Get your reading groove on at FoCo Book Fest

Great line-up tomorrow, Oct. 21, for the Fort Collins Book Fest: Writers and Riffs. I have known about this for a few weeks but may not be able to attend. But you can.

My mentor and one-time colleague John Calderazzo conducts a nonfiction essay writing workshop at 10:45 a.m. in the Old Town Library. The workshop, unfortunately, is filled up. No surprise, as John is one of the best teachers around for this genre. If you are interested in the "next steps for you in your publishing adventure," author and entrepreneur Teresa Funke conducts some one-on-one sessions from 11 a.m.- 3 p.m. in the Old Town Library. Sign up by calling 970-221-6740. Buy her book, "Remember Wake" about the survivors of the battles on Wake Island (and later imprisonment) in World War II.

Some of us recall warbling late night renditions of Loudon Wainwright III's 1972 ditty "Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road" (you know who you are). If you can't remember, go here for a refresher: https://youtu.be/Uu5hzc2Mei4. Wainwright will speak about his memoir, "Liner Notes," and sing some of his songs on the Linden Street stage from 1:30-3 p.m.

The session that interests me is "For What It's Worth: A New History of the Sixties" by cultural historian Craig Werner. As Werner says, the 1960s is "a decade that has been obscured by nostalgia, controversy and a nearly impenetrable veil of politically-motivated mythologies." Couldn't agree more. See what you missed at 12:15 p.m. at the Downtown Artery on Linden St.

Another session that mixes contemporary sounds and books features Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon talking about her memoir "Girl in the Band." It's from 3:30-4:30 p.m. at Book One Events on Linden Street.

As you can see, music weaves its way through the bookfest. The organizers were anxious to seize on FoCo's newly-minted rep as one of the most exciting music towns on the Front Range. As someone who has been on planning committees for three book festivals and dozens of literary events, I like this group's vision. Face it, people don't read or buy books as they once did. They are crazy about music. Mix the two and you might get a crowd younger than book-loving me at 66. And that's what you want.

I wish you luck, FoCo Book Fest. More info at https://www.focobookfest.org

During a long weekend, veteran suicides wipe out an entire platoon

This is not right.

From an AP wire service story:

So far this year the number of suicides in the military has surged beyond expectations, given that the pace of combat deployments has begun to slow. The Defense Department closely tracks suicides throughout the military but releases its figures only once a year. The Associated Press in June obtained an internal Defense Department document that revealed that there had been 154 suicides in the first 155 days of the year, though June 3. That marked the fastest pace of active-duty military suicides in the nation's decade of war.

This is not right.

This past weekend at the Equality State Book Festival in Casper, Wyo., we heard from a panel of veterans who also are writers. Brian Turner served seven years in the U.S. Army, with deployments in Bosnia-Herzegovinia (1999-2000) and Iraq (2003-2004). Luis Carlos Montalvan served 17 years in the U.S. Army, with a deployment in Iraq that earned him a Purple Heart and a lifelong limp and a case of TBI -- Traumatic Brain Injury. Patrick Amelotte was a U.S. Marine Corps Reservist who was deployed during Desert Shield/Desert Storm in 1991. They all spoke during a panel entitled "Active Duty, Active Voices."

One of the most haunting quotes came from Brian Turner. He noted that 18 veterans or active duty troops commit suicide daily. That includes veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as all of the other conflicts the U.S. has been engaged in during my lifetime: Korea, Vietnam, Cold War, Vietnam (including Cambodia and Laos), Grenada, Central America, Desert Shield/Desert Storm (Iraq and Kuwait), Bosnia, Somalia, and other hotspots too numerous to mention. It seems odd to include The Good War in these stats but, yes, there are aging WWII vets who sometimes choose the gun or rope over the long march into the darkness caused by cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc.

Eighteen per day. At least one of those suicides is by a member if our active duty forces. You know, some 19-year-old kid who used to live next door to you and joined the Army to pay for college or a trade school or to gain citizenship.

