For Immediate Release Contact: City Art Director Joel Long: joeltlong@yahoo.com Abraham Smith and Ryan Ridge at City Art Salt Lake Public Library Main Branch 210 East 400 South Salt Lake City UT 84111 Wednesday April 18th 7:00—9:00 P.M. Abraham Smith andRyan Ridge will read from their work April 18th at the Salt Lake City PublicLibrary at 7:00 P.M. as part of the City Art Reading Series. Assistant professor at Weber State University, Abraham Smith isthe author of four poetry collections: Ashagalomancy (ActionBooks, 2015); Only Jesus Could Icefish in Summer (ActionBooks, 2014); Hank (Action Books, 2010); and Whim ManMammon (Action Books, 2007). In 2015, he released Hick Poetics (LostRoads Press), a co-edited anthology of contemporary rural American poetry andrelated essays. His creative work has been recognized with fellowshipsfrom the Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, MA, and the Alabama State Councilon the Arts. Presently, he is at work upon a poetry manuscript about cranes–birdswhose song and stature electrify him. Destruction of Man, hisbook-length poem about farming, is forthcoming in 2018 from Third Man Books. Ryan Ridge author of twochapbooks and four books, including the hybrid novel, American Homes (Universityof Michigan Press, 2015), which was The Michigan Library Publishing Club’sinaugural book club pick. His work has appeared in Tin House FlashFridays, Mississippi Review, Potomac Review, LosAngeles Review, Lumina, Salt Hill, SantaMonica Review, Passages North, and elsewhere. In 2016,Ridge received the Italo Calvino Prize in Fabulist Fiction judged byJonathan Lethem. His next book, Weird Weeks, a chapbook cowrittenwith Mel Bosworth, won the Editors’ Prize from The Cupboard Pamphlet andwill be published in the fall of 2018. He's an assistant professor at WeberState University and lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. He edits the literarymagazine Juked. Most featured readings are followed by an open reading. City Artis sponsored by the Utah Arts Council, the Salt Lake City Arts Council, Catalyst, the Salt Lake City PublicLibrary, Xmission, and the Zoo, Arts, and Park Fund. Joel Long