For poet and book artist Jess Challis, the boundary between writing and visual art has never been a firm line. Her work moves fluidly across mediums—poetry, image, book objects, multimedia—guided less by genre categories than by instinct, material, and the body’s experience of making. “I’ve never felt the […]
At times we have a disconnect with writing: we believe writing exists within an unseen, made-up world. But Ashley Brown’s writing begs to differ. A Pleasant Grove native, Brown spent her formative years exploring the mountains and trails of the Wasatch Front. This had a profound effect on […]
Jan Hamer has been contributing to the Utah literary scene for many years, not only by publishing her own collection of poems and essays titled A Story by Ravens (2022, Binary Press Publications) but also by training the next generation of writers and creatives in Utah. Hamer taught […]
Patrick Ramsay is a queer Utah-based poet who was raised in and along the wetlands of the Great Salt Lake. He earned his B.A. in English & creative writing at Weber State University, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of Metaphor Literary Journal. He owns Happy Magpie Book & […]
David Pace was the inaugural literary editor for 15 Bytes for seven years. He is the author of the novel Dream House on Golan Drive (Signature Books) and the forthcoming collection of short fiction American Trinity (BCC Press, February 2024). His creative work has appeared in two anthologies […]
After a short hiatus, we are excited to return to our READ LOCAL First series with three selections from Ogden poet Angelika Brewer. Informally trained and largely self-taught, Brewer was taught to read, write and embrace her creativity by her teenage mother and her almost entirely blind grandmother. […]
“irrecplaceable,” the community poem created as part of a vigil for Great Salt Lake, is overflowing. Intended to be at least 1,700 lines long, representing the square miles of water that would be needed to fully restore the lake, the poem exceeded 2200 lines as the vigil came […]
Years ago, Lisa Roullard heard about a fugitive on the run who survived outdoors to elude capture. A year later, she wrote her first fugitive poem. “It never entered my mind that I’d write another, but then, suddenly, that was all I was writing….”
Do you remember that thing you used to do when we were kids? The thing with the turtles. When we lived in the old house by the creek, sometimes in summer it would rain so hard that it would flood, turning the backyard into our very own specimen pond. There were frogs of all sizes, earthworms thick as rope, salamanders slick as snot, and water bugs and crayfish everywhere. But they didn’t hold your interest. Not like the turtles did.
READ LOCAL First is the world’s most extensive library of Utah-related poets and writers. For this final iteration of the series in 2021, we introduce Steven Johnson, who writes as RG Halleck. Halleck lives in Utah with three others, two of whom share his DNA. Although he’s worked […]
“Can someone’s haircut tell you when their life fell apart?”
So begins Andrew Grace’s After College, this year’s Honorable Mention in Utah’s Original Writing Competition. Read on!
This is How They Burn You is short, concise, and dark in the manner of all great dystopian literature.
The award-winning writer and photographer Andrew Romriell writes about queerness, religion, body image, gender identity, and sexuality. Here we present his Alchemic-like: 16 Ways to Look at Transformation.
Welcome to our August installment of READ LOCAL First—the world’s most extensive repository of Utah-related poets and writers. Today, we are proud to introduce creative nonfiction writer Natalie Hopkins. Originally from Florida, Hopkins now lives in Utah Valley. She fell in love with creative nonfiction while studying for […]
Welcome to our Independence Day issue of READ LOCAL First, our monthly celebration of Utah-related poets and writers. Today, we proudly introduce Jeremy Spencer Rees. Rees, a Texas native, recently finished his undergraduate degree in Utah. In the final year of his undergrad he was awarded second place […]
From everyone here at 15 Bytes: Happy LGBTQ+ Pride Month and welcome to our June installment of READ LOCAL First — the world’s most extensive repository of Utah-related poets and writers. Today, we are proud to introduce award-winning poet Britt Allen. In May of 2020, Allen completed her Master […]
Marilynn Bybee Rockelman describes her work as containing “sexual language” that doesn’t rely on constructions like “f—k” to masquerade for the word itself. Chapter one of her manuscript earned an honorable mention in the Creative Nonfiction category of 2020’s Utah Original Writing Competition.
Gray is known for crumpling paper into balls and throwing them behind him. The papers contain love notes or apologies. “I have fallen in love and apologized so often,” he says. We are proud to present four of his poems here.
READ LOCAL First boasts Utah’s most comprehensive collection of poets and authors. Today, we bring you five poems by Jared Pearce. Pearce obtained a Master’s degree in English from Brigham Young University, and a PhD (in American Poetry, 19th & 20th Century British Literature, and Critical Theory) from […]
