Shauna Brock: Eskhára
Recently, Shauna Brock read her short story, Eskhára, to a crowd at Finch Lane Gallery. The event was part of our READ LOCAL Onsite series. Now, READ LOCAL First brings you the story in print.
Episode 15: Shauna Brock and Ranjan Adiga
For this episode of the podcast, we bring you a recording of our READ LOCAL Onsite event held at Finch Lane Gallery Thursday, Feb. 27. The evening brought together Salt Lake City writers Shauna Brock and Ranjan Adiga, who read from their works, followed by a discussion that […]
Grief, Celebration and Spacesuits in Cori A. Winrock’s “Little Envelope of Earth Conditions”
“Nothing gets to stay what it is for very long,” says Cori A. Winrock, describing the transience of the world that surrounds us, just one of the many themes addressed in her new book of lyrical poetry Little Envelope of Earth Conditions. “Heirlooms, spacesuits, an ambulance; objects are […]
Ranjan Adiga : Climbing Mountains in Nepal
Ranjan Adiga, a fiction writer, creative nonfiction writer, and Associate Professor at Westminster College. He grew up in Nepal and writes in English as a second language. His short fiction focuses on South Asian immigrants — among the fastest growing communities in the United States but underrepresented in media and literature. Among other publications, his stories and articles have appeared in Story Quarterly, Belmont Review, Salt Lake Tribune, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. In 2017, his short story “Bombay Curry Kitchen” took second place in the 60th Annual Utah Original Writing Competition. Today’s publication is a personal essay.
Embracing the Expanse: Terry Tempest Williams’s “Erosion: Essays of Undoing”
In Terry Tempest Williams’ astonishing and lyrical When Women Were Birds (2012), the first several pages after the introduction are blank to enact for the reader the three shelves of blank journals Williams’s Mormon mother bequeathed to her — an empty journal for every year she was expected […]
Still Coming-of-Age: Jeff Metcalf’s “Wacko’s City of Fun Carnival”
“I’ve got a lot to do. That’s what keeps me around,” says Jeff Metcalf, who has been in a battle with cancer for the past 18 years, with many ups and downs during that time. He possesses a sense of purpose and determination that very few of us […]
Michael Mejia: Matanzas
READ LOCAL First boasts Utah’s most comprehensive collection of accomplished writers who practice fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction, and memoir. This month we bring you Michael Mejia, author of the novels TOKYO and Forgetfulness, both published by FC2. Mejia’s fiction and nonfiction have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including AGNI, DIAGRAM, The […]
Long Hours of Being in Maximilian Werner’s “Cold Blessings”
The poems in Maximilian Werner’s collection Cold Blessings seem to come from another time, when the only screen we had was television and our conversations were held either in person or by phone; when we spent time loafing and inviting our souls. Remember what it was like to […]
Heidi Hart: Four Poems
READ LOCAL First represents Utah’s most comprehensive collection of celebrated and promising writers of fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction, and memoir. This month we bring you Heidi Hart. Hart teaches German and English at Weber State University. She is a Pushcart Prize-winning poet with an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and a […]
Katharine Coles: Look Both Ways
READ LOCAL First represents Utah’s most comprehensive collection of celebrated and promising writers of fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction, and memoir. This month, we are honored to publish Chapter 1 of Look Both Ways, Katharine Coles’ biography/memoir (Turtle Point Press) and a finalist in the creative nonfiction category for the 2019 15 Bytes Book […]
Distant Truths Unusually Near: Jacqueline Osherow’s “My Lookalike at the Krishna Temple”
Li-Young Lee, in a recent interview, describes a spiritual practice as “fundamentally orienting, compass-like, pointing the soul toward its primary source,” and that placing any other thing — politics, for instance — at the heart of the matter “must lead eventually to confusion … a form of dis-orientation.” […]
Shanan Ballam’s “Inside the Animal” Probes the Red Riding Fairy Tale for Poetic Possibilities
Inside the Animal, Shanan Ballam’s latest poetry collection, is subtitled “The Collected Red Riding Hood Poems” and encompasses some of her 2010 chapbook The Red Riding Hood Papers. Only some — a number of poems from the earlier work have been dropped as the poet has sharpened her focus, and new […]
Poems by Rose
if you touch the roof of my mouth with your finger tip you could win a prize
granted, it would just be another lie
like the time I told you my tongue would cure your headache
or that time you said I was kind
Tara Westover’s “Educated” Wins the 15 Bytes Book Award for Creative Nonfiction
New York City-based author Tara Westover has been awarded the 15 Bytes Book Award for creative nonfiction for her memoir Educated, published by Random House. She received her bachelor’s from Brigham Young University. Our jurors wrote of the book: Born from torn metal, broken glass, and gasoline in […]
Tara Westover’s “Educated” is a Must-Read of a Reality Lesson
Educated is a marvel of a book, somehow thoroughly spirit-lifting despite being a fractured fairy tale of Beauty and the Beasts with dark purple bruises and broken bones and shattered hearts and minds and no real happily ever after for our Beauty; just life as we live it, […]
Maximilian Werner’s “The Bone Pile” is a Daring Drift into Understanding
In what may be the keystone essay of his 2018 collection, The Bone Pile: Essays on Nature and Culture, Maximilian Werner asks a crucial question: “What is the purpose of listening?” The essay is entitled “Environmentalist,” and it is a musing on the unfortunate labeling that adheres to this […]
Erica Soon Olsen: Indian Wars Refought
READ LOCAL First represents Utah’s most comprehensive collection of celebrated and promising writers of fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction, and memoir. This month we bring you Erica Soon Olsen. Olsen was born in Hollywood, California. A graduate of the University of Montana MFA program, she is the author of Recapture & Other Stories, […]
Works by Tessa Fontaine, Katharine Coles and Tara Westover are Finalists for the 15 Bytes Book Award for Creative Nonfiction
Artists of Utah is excited to announce the finalists for this year’s 15 Bytes Book Award for Creative Nonfiction. 2019 marks the 7th year for this annual award, given to recognize excellence in publishing for books written by a Utah author or with a Utah connection. We received […]
The Simple Pleasures of Indecipherable Magic in Janalyn Guo’s “Our Colony Beyond the City of Ruins”
There’s an impending sense of madness in Janalyn Guo’s collection of short stories Our Colony Beyond the City of Ruins. The quick movement between each story, and between imagery and action within each, feels at times like the manic switching of cable box channels or the incessant swiping […]
