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Rick BassRICK BASS Nonfiction Reading: Feb. 5, 2010, 7 p.m., Dell Brown Room of Turner Hall, The University of Montana campus.

Rick Bass is the author of over 20 books, including non-fiction nature writing, essay collections, short story collections, novellas and novels. WHY I CAME WEST: A MEMOIR (Houghton Mifflin 2008) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Award. THE WILD MARSH: FOUR SEASONS AT HOME IN MONTANA (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009) documents the passing seasons in northwestern Montana's Yaak Valley. His most recent novella, THE BLUE HORSE, has just been released by Narrative Stories. Bass has received a Pushcart and an O. Henry Award.

Sponsored by the President's Writers-in-Residence Series.                                             

Click here for a complete schedule of University of Montana Creative Writing Program events.

Poets & Writers gave the University of Montana Creative Writing Program a highly-selective rating in its recent article, "2010 MFA Rankings: The Top Fifty." The poll was based on a survey of recent applicants to creative writing MFA programs. Click here to read the complete article.

  Simon Ortiz with creative writing students and Director, Prageeta Sharma

Poet Simon Ortiz with creative writing students and Director, Prageeta Sharma, at the November 13 reading sponsored by Native American Studies and the Creative Writing Program

The University of Montana Creative Writing Program is a sponsor of the 2010 AWP Conference in Denver, April 7 - 10. Featured presenters at the conference are Michael Chabon, Rick Bass, Rita Dove, Etgar Keret, George Saunders, Terry Tempest Williams and Achy Obejas.

winter 2009-2010

Featured Books

Check out the new CutBank look with the online journal. http://www.cutbankonline.org

         Reading Novalis in Montana   

Melissa Kwasny's ('99) Reading Novalis in Montana was picked by Anis Shivani of Huffington Post as one of 10 top books of 2009! Here is Shivani's citation for Melissa's book:

Melissa Kwasny, Reading Novalis in Montana (Milkweed). Much of the innovative poetry written in America is published not by the big houses, but by independent presses like Milkweed, and its many smaller siblings. Too often, our poetry is obscure, willfully ignorant of realities beyond the immediate self, and pathetic in its complaint, narcissism, and soullessness. Moreover, the language tends to be prosaic, when it's not self-consciously experimental. Kwasny falls into none of these traps; she writes romantic-environmental poetry of a high order, communing with nature in a language that never sells itself short. Can we imagine ourselves, gluttonous twenty-first century Americans, in a better relationship with nature? Can we see ourselves beyond artificial separations between the animate and the inanimate, between the sensate and the inert? Kwasny shows how, as she refuses to back down under the pressure of material degradation.

Kwasny appears alongside other such notable writers as Novel-prize winner Orhan Pamuk, Dave Eggers, Ha Jin, and another Montanan, Walter Kirn. Kwasny is, by the way, the only woman among the top 10 and the only poet.

To see the entire list, go to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-shivani/huffington-post-bloggers_b_372238.html

 

Where the Money Went by Kevin Canty

Kevin Canty's new collection of stories entitled Where the Money Went was published in July 2009 by Nan A. Talese / Knopf. Jay Stevens of the Missoula Independent describes Where the Money Went as Canty at his best. Click here to read Steven's review. Click here to read a review of Canty's work in the Los Angeles Times.

 

Judy Blunt's Breaking Clean

Judy Blunt's Breaking Clean (Knopf, 2002) was recently mentioned by the Wall Street Journal as one of the five best books evoking the Modern American West. The list also includes books by Gretel Ehrlich, James Galvin, Geoffrey O'Gara and Terry Tempest Williams. To read the full article, visit the WSJ here.

 

Language for a New CEntury

Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond, a landmark anthology, providing the most ambitious, far-reaching collection of contemporary Asian and Middle Eastern poetry available, is now available from W.W. Norton. The anthology, co-edited by Tina Chang, Nathalie Handal and Ravi Shankar, includes the work of 400 writers, including Creative Writing director Prageeta Sharma. For more information, visit the Norton website here.

Karen Volkman's Nomina

Karen Volkman's Nomina has been released from BOA Editions as part of their American Poets Continuum Series. Nomina, Volkman's third full-length collection of poems, Nomina is a book of sonnets, yet sonnets that "far from a tidy closed form ... are volatile, sometimes violent instruments, resounding with struggle and shock."--to read the review of Nomina in Time Out New York, visit here.


THE PROGRAM

The University of Montana's writing program began formally in 1965 with the establishment of the M.F.A. degree, and has been shaped and influenced over the years by the likes of Richard Hugo, Walter Van Tilburg Clark, and Leslie Fiedler. Today it is nourished by a talented, committed, and accomplished group of faculty-writers, as well as by an increasingly distinguished community of alumni. Together with the talents and accomplishments of our current students, this community is continuing the M.F.A.'s program as one of the oldest and most prestigious programs in the country. Prageeta Sharma is the Director of the Creative Writing Program.