Pre-Fest Event:  Happily Ever-Aftering on a 1920s Cattle Ranch

7:00 pm to 9:00 pm

Location: Goodstein Foundation Library, Lobby

Wet your whistle for good books early in the week by attending author John Clayton’s presentation Monday, Sept. 20th at 7:00 p.m. in the Goodstein Foundation Library. John’s reading is brought to you by the Gender Studies program and a Humanities Council grant. In his presentation, "Happily Ever-Aftering on a 1920s Cattle Ranch", John will discuss the story of Caroline Lockhart. A bestselling Wyoming novelist of the times, Carolyn decided to retire to her very own homestead, setting in motion a conflict: The happy endings of her romantic fictions and the realities of a single woman running a drought-ridden ranch.

Children’s authors/illustrators visits to local schools

8:00 am to 3:30 pm

Location: Natrona County School District: Selected Schools

All day: Jack Gantos, Zak Pullen, Gene Gagliano and Ray Troll, will visit schools in the Natrona County School District. Our thanks to BOCES and the Natrona County School District for their generous support of these school visits.

David Romtvedt Craft Talk: “What Do You Make?: The Ethics of a Writer’s Work”

9:00 am to 9:45 am

Location: Strausner Student Center, Rm. 217, Casper College

Join David Romtvedt, member of the University of Wyoming MFA program faculty, to investigate the relationship between ethics and the writer’s craft. Romtvedt will explore the questions of what we do when we make literature, what it means for an author to have an audience and how that author engages with the audience, and what the ethics of a writer’s work are and how those manifest in the writer and in the product. Romtvedt’s books of poetry include Certainty, How Many Horses, Some Church, and A Flower Whose Name I do Not Know, which won the National Poetry Series award. His work has been selected for the Pushcart Prize and for two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, one in poetry and the other an international fellowship in poetry and music. He is a recipient of a Wyoming Arts Council literature fellowship and the Wyoming Governor's Arts Award, and you can also see Romtvedt at the "New Poets of the American West" event on Saturday afternoon.

Jeff Lockwood Craft Talk: “Tales from the Dark Side: Nature as Negative Metaphor”

9:00 am to 9:45 am

Location: Strausner Student Center, Rm. 207, Casper College

Join Jeff Lockwood, member of the University of Wyoming MFA program faculty, to explore the role of nature in writing. Lockwood acknowledges the most common take on writing nature is full of pleasantness: “It strikes me that much of nature writing pertains to singing birds, glorious sunsets, noble creatures, inspiring landscapes, and purple prose.” This craft talk engages the other side of nature, the understanding that the natural world can be harsh and violent, and the possibilities that aspect offers to writers. Lockwood has authored Grasshopper Dreaming: Reflections on killing and loving; Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shaped the American Frontier; Prairie Soul: Finding grace in the earth beneath my feet, and others.

David Romtvedt Craft Talk: “What You Say and How You Say It: Clarity, Simplicity, Sincerity”

10:00 am to 10:45 am

Location: Strausner Student Center, Rm. 217, Casper College

Join David Romtvedt, member of the University of Wyoming MFA program faculty, in delving into the writer’s most powerful, and perhaps most obvious, tool: language. Romtvedt will explore ways that writers can be certain to say what they mean, as well as the uses and potential problems of intentional obscurity. Also, the craft talk will address the relationships between sound and meaning, between language and music, between poetry and song. Romtvedt’s books of poetry include Certainty, How Many Horses, Some Church, and A Flower Whose Name I do Not Know,which won the National Poetry Series award. His work has been selected for the Pushcart Prize and for two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, one in poetry and the other an international fellowship in poetry and music. He is a recipient of a Wyoming Arts Council literature fellowship and the Wyoming Governor's Arts Award, and you can also see Romtvedt at the "New Poets of the American West" event on Saturday afternoon.

