The Bright Hill Literary Center, celebrating their 20th anniversary this year, continues the Word Thursday series this coming Thursday with featured poets Ryan J. Browne and Neil J. Shepard.
Host Bertha Rogers send along the following:
Word Thursdays to Feature BHP Poetry Book Winner Ryan J. Browne, Madison, WI & Poet & Editor Neil J. Shepard
On Thursday, June 14, Bright Hill will feature the winner of Bright Hill’s Poetry Book Competition 2010, Ryan J. Browne, Madison, Wisconsin. Browne will be joined by poet and editor Neil Shepard, New York City, who introduce him and read from his own poetry.They will read from their work in the Word & Image Gallery, now exhibiting “Trace Studies: Sculptural Artist’s Books and Mixed Media Drawings” by Ellen Sheffield, Gambier, Ohio. after the open mic, which begins at 7 pm, and intermission. Admission is $3 (free to those 18 and under).
Ryan J. Browne holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Alabama and a BA in English from Creighton University. While in Alabama, he taught poetry and literature classes in medium- and maximum-security prisons with the Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project. His poems appear in The Cincinnati Review, Colorado Review, Gulf Coast, The Journal, Spoon River Poetry Review, and elsewhere. He was born and raised in Colorado and now lives in Madison, Wisconsin with his wife and dog. Ryan will be reading from and signing copies of his award-winning poetry collection publication, Outside Come In.
Neil Shepard has two new books: a full book of poems, (T)ravel/Un(t)ravel, and an offbeat chapbook, Vermont Exit RampsHis three previous books of poetry are Scavenging the Country for a Heartbeat (First Book Award, Mid-List Press, 1993), I’m Here Because I Lost My Way, and This Far from the Source, an “Editor’s Choice” at Notre Dame Review and a “Pick of the Month” from Small Press Reviews. His poems appear in several hundred literary magazines, among them Antioch Review, Boulevard, Harvard Review, New American Writing, New England Review, North American Review, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, Southern Review, and TriQuarterly. His poems have also been featured online at Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and Poem-A-Day (from the Academy of American Poets). Shepard has been a fellow at the MacDowell Arts Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and he has been a visiting writer at the Chautauqua Writers Institute and the Frost Place. He founded and directed for eight years the Writing Program at the Vermont Studio Center, and he taught for several decades in the BFA Creative Writing Program at Johnson State College in Vermont until his retirement in 2009. He presently lives in New York City and teaches poetry workshops at The Poets House. Outside of the literary realm, Neil is a founding member of the jazz-poetry group POJAZZ.
