Articles on Utah literary arts, Utah authors, Utah literature and poetry published in 15 Bytes.
“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, 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.
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 […]
“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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.” […]
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 […]
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
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
Salt Lake City poet Rob Carney has been awarded the 15 Bytes Book Award for Poetry for his collection The Book of Sharks from Black Lawrence Press. Originally from Washington state, Carney is the author of four previous collections, including 88 Maps (Lost Horse Press 2015), which was named a finalist for […]
