry Prize of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sam Hamill
Sam Hamill (May 9, 1943 – April 14, 2018) was an American poet and the co-founder of Copper Canyon Press along with Bill O’Daly and Tree Swenson. He also initiated the Poets Against War movement (2003) in response to the Iraq War. In 2003 Hamill he did a poetic tour in Italy, organised by writer Alessandro Agostinelli. After that tour Hamill published his first italian book ''A Pisan Canto - Un canto pisano''. Hamill was awarded the Stanley Lindberg Lifetime Achievement Award for Editing and the Washington Poets Association Lifetime Achievement Award. Hamill's most recent book, ''Habitation: Collected Poems'', presents some of Hamill's best poems spanning a career of over 40 years. Poetry Books *''Facing Snow: Visions of Tu Fu'' hite Pine Press, 1988(Sam Hamill, translator) *''Crossing the Yellow River: Three Hundred T'ang Poems'' iger Bark Press, 2013(Sam Hamill, translator) *''Destination Zero: Poems 1970–1995'' (1995). *''The Gift of Tongues: Twenty-Five Years of Poetry ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tom Robbins
Thomas Eugene Robbins (born July 22, 1932) is a best-selling and prolific American novelist. His most notable works are "seriocomedies" (also known as " comedy drama"), such as ''Even Cowgirls Get the Blues''. Tom Robbins has lived in La Conner, Washington since 1970, where he has written nine best-selling books. His latest work, published in 2014, is ''Tibetan Peach Pie'', which is a self-declared "un-memoir". ''Even Cowgirls Get The Blues'' has been adapted into a movie that shares the same name by Gus Van Sant in 1993. Early life Robbins was born on July 22, 1932, in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, to George Thomas Robbins and Katherine Belle Robinson. Both of his grandfathers were Baptist preachers. The Robbins family resided in Blowing Rock before moving to Warsaw, Virginia, when the author was still a young boy. In adulthood, Robbins has described his young self as a "hillbilly". Robbins attended Warsaw High School (class of 1949) and Hargrave Military Academy in Chatha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barry Lopez
Barry Holstun Lopez (January 6, 1945 – December 25, 2020) was an American author, essayist, nature writer, and fiction writer whose work is known for its humanitarian and environmental concerns. In a career spanning over 50 years, he visited more than 80 countries, and wrote extensively about a variety of landscapes including the Arctic wilderness, exploring the relationship between human cultures and nature. He won the National Book Award for Nonfiction for ''Arctic Dreams'' (1986) and his ''Of Wolves and Men'' (1978) was a National Book Award finalist. He was a contributor to magazines including ''Harper's Magazine'', '' National Geographic'', and ''The Paris Review''. Early life Lopez was born Barry Holstun Brennan on January 6, 1945, in Port Chester, New York, to Mary Frances (née Holstun) and John Brennan. His family moved to Reseda, California after the birth of his brother, Dennis, in 1948. He attended grade school at Our Lady of Grace during this time ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carolyn Forché
Carolyn Forché (born April 28, 1950) is an American poet, editor, professor, translator, and human rights advocate. She has received many awards for her literary work. Biography Forché was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Michael Joseph and Louise Nada Blackford Sidlosky. Forché earned a bacherlor's degree in Creative Writing at Michigan State University in 1972, and Master of Fine Arts at Bowling Green State University in 1975. She has taught at a number of universities, including Bowling Green State University, Michigan State University, the University of Virginia, Skidmore College, Columbia University, San Diego State University and in the Master of Fine Arts program at George Mason University. Forché is a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University, and has received honorary doctorates from the University of Scranton, the California Institute of the Arts, Marquette University, Russell Sage University, and Sierra Nevada College. She was Director of Lannan Center for Poetics an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ken Kesey
Ken Elton Kesey (September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American novelist, essayist and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. Kesey was born in La Junta, Colorado, and grew up in Springfield, Oregon, graduating from the University of Oregon in 1957. He began writing ''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' in 1960 after completing a graduate fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University; the novel was an immediate commercial and critical success when published two years later. During this period, Kesey participated in government studies involving hallucinogenic drugs (including mescaline and LSD) to supplement his income. After ''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' was published, Kesey moved to nearby La Honda, California, and began hosting happenings with former colleagues from Stanford, miscellaneous bohemian and literary figures (most notably Neal Cassady) and othe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leslie Marmon Silko
Leslie Marmon Silko (born Leslie Marmon; born March 5, 1948) is an American writer. A Laguna Pueblo Indian woman, she is one of the key figures in the First Wave of what literary critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance. Silko was a debut recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Grant in 1981. the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994 and the Robert Kirsch Award in 2020. She currently resides in Tucson, Arizona. Early life Leslie Marmon Silko was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico to Leland Howard Marmon, a noted photographer, and Mary Virginia Leslie, a teacher, and grew up on the Laguna Pueblo Indian reservation. Silko grew up on the edge of pueblo society both literally – her family's house was at the edge of the Laguna Pueblo reservation – and figuratively, as she was not permitted to participate in various tribal rituals or join any of the pueblo's religious societies. While her parents worked, Silko and her t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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