Emma Lou Thayne, beloved Mormon poet, English teacher and essayist, died earlier this month of congestive heart failure at age 90. Casualene Meyer, who recently interviewed Thayne, files this memorial for 15 Bytes. * “Out of my life of being loved and encouraged, lavished with kindness and understanding, […]
In its second year of regularly covering literary fiction, nonfiction and poetry, 15 Bytes cast its net broadly. The magazine and blog reviewed works by Utah and Mountain West authors, as well as books that had a particular relevance to Utah and Western audiences. It also experimented with […]
“I’ve been asked, ‘Is this a serious literary event or a grand drunken reunion for all your actor friends?’ ” Isaiah Sheffer is reported to have said in an interview with The New York Times in 2004. “Yes!” The event he is referring to is Selected Shorts, the weekly […]
Reviewed by Michael Sowder Poet Kimberly Johnson will appear with Meg Day in a reading and discussion of their new books at the Utah Humanities Book Festival, Oct. 1, 2014 at 7 pm. The event is in partnership with City Arts at Salt Lake City Public Library, 210 […]
In celebration of the 6-week-long Utah Humanities Book Festival, 15 Bytes is featuring novelist Anthony Doerr who arrives in Utah September 23 for three days to read and discuss his latest work, the novel All The Light We Cannot See (Scribner, 2014). Everyone wants to know what an […]
Artes de México en Utah promotes the appreciation of Mexican art through art exhibits, cultural activities, and educational programs. This summer the non-profit which earlier gave us the art exhibit of Frida Khalo is, again, partnering with the Salt Lake City Public Library through its Amigos y Libros […]
We are pleased to announce the 2014 15 Bytes Book Awards. The 15 Bytes Book Awards, currently in its second year, celebrates exceptional books of poetry, fiction and visual art published in the previous calendar year based on each book’s quality/craftsmanship of writing, level of engagement and how […]
Poet Raphael Dagold will be reading from his first book of poetry Bastard Heart (Silverfish Review Press, 2014) this Friday, April 18 (7 pm) at The King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, 1511 South 1500 East. A gifted woodworker/cabinet-maker as well as a poet, Dagold is a […]
In 1987 poet Scott Cairns, then a teacher of creative writing at Westminster College, organized the first series of poetry readings at the college. Under Cairns’ directorship, followed by Katharine Coles’, and now under that of Natasha Sajé’s, The Anne Newman Sutton Weeks Poetry Series eventually included such […]
In his 2012 collection House Under the Moon, it’s clear that poet Michael Sowder has suffered for his art, as spiritual seekers do. The first section (“Homecoming”) starts with a kind of post mortem of the life previous—another marriage, a father whose marginalia in a book sends the […]
There is more than one definition of saltfront but the one adopted by the new Utah-based literary journal which carries the term as its name is this: an entrance to a non-discrete zone between defined ecosystems. Saltfront, which debuted in September, is in fact a venture that finds its sense of […]
Hard to say why author Brian Doyle is such a hit with Utah readers. He’s of Irish descent, confessional, audacious in his prose and unabashedly Catholic. But here he is again making an appearance in Utah County at both the Orem Public Library (Thursday, Nov. 14 at 7pm, […]
We are pleased to announce that Barbara K. Richardson’s novel Tributary has been awarded the 2013 15 Bytes Book Award for Fiction. The author will receive a small cash award to recognize her achievement. Our congratulations also go out to our other two finalists for the award, Miah […]
In poet Lillian-Yvonne Bertram’s debut collection But a Storm is Blowing From Paradise (Red Hen Press, 2012), the diction is daring, the voice muscular. In “Why I Want To Be A Tow Truck Driver,” she writes, See the snowclouds thrusting over the range like a cough, a hard-packed […]
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 […]
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 […]
The drive from Salt Lake up to Eden can take you over Trappers Loop near Snowbasin Ski Resort and is an inspiring prelude to the equally inspiring plein air oils and watercolors exhibit by Hadley Rampton now through July 6 at the Free Spirit Spa & Yoga […]
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 […]
