SAMPLE PRESS RELEASE:

Idaho Commission on the Arts
Contact: Cort Conley
208.334.2119 ext. 30
cort.conley@arts.idaho.gov
(Date)

IDAHO WRITER IN RESIDENCE TO READ AT (CITY)

Idaho writer, Kim Barnes, the state's Writer-in-Residence for 2005-2008, will give a reading and discuss her craft in (city) on (day, date, time) at the (location). Her appearance is sponsored by the Idaho Commission on the Arts.

Barnes, who was awarded the state's highest literary recognition by Governor Dirk Kempthorne currently resides in Moscow. She grew up in lumber camps near Pierce, Idaho, and earned her B.A. in English at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston. She then received an M.A. in English at Washington State University and, ten years later, an M.F.A. at the University of Montana. Barnes teaches at the University of Idaho as an associate professor of English in the M.F.A program.

Barnes' memoir, In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country, was a finalist in 1997 for the Pulitzer Prize in biography/autobiography and received the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association award that year.

Her sequel, Hungry for the World, was published in 2001 by Villard/Random House, and Putnam published her novel, Finding Caruso, in 2003.

The Writer-in-Residence program is directed by the Idaho Commission on the Arts to bring literature by Idahoans to Idahoans. The Commission selected a panel of out-of-state writers who read anonymous submissions for the position, and based on literary excellence and contributions to literature, it recommended Barnes for the award. She will give 12 reading during her term.

top