Jeff Lockwood Craft Talk: “The Possibilities and Pitfalls of Short-form Nonfiction”

10:00 am to 10:45 am

Location: Strausner Student Center, Rm. 207, Casper College

Join Jeff Lockwood, member of the University of Wyoming MFA program faculty, as he presents the often-ignored short forms of nonfiction, which are quite different from their longer counterparts, such as the complete essay and the memoir, and should be treated as such. While it may be tempting to think that poetry and fiction have cornered the market, nonfiction has a tremendous variety of short forms, from postcards to recipes to epitaphs. In this craft talk, Lockwood will explore the various ways the short forms of nonfiction can be used—as complete products, as distilled essences, and as generative seeds. Lockwood has authored Grasshopper Dreaming: Reflections on killing and loving; Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shaped the American Frontier; Prairie Soul: Finding grace in the earth beneath my feet, and others.

Larry Watson Reading: “Montana 1948 and Other Fiction: A Writer’s Landscapes”

10:00 am to 10:45 am

Location: Goodstein Foundation Library, Classroom

Larry Watson is the author of numerous novels, including In A Dark Time, Montana 1948, Justice, White Crosses, Yellow Moon, American Boy (forthcoming 2011), as well as the poetry chapbook Leaving Dakota. Watson will read from Montana 1948, as well as from newer work. Watson’s fiction has been published in more than a dozen foreign editions, and has received prizes and awards from Milkweed Press, Friends of American Writers, Mountain and Plains Booksellers Association, New York Public Library, Wisconsin Library Association, and Critics’ Choice. A long-time teacher of writing, Watson is presently a Visiting Professor of English at Marquette University.

Kim Barnes Reading: “Ushering in the New with the Old”

11:00 am to 11:45 am

Location: Goodstein Foundation Library, Classroom

Kim Barnes is the author of two memoirs and two novels, most recently A Country Called Home, which received the 2009 PEN Center USA Literary Award in Fiction and was named a best book of 2008 by The Washington Post, Kansas City Star, and The Oregonian (Northwest). She is the recipient of the PEN/Jerard Fund Award for an emerging woman writer of nonfiction, and her first memoir, In the Wilderness, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Her forthcoming novel, American Mecca, an exploration of Americans living in 1960s Saudi Arabia, will be published by Knopf in 2011. Barnes will read selections from her memoirs, as well as selections from her most recent work. Catch Barnes on Saturday’s creative nonfiction panel, too.

Lunch

12:00 pm to 1:00 pm

Location: Food venues on campus and about town

Festival attendees are invited to enjoy lunch at the Casper College cafeteria in Roberts Commons or to try some of the delicious fare at restaurants and cafes in Casper. Restaurant information can be found at this link: http://www.casperwyoming.info/dining.php

WAC Fellowship Winners

1:00 pm to 3:00 pm

Location: Goodstein Foundation Library, Lobby

The Wyoming Arts Council celebrates the 24th year of its creative writing fellowships. This year's fellowship recipients in creative nonfiction will read from their work. They are Joel Burdess of Casper, Jayme Feary of Jackson and Laramie’s Pam Galbreath. They will be joined by Casper's own Nina McConigley, winner of a 2010 Blanchan/Doubleday writing award from the Arts Council. She will read her fiction and serve as emcee. Rounding out the list of presenters is fellowship judge Lee Gutkind, author and founder of Creative Nonfiction magazine.

Robert Wrigley Reading: Poetry in a Beautiful Country

3:15 pm to 4:15 pm

Location: Goodstein Foundation Library, Classroom

Robert Wrigley, author of eight volumes of poetry and several chapbooks, will read from his latest collection, Beautiful Country. His previous collections include Moon in a Mason Jar, The Sinking of Clay City, What My Father Believed, Earthly Music: New and Selected Poems, and Lives of the Animals. A professor of English at the University of Idaho in Moscow, Wrigley previously attended Southern Illinois University and the University of Montana, where he developed an abiding love for the western wilderness, and that setting plays a central role in much of his poetry. You can catch up with Wrigley at Saturday’s "New Poets of the American West" reading, as well.

Book Signing

4:30 pm to 5:15 pm

Location: Strausner Student Center, Rm. 217, Casper College

Join the authors who presented their work on Friday for a free book signing! Copies of each artist’s work will be available for sale throughout the festival weekend at the Casper College bookstore, just down the hall from where they will be signing.

Author Reception: The Corridor Gallery

5:30 pm to 7:00 pm

Location: 120 E. 2nd Street

Join the Equality State Book Festival invited authors and other festival attendees at The Corridor Gallery on 2nd Street in lovely downtown Casper for hors d’oeuvres and conversation.

