Your future, our focus
P O W E L L, W y o. - David Romtvedt, poet laureate for the State of Wyoming, will read from his award-winning work Friday, April 20, as the final guest of the Northwest College 2006-07 Writers Series. His program begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Nelson Performing Arts Center Auditorium.
An Oregon native, Romtvedt was raised in southern Arizona and returned to the Pacific Northwest to attend Reed College in Portland. He holds a bachelor's degree in American Studies from Reed and a master's degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
Romtvedt's most recent book is "Some Church," a collection of poems published in fall 2005. He is also the author of "Windmill: Essays from Four Mile Ranch," two books of fiction - "Crossing Wyoming" and "Free and Compulsory for All" - as well as several books of poetry, including "Certainty," "How Many Horses," "Moon" and the National Poetry Series selection "A Flower Whose Name I Do Not Know."
He is the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the Pushcart Prize, and the Wyoming Governor's Arts Award.
Romtvedt brings to his writing the experiences of working as a carpenter, tree planter, truck driver, book store clerk, assembly line operative, letter carrier, blueberry picker, ranch hand, and college professor.
His twin passions are writing and music. He pursued the latter as a graduate fellow in folklore and ethnomusicology at the University of Texas at Austin, and currently in a band called Fireants that performs Cajun, Zydeco and Latin American dance music.
An assortment of Romtvedt's books will be available for purchase and signing after the reading. His appearance is sponsored in part by the Wyoming Arts Council. Admission is free.