Here's how Brian put it:

"There are 18 suicides today, 18 tomorrow and 18 on Sunday when I fly back out. By the time I get back to Orlando, my platoon is gone."

Every three days, we lose a platoon to suicide.

This is not right.

So what are you going to do about it?

I leave you with a Brian Turner poem on the subject (from Here, Bullet). Brian read this poem at the book festival:

Eulogy

It happens on a Monday, at 11:20 A.M.,
as tower guards eat sandwiches
and seagulls drift by on the Tigris River.
Prisoners tilt their heads to the west
though burlap sacks and duct tape blind them.
The sound reverberates down concertina coils
the way piano wire thrums when given slack.
And it happens like this, on a blue day of sun,
when Private Miller pulls the trigger
to take brass and fire into his mouth:
the sound lifts the birds up off the water,
a mongoose pauses under the orange trees,
and nothing can stop it now, no matter what
blur of motion surrounds him, no matter what voices
crackle over the radio in static confusion,
because if only for this moment the earth is stilled,
and Private Miller has found what low hush there is
down in the eucalyptus shade, there by the river.

PFC B. Miller
(1980-March 22, 2004)

Countdown to the Equality State Book Festival

The Equality State Book Festival starts this Friday morning with a craft talk by David Romtvedt, poet and musician. 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.

Rebecca O'Connor

It will be 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. 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.

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.

Alyson Hagy

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. 

Want adsurdist humor in your novels? Think Tim, not Tom

Great quote from a 2011 Wyofile article on Wyoming novelist Tim Sandlin: “When you think American master of absurdist humor with acute observations about contemporary society, characters to fall in love with, and lines you’ll be quoting to your friend, the first name to spring to mind should be ‘Tim’ (Sandlin), not ‘Tom’ (Robbins),” said Sarah Bird, Austin, Texas, novelist and a friend of Sandlin’s.

News from the Equality State Book Festival

Most states have at least one statewide book festival. Some, such as Arizona, have several. Wyoming's Equality State Book Festival has been held every other year since 2006 in Casper. It's organized by a committee made up of Casper College faculty and staff and members of the community. And me, Mike Shay of Cheyenne, fiction writer and the individual arts specialist at the Wyoming Arts Council. This year's co-drectors are Holly Wendt and Laurie Lye of Casper College. They just sent me this exciting news:

Equality State Book Festival organizers are pleased to announce this year's festival date has been set for Sept. 14-15 in Casper. This celebration marks the 26th anniversary of the annual Casper College/ARTCORE Literary Conference, which has been called "The Equality State Book Festival" every other year since 2006, this being our fourth venture in that spirit.

For the two-day event, more than 15 authors and illustrators will share their talents, giving readings, leading craft talks, emceeing a poetry slam, visiting local schools, and participating on panels. This year's group includes poets, novelists, memoirists, essayists, illustrators, and publishers. 

Among the participants slated are state-wide 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 will be announcing their annual Creative Writing Fellowship awards which celebrate poetry this year and will be judged by Brian Turner. Our friends at Natrona County Public Library are sponsoring a visit from Luis Carlos Montalvan. 

We hope you can join us to appreciate the good company of fellow readers and writers and help celebrate books and the written word Sept. 14-15, 2012, at Casper College and a few other Casper locations, all to be detailed on this web site soon.

For more book festival information, please contact Laurie Lye at llye@caspercollege.edu or 307-268-2639.

