Also, I’m doing a radio interview tonight, 8-9, with J.P. Dancing Bear of American Poetry Journal, broadcast in the Bay Area, but archived, as well.   http://outofourminds.posterous.com/

Ralph’s (Ralph Salisbury) news is stunning:  he’s won the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize:  $1000, plus publication, in 2013, of his memoir, So Far, So Good.

Patty  Wixon is the author of Airing the Sheets (Finishing Line Press, 2011). Her poetry has appeared in regional and national journals and anthologies, including Deer Drink the Moon: Poems of Oregon. She was first president of the Friends of William Stafford, and is a researcher in the William Stafford Literary Archive. A retired teacher and school administrator, she lives in Ashland, Oregon, with her husband Vince. Together they are poetry editors for Jefferson Monthly, a public radio magazine.

Vince Wixon is the author of the recent poetry collection Blue Moon (Wordcraft of Oregon, 2010) and has published two previous books of poems: The Square Grove (Traprock Books, 2006) and Seed (May Day Press, 1993). His poem “Tornado Weather” appears in Garrison Keillor’s recent anthology, Good Poems, American Places. He has also co-produced  documentary films on Lawson Inada and on William Stafford, and has co-edited two books on writing by William Stafford for the University of Michigan Press.

Eugene Public Library, February 21, 5:30 p.m. — FREE!

Karen Holmberg is a poet who teaches in the MFA program at Oregon State University. Her second book of poems, AxisMundi,won the John Ciardi Prize and will be published in the fall of 2012 by BkMk Press. A reviewer of her first collection, The Perseids (2001) writes that the poetry “insists that the visual contemplation of the world is an act of the soul.” Her poems and nonfiction have appeared  in such magazines as The Paris Review, Quarterly West, The Nation, Cimarron Review, Nimrod, Cave Wall, Southern Poetry Review, and Black Warrior Review. Karen earned a degree in Slavic Languages before turning to poetry as a career choice.

Catherine McGuire’s new collection Palimpsests from Uttered Chaos Press, Eugene, includes a cover designed by the poet herself.  Arts and crafts of all kinds compete with her writing time, as does the writing of children’s books (she has published two). Originally from New Jersey, Catherine has lived on “the west coast” for 32 years, most recently settling in Sweet Home. She has published poetry in a variety of journals including Adagio, Folio, Fireweed, Gray Sparrow Press, Green Fuse, New Verse News, Portland Lights Anthology, and The Smoking Poet. She is webmaster for the Oregon Poetry Society and has two self-published chapbooks.

As chair of PEN Northwest, a regional branch of PEN American Center, I administer an annual writer’s residency on the Rogue River homestead where I spent the winter I wrote about in Rogue River Journal. It is, as far as I know, the only long-term backcountry writing residency anywhere, and this particular where is a wonderful place. In exchange for an hour a day of routine upkeep of the property and its two cabins, the resident receives use of the homestead and its unparalleled solitude for a period of six months to one year, and the support of a $5,000 stipend. The biennial application process is open to all kinds of writers and poets, published much, little, or not.  Individuals, couples (with or without children), and partnerships of two may apply. The current application period, for the 2013 and 2014 residencies, began December 1, 2011 and ends March 1, 2012.

Click here for the full residency description and application guidelines.

Or paste in this address:  http://www.johndaniel-author.net/mdb-res.php

For photographs, go to:   http://writersconf.org/memdir/members/PNW00019.php

No one should apply without reading the full residency description.  The living situation requires a degree of self-reliance and is not for everyone.  Evidently the guidelines make this clear, because we get only 50 to 60 applications per cycle, of which we accept two.  For the right writer, the odds aren’t bad.  Maybe you know the right writer.

John Daniel

She was also awarded a month-long residency for spring 2012 at Playa in Summer Lake, OR. http://www.playasummerlake.org/blog/

Here’s a link to a blog by Diane Lockward, New Jersey poet, blogger, who also posts an informative monthly newsletter.

This month’s blog and newsletter highlight Ingrid Wendt’s new book, Evensong, with a craft piece on Ingrid’s practice of saving words, lines, phrases she has to cut from a poem at hand but which she savors and which might find new life in a future poem.

Lockward features craft tips, books on writing, prompts, links,  in her monthly offerings. If you check out the blog, you will find a window to subscribe to the newsletter. It’s easy to unsubscribe, so you may try it or not, as time allows.

Poetry Lovers, Here is a new anthology hot off the press with poems by some of your favorite poets: “The Composer, The Bone Yard” by Pattiann Rogers, “Morpho” by Penelope Schambly Schott, “Lauds” by Kathryn Stripling Byer, “On the Beach” by Jane Hirschfield and others, including “The Collection” by Nancy Simpson.

Also included are Michael Hanner, Quinton Hallett, Susan Kenyon, and Laura LeHew!

Collecting Life was edited by Madelyn Garner and Andrea Watson with an introduction by Bill Brown Professor of  American Culture, University of Chicago. Until now, no anthology about collecting existed.

Buy your copy: http://www.amazon.com/Collecting-Life-Poets-Objects-Imagined/dp/0984792503