Symposium Success!

This year's Summer Symposium was a huge success! Thank you to all of our amazing presenters, the Utah State University English Department, and especially our Keynote speaker, Poet Laureate: Star Coulbrooke. Star's keynote moved the audience to tears. We're so grateful for everyone's willingness to volunteer and give their time to help us all improve our community, foster relationships, and support the writer in all of us.

P.S. Sorry about the pizza.

Star Coulbrooke, Poet Laureate of Logan City, Utah, and Utah State University Writing Cen-ter Director, is co-founder and coordinator of Helicon West, a bi-monthly open readings/featured readers series. Published widely in lit mags and anthologies, Star’s poems are also available in chapbooks, notably Walking the Bear, which can be accessed through the Digital Stacks at the University of Utah Marriott Library. Her most recent poetry collection is Thin Spines of Memory.

Shanan Ballam teaches creative writing at Utah State University and was named the 2014 Lec-turer of the Year for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in several literary journals, most recently in DIAGRAM and Tar River Poetry. She is the author of the chapbook The Red Riding Hood Papers (Finishing Line 2010) and the full-length poetry collection Pretty Marrow (Negative Capability 2013). A semi-finalist for the Brittingham and Pollak Poetry Prizes, the May Swenson Award, the Philip Levine Prize in Po-etry, and the Louise Bogan Award, in 2012 Pretty Marrow received first place in the Utah Divi-sion of Arts and Museum’s Original Writing Contest, judged by Sue Walker, former Poet Laureate of Alabama. In 2013, Shanan was appointed to the Utah Arts Council Board of Directors where she served a four-year term.

Brock Dethier retired from USU last June after 43 years teaching writing and writing teachers. He has published five books for college composition teachers and students as well as two books of poems. His book, 21 Genres and How to Write Them, compiles most of his best ideas about writing.