For Immediate Release Contact: City Art Director Joel Long: joeltlong@yahoo.com Utah Poet Laureate Lance Larsen and Nevada Poet Shaun Griffin to read at City Art Salt Lake Public Library Main Branch 210 East 400 South Salt Lake City UT 84111 Wednesday November 7th 7:00—9:00 P.M. Utah’s new Poet Laureate Lance Larsen and Nevada Poet Shaun Griffin will read from their work on November 7th at the Salt Lake City Public Library at 7:00 P.M. as part of the City Art Reading Series. Lance Larsen’s fourth collection of poems, Genius Loci, will be published in late 2012 by University of Tampa Press. His earlier collections include Backyard Alchemy (2009), In All Their Animal Brilliance (2005), and Erasable Walls (1998). He holds a PhD from the University of Houston. His work appears widely, in such venues as Georgia Review, Southern Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, River Styx, Orion, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, Best American Poetry 2009, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. His nonfiction has twice made the Notable Essay list in Best American Essays. He is currently working on Seventeen Ways to Float, a collection of essays about place, family, and memory which won 1st place in the 2011 Utah Original Writing Competition. He grew up in Idaho and Colorado and lived in Chile for two years while serving an LDS mission. He collects antiques, plays basketball, occasionally walks on his hands, grows daylilies, hikes, and loves Indian and Thai food. He sometimes collaborates with his wife, Jacqui Biggs Larsen, a painter and multi-media artist. Since 1993 he has taught literature and creative writing at BYU, where he currently serves as associate chair. He and Jacqui recently directed a study abroad program in Madrid. In 2012, he was named to a five-year term as Utah Poet Laureate. SHAUN T. GRIFFIN is one of the Nevada’s finest poets. He has published seven books of poetry, three poetry anthologies, and one translation. For many years he has taught a poetry workshop at Northern Nevada Correctional Center and published an annual journal of their work, Razor Wire. In 1995 he received the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts and in 2006 was awarded the Rosemary McMillan Lifetime Achievement in Art Award from Sierra Arts Foundation. Humanist, activist, and educator, Shaun Griffin has spent a lifetime building bridges where there were none for all members of the human com- munity. He is the co-founder and director of Community Chest, a non-profit agency serving children and families in northwestern Nevada since 1991, and the former founding director of the state's homeless education office. Most featured readings are followed by an open reading. City Art is sponsored by the Utah Arts Council, the Salt Lake City Arts Council, Catalyst, the Salt Lake City Public Library, Xmission, and the Zoo, Arts, and Park Fund. The event is free and open to the public. City Art is sponsored by the Utah Arts Council, the Salt Lake City Arts Council, Zoo, Arts, and Parks, X-mission, and audience donations. 26 Jesse Parent Jean Howard October 3 Mike Dorrell 10 Miles Fuller Linda Aldrich 17 Jacqueline Osherow Peter Covino 24 Cathy Wagner Paisley Rekdal November 7 Shaun Griffin Lance Larsen, Utah’s Poet Laureate 14 Michael Sowder Jennifer Sinor 21 Michael Hansen Tim Erickson December 5 Sian Griffiths Melanie Rae Thon 12 Michael Gills Franklin Fisher 19 Holiday Open January 9 Hector Ahumada 16 Katharine English Joel Long