John Vernon Reading: “Imagining Billy the Kid: A Reading from Lucky Billy”

7:30 pm to 8:30 pm

Location: Aley Fine Arts Center Durham Hall, Casper College

Novelist John Vernon will read from his most recent novel, Lucky Billy, a novel that re-engages the life of notorious American outlaw and folk hero, Billy the Kid. Vernon, a Distinguished Professor of English at Binghamton University, has written a number of historical fiction novels including The Last Canyon, La Salle, Lindbergh’s Son, and Peter Doyle. He has also written a memoir, The Book of Reasons, and a collection of poetry titled Ann. Books will be available for purchase and signing at this event.

Poetry Slam: Metro Coffee Company

9:00 pm to 11:00 pm

Location: Metro Coffee Company, 241 S. David

Join the Equality State Book Festival participants for a poetry slam at Metro Coffee Company in downtown Casper—all performers and listeners welcome! This event will be emceed by Greek-American poet and Wyoming Arts Council Roster Artist George Vlastos. Prizes and bragging rights will be awarded at this free and free-wheeling event.

Paul Taylor: Telling Stories at the Root of It All

9:00 am to 9:45 am

Location: Aley Fine Arts Center Durham Hall, Casper College

Neither writing nor reading is possible without the stories at the root of our shared histories, and singer and storyteller Paul Taylor will tell several stories, as well as talk about the art and act of oral tradition. Taylor’s work celebrates his Australian homeland and the oral and musical traditions of Australia’s Aboriginal and European peoples. Now based in Laramie, Wyoming, Paul Taylor has performed and taught for over 300,000 American children. He has been honored for his work with Arts in Education by being appointed Adjunct Professor in the University of Wyoming, College of Education.

Illustrators Panel: “Drawn In: Get Interested in Illustration!”

10:00 am to 11:30 am

Location: Nichols Auditorium, McMurry Career Studies Bldg., Room 160

Like to draw? What to see some world-class illustrators in action? Join illustrators Ray Troll, Zak Pullen, and Russell Hawley for a family-friendly, interactive look at the world of illustration. Ray Troll, an Alaskan artist, draws and paints fishy images that migrate into museums, books, and magazines and onto t-shirts sold around the planet. Basing his quirky, aquatic images on the latest scientific discoveries, Ray brings a street-smart sensibility to the worlds of ichthyology & paleontology. His books include Cruisin’ the Fossil Freeway and Sharkabet, an illustrated alphabet book of sharks. Zak Pullen, a Casper artist whose work has appeared in such publications as The New York Times Book Review, Sports Illustrated, Esquire, and The Wall Street Journal. His books include Friday My Radio Flyer Flew, The Toughest Cowboy: or How the Wild West Was Tamed, and Finn McCool and the Great Fish to name a few. In fall of 2010, Pullen and collaborator Gene Gagliano will release Dee the Mammoth, a book about the Tate Museum’s mammoth find. Russell Hawley, Tate Museum Education Specialist, is one of the dynamic personalities behind the success of Casper College’s Tate Geological Museum, and his illustrations have appeared in America’s Smithsonian Anniversary traveling exhibition, Prehistoric Times magazine, and several books. Hawley’s own book, Fossil Critters of Wyoming, showcases Wyoming’s rich natural history. Troll, Pullen, and Hawley’s works will be available for purchase in the Tate Geological Museum Gift Shop at Casper College, just a short walk from Nichols Auditorium.

Historical Research Panel: “Finding the ‘Story’ in History”

10:00 am to 11:30 am

Location: Goodstein Foundation Library, Classroom

Inspired by the past? In this panel, novelists John Vernon, author of Lucky Billy and half a dozen other historical novels, and Jaimee Wriston Colbert, author of Shark Girls and Dream Lives of Butterflies, will discuss the particular challenges and opportunities encountered when using historical research in creative writing projects. They will address locating and using sources, different types of historical research, and, most significantly, the relationship between the research and the story itself and the ways the research can be smoothly integrated into the whole project. This panel is moderated by Casper’s own writer/historian Tom Rea. You can catch Vernon, Colbert, and Rea at various other events at the festival, too.

