Articles on Utah literary arts, utah authors, utah literature and poetry published in 15 Bytes.
After finishing Look Both Ways, I found myself recommending it to friends based on its ability to cause me to rethink imagination, history, and gender. It’s an imaginative book, self-imaginative. It’s a biography/memoir by Katharine Coles that centers on her grandmother, Miriam Wollaeger Link, and their respective journeys around the […]
READ LOCAL First represents Utah’s most comprehensive collection of celebrated and promising writers of fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction, and memoir. This week we bring you Stefene Russell, a St. Louis-based poet, writer, editor and actor. She is a Salt Lake City native and graduate of the University of Utah where, she […]
The late Adrienne Rich once described her use of received poetic forms as “asbestos gloves” for handling difficult material. In Tacey M. Atsitty’s new collection Rain Scald (University of New Mexico Press), sonnet, sestina, and villanelle surface amid prose poems, columnar incantations, a concrete poem with white […]
READ LOCAL First represents Utah’s most comprehensive collection of celebrated and promising writers of fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction, and memoir. This week we bring you Shane Camoin, winner of the 60th annual Utah Original Writing Competition in the novel category. A second generation American, Camoin was born in L.A. and raised in […]
One snowy day in 2011, Stephen Trimble and his wife, Joanne Slotnik, arrived at a grove on the lower slopes of Mount Rainier with the ashes of his father. Trimble was born in Denver in 1950 to Don and Isabelle Trimble. Isabelle grew up in a small Montana town. Don was a geologist who worked his way through college and graduate school as a hard rock miner at the tail end of the Depression. He was responsible for Steve’s interest in photography and the natural world, Isabelle for his interest in people, and both for his respect for storytelling. “Every vacation was a new national park, and on our road trips Dad kept up a running commentary on Western history and landscape,” Trimble remembers. “His stories sounded more like parable. He retold them to communicate his values.” With reverential regard, Don Trimble, who hailed from Toppenish, Washington, referred to Mount Rainier as “The Mountain.”
Among the Utah literary set, “south of the border” can sometimes mean Utah County, but with its two major universities (Brigham Young—think former poet laureate Lance Larsen — and Utah Valley—think “sonosopher” and performance artist Alex Caldiero) as well as its robust independent lit organizations, you overlook it […]
READ LOCAL First represents Utah’s most comprehensive collection of celebrated and promising writers of fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction, and memoir. This week we bring you poet Jennifer Tonge. Tonge resides in Salt Lake City and earned an MFA at the University of Utah. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and, […]
Come inside Tessa Fontaine’s The Electric Woman and you’ll travel through a hall of mirrors. You’ll watch a young woman incorporate the timeless dramas of grief in a sideshow tent, reflecting richer gestures of love and loss in the distant center ring. You’ll see our narrator undone […]
This week we bring you Joni Hemond, Doctor of Medicine, who has been a practicing pediatrician for twenty years. Much of her professional life has focused on providing care to medically underserved populations, and she is continually touched by the struggles, sorrows, and joys of her patients and their families. Her book, “Coyote Sky,” was born from writing fictionalized accounts of her experiences. It won First Place in the 2017 Utah Original Writing Competition, Book-Length Collection of Stories Category judged by Becky Bradway. Joni lives with her husband and three children in Salt Lake City where she is an academic pediatrician at the University of Utah School of Medicine.
Jack Harrell is not afraid to ask questions. In his newest work, Caldera Ridge, Harrell blends an impressive ability to create majestic setting and meaningful characters with questions that will keep you up at night. Does God know every decision that we will ever make or are there […]
READ LOCAL First represents Utah’s most comprehensive collection of celebrated and promising writers of fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction, and memoir. This week we bring you Larkin Weyand, who teaches courses in English education, creative writing, and composition at BYU. He taught high school English and art for nine years at American Fork High […]
“The natural world, particularly the wild waters of the west, have been deep balm for my soul. I’m deeply indebted to every stretch of water I’ve had the pleasure to fish.” This book is a gem of wisdom and interesting firsthand accounts from local author and U. English […]