Soldier-poet Brian Turner will talk about his work at Equality State Book Festival Sept. 14-15 in Casper

Brian Turner

Here's some exciting news. The Wyoming Arts Council announced yesterday that soldier-poet Brian Turner will serve as judge for its creative writing fellowships in poetry. Turner will travel to Casper Sept. 14-15 for the Equality State Book festival to read from his work with the three poetry fellowship winners. He also will participate on a panel with fellow Iraq War vet Luis Carlos Montalvan. He's a U.S. Army Iraq War veteran and author of "Until Tuesday: The Story of a Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him." Here's some info on Turner and his books:

He is a soldier-poet who is the author of two poetry collections, Phantom Noise (2010) and Here, Bullet (2005) which won the 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award, the New York Times “Editor's Choice” selection, the 2006 Pen Center USA "Best in the West" award, and the 2007 Poets Prize, among others. Turner served 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's poetry has been published in Poetry Daily, The Georgia Review, and other journals, and in the Voices in Wartime Anthology published in conjunction with the feature-length documentary film of the same name. 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 from the University of Oregon and has lived abroad in South Korea. In 2009, Turner was selected as one of 50 United States Artists Fellows.
At the Casper College Literary Conference Sept. 14-15, 2012, Brian Turner will read from his work together with the fellowship winners. He also will participate on a panel about soldier-writers.
Here’s what critics had to say about Here, Bullet: 

 "In sharp, straightforward, yet lyrical language, Turner exposes the many costs of war.” — Library Journal 

“The day of the first moonwalk, my father's college literature professor told his class, ‘Someday they'll send a poet, and we'll find out what it's really like.’ Turner has sent back a dispatch from a place arguably more incomprehensible than the moon—the war in Iraq—and deserves our thanks...” — New York Times Book Review

Printed fellowship applications will be available next week on the WAC blog and web site.

The postmark deadline is June 8, 2012.For more information, contact Michael Shay, 307-777-5234 or mike.shay@wyo.gov, or visit the WAC web site at www.wyomingartscouncil.org.

Wyoming Hell Pig rampages through book festival

The "Hell Pig" (a.k.a. Archaeotherium) display at the Tate Geological Museum at Casper College. I was attending "A Conversation about Dinosaurs" at the Tate as part of the Equality State Book Festival. Dino illustrator Ray Troll was one of the speakers. His colorful "Hell Pig" illustration adorns Tate T-shirts.

More on Hell Pig from an October 2009 Casper College press release:

Kent Sundell, Casper College geology instructor, appeared on a new National Geographic TV series: "Prehistoric Predators." The segment in which Sundell appeared was entitled: "Killer Pigs."

"At four feet wide and 1,000 pounds, the killer pig was a prehistoric battle tank that dominated the North American landscape. Endowed with some truly unique bioengineering traits, the killer pig relied on its massive three-foot-long skull and binocular vision to catch its prey," said the National Geographic Society on its website: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/prehistoric-predators/3885/Overview.

The National Geographic crew filmed Sundell in the field at Douglas, Wyo. and at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center for three days in June of 2008. Sundell has proven that the local prehistoric pig specimens from Wyoming, scientific name Archaeotherium, are “definitely predatory in nature.”

History of book festivals in Wyoming, part two

Smoke is in the morning air. Residue from the fire that destroyed the Hitching Post Inn, a Cheyenne landmark.

The Hitch was the site for the first Wyoming Bookfest on Oct. 26-27, 2001. We remember that fall for the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers and the anthrax attacks on Congress. Then came the invasion of Afghanistan by U.S. forces. Smoke was in the air that year, too.

Meanwhile, in Cheyenne, a handful of writers and booklovers were organizing what we hoped would become an annual tradition.

If I remember correctly (and I don’t always) the idea started with a meeting of local writers Chip Carlson and Larry Brown with Gene Bryan, who then was in charge of events at the Best Western Hitching Post Inn Resort and Conference Center, a.k.a. “The Hitch.” That’s pretty much what everyone called it, then and now.

The three co-conspirators thought a bookfest was just the thing for Cheyenne. Unlike its surrounding states, Wyoming had yet to have a statewide book festival. It would benefit writers, booksellers and The Hitch.

