UT Press Poet becomes Utah Poet Laureate

University of Tampa Press poet Lance Larsen was appointed Poet Laureate of Utah yesterday by Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert. Lance, who won the Tampa Review Prize for Poetry for his collection entitled In All Their Animal Brilliance (University of Tampa Press, 2005), will serve a five-year term as Utah’s Poet Laureate. The University of Tampa Press will be publishing his fourth collection of poems, Genius Loci, this fall and also previously published his third book, Backyard Alchemy, in 2009. You can read details of the appointment in the Salt Lake Tribune at this link: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/entertainment/54036366-81/arts-utah-poet-larsen.html.csp And you can hear a short reading by Lance at the Utah Division of Arts website: http://arts.utah.gov/area_interest/literary_arts/poet/

Update on the poetry scene

Gerry LaFemina gives the FLAC Writer's Circuit a shout out:
American Poetry Enters Another ‘Golden Age,’ Thanks to a Burgeoning, Vibrant Scene

Other Words Conference Dates

The 2012 Other Words Conference will be held in St. Augustine from Nov. 8th to Nov. 10th. Please attend! Check for updates as they happen

John Blair on FLAC Writer's Circuit

Blair's work has appeared in more than seventy journals and magazines, including Shenandoah, The Antioch Review, The Sewanee Review, Poetry, Southern Poetry Review, The Georgia Review, Southern Humanities Review, American Literature and Studies in the Novel. He is the author of two novels, "A Landscape of Darkness" and "Bright Angel," both published by Ballantine Books. His collection of short stories "American Standard" was the 22nd winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize. His poetry collection, "The Green Girls," won the Lena Miles Wever Todd Prize and was published by Pleiades Press. He has also won several other literary prizes, including Sewanee Review's Andrew Lytle Prize for Fiction, the Texas Institute of Letters' Helen C. Smith Award for Poetry, the Phoebe Winter Fiction Prize, the Arts & Letters Rumi Prize in Poetry. His work has been nominated for the National Book Critic's Circle Award.

Born in St. Petersburg, Florida, Blair is the first Florida-born author to win the Tampa Review Prize for Poetry, which celebrates its first decade of awards this year. He is currently a professor in the Department of English and director of the undergraduate creative writing program at Texas State University.

Visit the FLAC Calendar page for dates and locations

Philip Levine Reading

Come and celebrate Poetry Month with the Poet Laureate of the United States! Mr. Philip Levine is the eighteenth United States Poet Laureate. His works of poetry include the 1991 National Book Award-winning "What Work Is," the 1995 Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Simple Truth," and his most recent "News of the World (2009)."

Reading and Book Signing
7 p.m., Monday, April 9, 2012
Saint Leo University
Greenfelder-Denlinger Boardroom
Student Community Center
Saint Leo, FL 33574

The event is co-sponsored by the Daniel A. Cannon Memorial Library, the English, Fine Arts, and Humanities Department, and Student Services. It is free and open to the public.

Mark Krieger winner of the Danahy Fiction Prize

Mark Krieger of West Bend, Wisconsin, has been selected as winner of the sixth annual Danahy Fiction Prize by the editors of Tampa Review. He will receive a cash award of $1,000 and his winning short story, "Scar," will be published in Tampa Review 43/44, forthcoming in summer 2012.

Krieger's fiction has appeared in Narrative Magazine, Tampa Review, Shambhala Sun (nonfiction), KNOCK, and THEMA. Other works have been finalists for the 2010 Narrative Winter Story contest and the 2009 Danahy Award.

His education in writing is informal: simply, the countless hours, months, and years he has spent with a pen and his imagination working on the craft, getting feedback from friends, and studying admired works on his own.

Jane's Stories Press update

From FLAC Member Jane's Stories Press:
This year we've had the honor of announcing the winners of two contests, once again retreated in the mild climes of St. Augustine, connected with authors for Talk Shoe BookChats about their publications and their thoughts on writing, and published our own works like JSPF's chapbook Bridges and Borders: voices of immigrant women, Susanna Lang's Two by Two, and Georgia Ann Banks-Martin's Rhapsody for Lessons Learned or Remembered. More info: http://www.janesstories.org/index.html