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Last Updated: 10/6/2009 2:53:33 PM

An Evening with Yavapai College Creative Writing Faculty

A special evening of words and music is on the menu when The Literary Southwest, The Hassayampa Institute’s popular literary series at Yavapai College, presents “An Evening with the Yavapai College Creative Writing Faculty.” Featured readers include Michaela Carter, Laraine Herring, Lori Isbell, Susan Lang, and Jim Natal—all practicing professional writers and poets as well as writing teachers. The reading also highlights the new Certificate in Creative Writing program at Yavapai College. Along with the readings, Yavapai College lead graphic designer and Prescott music mainstay Tom Agostino will perform with his new band, Soul Creek. The event will be held on Friday, Oct. 23 at 7 p.m. in the Yavapai College Library’s Susan N. Webb Community Room (Bldg. 19, Room 147) on the Prescott campus. A Q & A session and book signing follows the reading. All Literary Southwest programs are free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.  
 
 
Born in Phoenix, Arizona, Michaela Carter earned her BA from UCLA and her MFA from Warren Wilson College. She is a roster artist with the Arizona Commission on the Arts and is a resident poet at various elementary schools. Her work has appeared in a number of literary journals, including The Southern Review, the Antioch Review, TriQuarterly, Los Angeles Review, and, most recently, Puerto Del Sol and New England Review. She lives in Prescott with her daughter Hannah and her son Max and will be teaching “Advanced Poetry” in the spring semester.  
 
 
Laraine Herring holds an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in Counseling Psychology. Her stories and essays have been widely anthologized, and her non-fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her first book, Monsoons: A Collection of Writing, was published in 1999 by Duality Press. Her next book, Lost Fathers: How Women Can Heal from Adolescent Father Loss, was published in spring 2005 from Hazelden Press. Her novel, Lay My Sorrows Down, won the Barbara Deming Award for Women. Her book, Writing Begins with the Breath: Embodying Your Authentic Voice, was released in 2005 from Shambhala, and her follow up book The Writing Warrior: Discovering the Courage to Free Your True Voice will be released from Shambhala in August, 2010. She is currently working on two adult novels and one young adult novel, and will be teaching “Introduction to Creative Writing,” “Short Story Writing,” and “Advanced Creative Nonfiction” in Spring 2010.  
 
 
Lori Isbell, in her third year at Yavapai College, currently teaches a creative writing class in Play/Screenwriting. She received her MFA in playwriting from Arizona State University, where her first play represented the school in the American College Theatre Festival. Additionally, she has published both fiction and nonfiction, contributed to the design book Understanding USA, and authored The Teacher’s Guide for Poets & Writers Magazine. In 2006, a film she co-wrote for a student—Moonshine—debuted at the Sundance Film Festival. She is at work on a new play and will be teaching a new Creative Writing course in the spring, “Experiments in Story.”  
 
 
Susan Lang is the author of a trilogy published by University of Nevada Press about a woman homesteading in the southwestern wilderness during the years 1929 to 1941. The first novel in the trilogy, Small Rocks Rising, won the 2003 Willa Award. Her second novel, Juniper Blue, was released in 2006 and the third, Moon Lily, in fall, 2008. Lang’s short stories and poems have been published in magazines such as Red Rock Review, Iris, and The Idaho Review. She was awarded a 2007 Project Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts for her novel-in-progress, The Sawtooth Complex. Presently Faculty Emeritus at Yavapai College, she founded and still directs the Southwest Writers Series at Prescott College. She was also founding director of the Hassayampa Institute. She’ll be teaching a “Fiction Workshop” at Yavapai College in the spring semester.  
 
 
Jim Natal’s third poetry collection, Memory and Rain, was published by Red Hen Press in 2009. His first book, In the Bee Trees was a finalist for the 2000 Pen Center USA and Publisher's Marketing Association Ben Franklin Awards. A second collection, Talking Back to the Rocks, was published in 2003. His poetry was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2007 and 2008 and has appeared in many journals and anthologies. He earned his MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles and is the co-founder of Conflux Press. He is the director of The Literary Southwest reading series at Yavapai College and will be teaching “Introduction to Poetry” there in the spring semester.  
 
 
The Hassayampa Institute Presents The Literary Southwest is made possible by Yavapai College and grants from The Prescott Area Arts and Humanities Council and The Friends of the Prescott Public Library, with additional support provided by Yavapai College Student Activities and Residence Life, and Barnes & Noble.  
 
For complete author and series information, visit: http://www.yc.edu/content/HASSAYAMPA Or contact either Series Director Jim Natal, through the Communications Division at 928-776-2276 or James.Natal@yc.edu, or Gwen Raubolt, Yavapai College Quad-City Communications Manager, at 928.776.2288 or Gwen.Raubolt@yc.edu.