Linn Rounds, then head of the Wyoming Center for the Book, was pulled into the committee. So was I. Kathy Murphy, secretary to Wyoming Dept. of Commerce Chief John Keck, volunteered to keep track of all the proceedings. She did a great job, Kathy, alas, died a few years later. In the end, we had a great collection of people, including Kathleen Gillgannon of the YMCA Writer’s Voice, and reps from the Laramie County Public Library and the Wyoming Humanities Council.

Warning for anyone planning a book festival – it’s a lot of work. Forty-two poets, writers, editors, storytellers, musicians and at least one wood sculptor participated in the Oct. 26-27 event. That doesn’t include booksellers and presses featured at the book fair. Committee members were running around like crazy people, getting people to the correct rooms and finding more chairs when needed.

It got off to a heady start with a Friday evening reading by four poets laureate: Robert Roripaugh of Wyoming, Mary Crow of Colorado, David Lee from Utah and Bill Kloefkorn of Nebraska. The crowd was SRO, and it was a real thrill to have four great poets reading their work at one event. Just think of how many square miles are represented by these people from four big almost-square states.

David Lee was fresh from his appearance at the first National Book Festival on the National Mall in D.C. That event was organized by the Library of Congress and First Lady Laura Bush.

We also had a guest speaker that evening in U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi. Sen. Enzi and his staff no longer had offices in D.C. due to the anthrax attacks. So he brought a batch of staffers with him to Cheyenne. He spoke about the recent happenings in the capital, but then launched into one of his favorite subjects – books. He’s a big reader – I’ve watched him buy bags full of books from Wyoming writers. For the life of me, I can’t understand how he can be a booklover and also tolerate some of the Know Nothing views of his Republican Party.

Sen. Enzi also was in town for a very somber event. This was the funeral of one of the first G.I.’s killed in Afghanistan. U.S. Army Spec. Jonn Edmunds of Cheyenne was on a helicopter bringing troops to the war zone when it crashed Oct. 19 in Pakistan. All aboard were killed.

Thousands attended the Saturday funeral. We had hoped for thousands that day at the bookfest, but fell a bit short. It wasn’t for lack of trying. We had fantastic sessions on writing cookbooks, westerns, mysteries and poetry. We had some of the best anthology editors in Wyoming talking about “Editing Western Anthologies.” Local writer C.J. Box, who’s now published more than a dozen mysteries and won the prestigious Edgar Award, talked about “Whodunits on the High Plains.” I was on a panel with writers Teresa Funke and Jeffe Kennedy talking about “Starting (and Maintaining) Your Writing Critique Group.” My group is still intact, as is Teresa’s. Jeffe’s group in Laramie is defunct – and she now lives in Santa Fe.

On the Children’s Stage in the now-destroyed Saddleback Lounge, my son and his pals at East High staged an open mike. It also saw performances by Aussie storyteller Paul Taylor and the Cheyenne Youth Symphony.

We were exhausted by the end of the day. In the ensuing weeks, we went over all the evaluations. Most negative comments were about lack of attendance and lack of book sales. Lots of people had lots of ideas about how to make it better. More publicity. More big-name authors. Bigger book fair. Get more people to do the work. Involve more local organizations and business.

Here’s on comment I liked: “A number of authors travel a great distance to attend —at last give them a sandwich for lunch.”

You want mayo or mustard with that?

Here’s a great comment from C.J. Box: “The bookfest shouldn’t be all things to all people… While musical performances and wood art may bring in some folks, the bookfest should be about books and authors.”

A few months after the bookfest, the committee met for a brainstorming session. We stormed our brains out. We all wanted to have another bookfest, but there wasn’t enough interest to form a solid committee to write grants, enlist sponsors and plan the myriad bookfest details.

It was five years before there was another book festival. This one was a true statewide book event, the Equality State Book Festival in Casper. It was six years before there was another bookfest in Cheyenne, and that was the Wyoming Book Festival in downtown Cheyenne. It’s a project of the Wyoming Center for the Book at the Wyoming State Library.