Artist Lunch

11:45 am to 1:00 pm

Location: Casper College President Dr. Walter Nolte’s Residence

The Book Festival pauses for lunch as Walt and Becky Nolte honor the festival's presenting artists with a luncheon at their home. We regret to say that this event is not open to the public, and we thank the Noltes for their gift of hospitality to the book festival artists and organizational staff. Festival attendees should be sure and check out Casper's many fine restaurants which can be found at this link: http://www.casperwyoming.info/dining.php

Young Authors/Letters About Literature Presentation with Gene Gagliano

1:00 pm to 3:00 pm

Location: Natrona County Public Library, Crawford Room

Support Wyoming's budding young authors along with Gene Gagliano, the Wyoming State Reading Council and the Center for the Book. Gene always offers a lively fun-filled presentation that all are sure to enjoy. His presentation will begin at 1:00 with the awards ceremony to follow for winners of each of their contests, "Young Authors" and "Letters About Literature". About 36 students--that's three winners from each grade level K-12 on prose, nonfiction, and poetry will be on hand with their books to receive their awards for "Young Authors". About nine winners for "Letters About Literature" will be on hand to be recognized for their accomplishments. Cookies, snacks, and punch will be served. Please come honor these talented young folks.

Jack Gantos: On His Life and Work

1:15 pm to 2:15 pm

Location: Wold Physical Science Center, Wheeler Auditorium, Rm. 103, Casper College

Jack Gantos is the author of dozens of books for children, including the “Rotten Ralph Rotten Readers,” the “Joey Pigza” books, and the “Jack Henry” books, and books for young adults, including Hole in My Life, a memoir of crime, prison, and his emergence as a writer. Gantos is also a widely experienced speaker and teacher, with a deadly accurate sense of humor. He has been recently awarded the 2010 ALAN Award, which honors writers who have made outstanding contributions to the field of adolescent literature. Books will be available for purchase at this event and Jack will treat all to his unique artistic book signings. Don't miss this chance to have an hour of great fun.

Ravi Shankar Reading: “The Thing and the Word: Poetry That Captures”

1:15 pm to 2:15 pm

Location: Goodstein Foundation Library, Classroom

Join Ravi Shankar, founding editor of Drunken Boat: An Online Journal of Art and Literature for a reading from his new chapbooks, Seamless Matter: Thirty Stills and Voluptuous Bristle. In Shankar’s own words, these collections are “extolling the worth of handmade homemade objects even while exhorting the worth of the changed medium of the internet as constitutive of new art and expression.” Seamless Matter contains thirty poems that look closely at the physical world, the things we know so well that we stop looking—like motes of dust—and holds them up under new and startling light.

Non-Fiction Panel: “The Real World: Writing Nonfiction”

2:30 pm to 3:30 pm

Location: Goodstein Foundation Library, Classroom

Join award-winning non-fiction writers Lee Gutkind and Kim Barnes for a lively discussion of non-fiction writing. Gutkind is the founder and editor of the journal Creative Nonfiction; is the editor of countless nonfiction anthologies and collections, including Best Creative Nonfiction; and is the author of the books Truckin’ with Sam: A Father and Son, The Mick and The Dyl, Rockin’ and Rollin’, On the Road and Almost Human: Making Robots Think, among others. Barnes, memoirist and novelist, is the author of In the Wilderness and Hungry for the World, as well as the novels Finding Caruso, A Country Called Home and American Mecca (forthcoming from Knopf). The panel will begin with a discussion of the relationship between subject matter and form—why write creative nonfiction with any given subject matter? What decisions does the author have to make regarding form and content? Why write it in the first place? The panel will also provide ample time for questions from the audience, so don’t be shy—ask!

