What do former Utah Poet Laureate Kate Coles, poet Michael McLane, short story writer Darrell Spencer, fiction writer Larry Menlove, memoirist Christopher Bigelow, poet Shanan Ballam and speculative fiction writer Steve Proskauer all have in common? SUNDAY BLOG READ, a glimpse into the working minds and hearts of Utah’s literary […]
In May, we announced the formation of the 15 Bytes Book Awards, an annual program to celebrate the best Utah books in Fiction, Poetry and Art. After spending the summer reading all the nominees, our jurors have come up with three finalists in each category. This year’s nominees […]
Julia Corbett knows something about homesteading, having done so herself in the wilds of Wyoming. Her memoir Seven Summers (University of Utah Press) chronicles not only how to pick a chain saw to clear your ten acres of forested land, but how a Paiute looks at an aging […]
The Utah Museum of Fine Arts and the UMFA Book Club, in partnership with the Utah Humanities Council, will host New York Times bestselling author Sena Jeter Naslund at 7 pm on Thursday, September 26, as part of the Utah Humanities Book Festival. The event is free and […]
This is 15 Bytes’ seventh Sunday Blog Read, a glimpse into the working minds and hearts of Utah’s literary writers. Former Utah Poet Laureate Kate Coles was our inaugural offering in March, followed by poet Michael McLane, short story writer Darrell Spencer, fiction writer Larry Menlove, memoirist Christopher Bigelow, […]
The phrase “taking care of your genetic material” first appears in Kirsten Scott’s smart debut novel Motherlunge through a father talking warningly to his son as the son begins to date seriously. But in the gynecological world of this novel where the female body is relentlessly inscribed […]
Intimate Moments of Subdued Watching In 1844, Ralph Waldo Emerson published his essay “The Poet” in which he called for an American poet to celebrate the distinctly American materials not before utilized as ingredients for a high national poetry. Emerson knew that the landscapes, the religions, the politics, […]
This is 15 Bytes’ sixth Read Local First, a glimpse into the working minds and hearts of Utah’s literary writers. Former Utah Poet Laureate Kate Coles was our inaugural offering in March, followed by poet Michael McLane, short story writer Darrell Spencer, fiction writer Larry Menlove, memoirist Christopher Bigelow […]
This is 15 Bytes’ fifth READ LOCAL First, a glimpse into the working minds and hearts of Utah’s literary writers. Former Utah Poet Laureate Kate Coles was our inaugural offering in March, followed by poet Michael McLane, short story writer Darrell Spencer, fiction writer Larry Menlove and this […]
As I read one of the stories about halfway through David Kranes’ new collection, The Legend’s Daughter, I became lost in the language: the tangents, the circle-rounds, the free-form understated bombast. I started to wonder if I might need whiskey flowing in my veins to understand the narrative, to […]
Is there a market for Mormon literature even among the LDS? Is the goal of writers who, with apologies to Emily Dickinson, see “Mormonly” to seed crossover work for those outside the tradition, or, like the once thriving Yiddish press that spawned Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer, simply write and publish […]
In the wake of a spate of articles and rebuttals on the “death” and usefulness of poetry, on its accessibility, and other catalysts of infighting amongst schools of poets, Lance Larsen’s new collection, Genius Loci, came as welcome relief. Many of Larsen’s poems transcend such specialization and erudition. They are […]
This is our fourth Sunday Blog Read, a glimpse into the working minds and hearts of Utah’s literary writers. Former Utah Poet Laureate Kate Coles was our inaugural offering in March, followed by poet Michael McLane, short story writer Darrell Spencer and, this month, fiction writer Larry Menlove. […]
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, O.S.H. (1651-95), a 17th Century Mexican nun, was one of the most brilliant intellectuals, poets and playwrights of her time and beyond. And earlier this month Artes de Mexico en Utah and the Utah Humanities Council launched the Sor Juana Prize, a […]
The librarian on the City Library’s fourth floor proffered a warning: there hadn’t been enough space to hang everything in the correct order. She referred to the thirteen poems by Lynn Kilpatrick and fifteen drawings by John Sproul that together comprise To Be Unnamed. Probably everyone has an […]
Maximilian Werner will read from and sign copies of his memoir Gravity Hill at the King’s English Bookshop 1511 S. 1500 E. Salt Lake City Friday May 10, 2013, 7 pm. Maximilian Werner’s memoir Gravity Hill contains stories nested inside other stories. In its framing tale, we meet […]
Each month we post for your reading enjoyment literary works-in-progress…works soon-to-be-published…or works recently released. The Sunday Blog Read is a glimpse into the working minds and hearts of writers with a Utah connection. And we’re pretty confident you’ll be inspired. So…curl up on the couch with your favorite […]
Literary readings are curious animals. They’re the writers’ primary public event to see and be seen, hear and be heard. But what are they really? Theater? A discussion? Celebrity sighting? Two readings in April, one following the other, became a study in contrasts for me. The first, the […]