Poets Star Coulbrooke & Shannan Ballam

Ken Sanders Rare Books is pleased to announce a reading featuring Cache Valley poets Star Coulbrooke and Shannan Ballam on Wednesday, May 5th at 7:00 p.m. at our downtown bookstore (268 South 200 East). This event is free and open to the public.

Star Coulbrooke coordinates Helicon West, a Cache Valley Open Readings/Featured Readers Series; Beat Poetry Night, an annual Utah State University event which will merged Beat and Slam in March 2009; and Poetry at Three, a long-standing writing group based in Logan, Utah. Her poems have been published in journals and anthologies such as Poetry International, Ellipsis, Hunger Magazine, and others. She co-authored a chapbook, Logan Canyon Blend (Blue Scarab Press 2003), with the late Kenneth W. Brewer, former poet laureate of Utah. In 2008, her manuscript, River Once Removed, won finalist designations in the May Swenson Contest (Utah State University Press) and the Philip Levine Contest (UC Irvine), and second place in the Utah Arts Council Original Writing Contest. Star directs the USU Writing Center full-time and occasionally teaches writing workshops. She lives in Smithfield with her man, their three dogs, and one ailing cat.

Shanan Ballam earned her MFA in Poetry Writing from The University of Nebraska’s low-residency program in 2007. One of her poems, “Red Riding Hood to Grandmother,” was nominated by Indiana Review for inclusion in The Best New Poets Anthology 2009. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals, including Indiana Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, cream city review, Tar River Poetry and Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women. Her full-length poetry manuscript was a finalist for the 2010 May Swenson Poetry Award. Her first chapbook, The Red Riding Hood Papers, will be published by Finishing Line Press in August 2010. She teaches poetry writing and academic writing at Utah State University, where she is also a Co-Director of the Intermediate Academic Writing Program. She lives in Wellsville, Utah with her husband, two dogs, and three cats.

For further information, please contact:

Ken Sanders Rare Books
268 South 200 East
Salt Lake City, UT 84111
(801) 521-3819
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