“Dig It: A Conversation About Dinosaurs and Fossils”

2:30 pm to 3:30 pm

Location: Tate Geological Museum, Room 121, Casper College

Join Ray Troll, Ilja Nieuwland, and the Tate Geological Museum staff for a lively discussion of experiences in the field with and research on Wyoming’s natural history. Ray Troll, author, illustrator, and fossil guru will bring his experience with museum exhibits and the art of scientific illustrations to bear on Ilja Nieuwland’s and Tom Rea’s work on Andrew Carnegie’s dinosaur, its excavation and its appearance in contemporary pop culture. Tom Rea, author of Bone Wars: The Excavation and Celebrity of Andrew Carnegie’s Dinosaur will moderate. Copies of Troll, Nieuwland, Rea, and the Museum staff’s work will be available in the Tate Geological Museum’s Gift Shop for purchase.

“New Poets of the American West” Reading

3:45 pm to 4:45 pm

Location: Strausner Student Center, Rm. 217, Casper College

Join Robert Wrigley, David Romtvedt, and Tom Rea for a reading from New Poets of the American West, a new anthology edited by Lowell Jaeger. The readers will present their own work in the anthology, as well as selections from the 265 authors included in the anthology. Other authors represented in the anthology, from eleven Western states, include Sherman Alexie, Philip Levine, Greg Pape, Leslie Marmon Silko, Robert Roripaugh, and H. L. Hix. The anthology contains poems in English, Spanish, Navajo, Salish, Assiniboin, and Dakota languages, and it traverses subjects as widely ranging as mining, buffalo hunting, nuclear testing, nursing homes, rivers, and borders—the anthology gathers up the many strands of the American West and weaves them together into an exciting fabric of poetry.

Publishing Panel: “Breaking (In) and Entering (the Field): Finding a Home for Your Work”

3:45 pm to 4:45 pm

Location: Goodstein Foundation Library, Classroom

Interested in publishing your work? Journal editors Ravi Shankar, founding editor of Drunken Boat, and Virginia Shank, poetry editor and former managing editor of Harpur Palate, will talk about tips and trends in the world of journal publishing. Both Harpur Palate and Drunken Boat: Online Journal of Art and Literature are celebrating their tenth year on the cutting edge of the literary world, and, between them, these journals have published such writers as Sherman Alexie, Lee K. Abbot, Leslie Scalapino, Steve Almond, Kim Addonizio, and Cole Swenson, as well as countless writers publishing their first pieces. Drunken Boat, after celebrating its tenth anniversary in 2009, a decade that saw it be named as one of the best interactive websites at the South by Southwest Festival, be featured on BBC-Vietnam, and win special commendation by the National Aphasia Association, continues to publish the best of literary, sonic, and visual arts. Harpur Palate has been featured on NewPages, and it continues to run the John Gardner and Milton Kessler Prizes in fiction and poetry, respectively. Join us for a discussion about publishing in the literary journal, both online and in print. Bring questions, bring curiosity, and leave with a better understanding of some excellent options for sending out your work.

Book Signing

5:00 pm to 5:45 pm

Location: Strausner Student Center, Rm. 217, Casper College

Join the book fest authors for a free book signing! Copies of each artist’s work will be available for sale throughout the festival weekend at the Casper College bookstore.

Gala Banquet and Keynote Speaker:  Jack Gantos

6:00 pm to 7:45 pm

Location: Casper Petroleum Club, 1301 Wilkins Circle

Join the Equality State Book Festival artists, staff, and honored guests at the Petroleum Club for a meal and a brief keynote speech by notable children’s author, ALAN Award winner, and master of witty repartee Jack Gantos. Banquet tickets are $25 and can be purchased via the "register" link on this website. Deadline for purchase: Sept. 22nd.

Jaimee Wriston Colbert: “Stories that Bite Back: A Reading from Shark Girls”

8:00 pm to 9:00 pm

Location: Aley Fine Arts Center, Durham Hall, Casper College

Novelist and short story writer Jaimee Wriston Colbert will read from her latest novel, Shark Girls. Shark Girls has been nominated for the ALA Notable Books of 2010 List and as a finalist for the Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Awards. The novel takes place in Hawai’i and follows the lives of two sisters, from Hawai’i to Maine, in the aftermath of a shark attack in Oahu. Colbert, a professor of English at Binghamton University, has also authored three story collections: Dream Lives of Butterflies, Climbing the God Tree, and Sex, Salvation, and the Automobile. Climbing the God Tree, was the winner of the Willa Cather Fiction Prize. Books will be available for purchase and signing at this event.