Planning for the first ESBF began in late 2004. It involved a very motivated and dependable planning committee. A big budget too – more than $100,000. Lots of sponsoring organizations in Casper and throughout Wyoming.

The third ESBF will be held Sept. 24-25 at Casper College and environs. I’m on the committee but the real work is done by the Casper people, especially the co-chairs Laurie Lye and Holly Wendt.

Here’s to you, bookfest organizers. Lots of work and little glory. But people come out to see their favorite authors and buy books. Every year, bookfest authors go to local schools to get kids excited about reading. Bookstores sell books. Authors read from their books. There’s a late-night slam for poets. Workshops for striving writers and poets.

We’ve all learned some lessons since that first bookfest when the smoke from 9/11 was still in the air.

The Hitch was not officially an historic site, just the place of many memories for many people. It fell on hard times, then sold to new owners and then closed by the health department. Nine years ago it was the place where some concerned citizens constructed the foundation for bookfests to come. Part of the state's creative economy, you might say.

Now it’s smoke and ruins.

See you in Casper as we keep building bookfest traditions.

History of book festivals in Wyoming, part one

Before book festivals arrived in Wyoming in the 21st century, we had many localized book events. I remember the mass book signing at the Western Writers of America Conference in Cheyenne in (not sure of the year but I think it was 1999). The writers took over Barnes & Noble, which is the way it should be. Lots of books sold, too.

Wyoming Writers, Inc., always has a bookstore room and an authors’ signing as part of its annual conference. I’ve participated in at least one Wyoming Authors’ Day at the Central Wyoming College Library in Riverton – and there have probably been more. I was part of a huge author signing in Denver in 2006.

I’ve attended many book fairs, such as the one held annually by the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Association in Denver. There is a huge book fair at the annual Associated Writers and Writing Programs annual conference. The last one I attended was in Austin and was trapped for days in the massive book fair, missing such enlightening literary sessions as “Hemingway’s Tiny Penis and How It Made Him a Terrible Writer” and “Chick Lit – Scourge or Menace?” Instead, I bought books and met editors of presses and literary magazines which might some day print my stuff. I attended an intriguing publishing session entitled “Mike Shay’s Stuff Sucks, Which is Why We Don’t Publish it in Our Prestigious Journals.”

But book festivals are a different animal. Lots of writers and lots of books and lots of workshops with writers. Fun, too.

I was on the committee that helped plan the first Rocky Mountain Book Festival in Denver. I served as a volunteer emcee at the 1995 RMBF and planned a reading of Tumblewords writers from Wyoming and the rest of the Rocky Mountain West at the 1996 RMBF. As an emcee, I met and introduced historian Robert Massie, activist/actor/writer Russell Means and children’s writer Jack Gantos. If I remember correctly, the slide projector’s bulb burned out and we couldn’t locate another one, which put a dent in Gantos’s presentation. Fortunately, he’s a forgiving soul, and now is coming to Casper for his second stint at the Equality State Book Festival.

The third biennial Equality State Book Festival is Sept. 24-25 in Casper. I’m the only non-Casper person on the planning committee. Despite my long-distance status, I’ve been on the committee since 2004 when we began planning the first bookfest for fall of 2006. Yes, it took almost two years to put the first one together. We had grants to write, venues to secure and writers to contact. First, the money. I wrote a successful collaborative grant to the National Endowment for the Arts. Co-sponsors were the Wyoming Arts Council, my employer, and the Casper College Foundation. The NEA saw fit to approve $10,000. The foundation came through with some big bucks and we were on our way.

What happened next? Why are book festivals different from literary conferences? Does this blog make my head look big? Tune in tomorrow.

Helpful links:
www.equalitystatebookfest.com
www.mountainsplains.org
http://arts.endow.gov
www.caspercollege.edu
www.wyomingartscouncil.org
www.westernwriters.org
www.wyowriters.org