Tag: The Scholar of Moab

An open letter to the Whitney Awards Committee

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I’m a big fan of the Whitney Awards. I think they’ve filled a need with great success and have been managed professionally and sensibly. I’m always certain to nominate books I read that qualify and are deserving, and every year intend to actually act on my Academy membership and vote a category, but never quite succeed.

I do have two suggestions that I believe would further improve the Whitneys which I would like to humbly present publicly, in order to invite an open discussion of my suggestions’ merits.

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Suggestion the first: Expand the borders of date eligibility Continue reading “An open letter to the Whitney Awards Committee”

Voting has begun for WIZ’s 2012 Spring Poetry Runoff

RodneyLoughWaterfallsOver at AMV’s companion blog Wilderness Interface Zone, the last of the 2012 Spring Poetry Runoff poems have posted and voting to decide which one wins the 2012 Spring Poetry Runoff’s Most Popular Poem Award is open and will run through Tuesday, June 5th.  All participating poets, their friends and family, and all connoisseurs of poetry–particularly, of nature poetry–are invited to help choose the 2012 Spring Poetry Runoff’s Most Popular Poem Award winner.

The poll to determine the winner of the Spring Poetry Runoff Popular Poem Award will close 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, June 5, but winners of both the popular vote and the Admin Award will be announced on or around Tuesday, June 6th.   So keep an eye on WIZ to see how matters settle out.  31 poems qualified for the voting, so pop some popcorn, get out a pint of your favorite ice cream, or otherwise provision yourself for a long (but satisfying!) read.   This part is important, folks: Each voter can (and should) vote for his or her three favorite poems!  Instructions on how to access the poems are available in the post”“please read all instructions carefully.

To read the voting instructions and to vote, click here.

The winners of the Most Popular Poem and Admin Awards will receive their choices of  Steven L. Peck’s  The Scholar of Moab (Torrey House Press 2011),  which recently received the AML Award for the Novel, or the stunning new anthology of Mormon poetry, Fire in the Pasture (Peculiar Pages 2011) edited by AMV’s Tyler Chadwick.  Tyler also won an AML Award for his editing of this must-have collection.

So come over to WIZ and join the fun.  Or at least set up a lawn chair and watch.

Steven Peck reading from The Scholar of Moab today at BYU library

Steven Peck will be reading from his novel The Scholar of Moab. today, Friday Feb 3, at noon in the basement auditorium of the Harold B. Lee Library at BYU. He brought me by a review copy the other day and we had a good chat. He moved to Moab when he was in high school, after the uranium boom and before the tourist boom. Should be a good reading.

I told him I’m intrigued by the petroglyph on the cover, which makes the design is similar to the cover of Patricia Karamesines’ The Pictograph Murders. They’re both mysteries of sorts, so I’ll be interested to compare approaches. I should have more after the event, and maybe some pictures.