Richard Shelton (writer)

Richard Shelton (b. 1933, Boise, Idaho) is an Arizona writer, poet and Regents Professor of English at the University of Arizona. He has written nine books of poetry, and his 1992 memoir "Going Back to Bisbee", a New York Times Notable Book [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CEFD71038F936A35751C1A965958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all Notable Books of the Year 1993] ] was selected for the One Book Arizona [ [http://www.onebookaz.org/2007/index.cfm One Book Arizona 2007] ] program in 2007. Shelton also won the Western States Book Award for Creative Nonfiction in 1992 [http://www.mnstate.edu/schwartz/westernstates.html] for "Going Back to Bisbee". In 2000, Shelton received a $100,000 grant from the Lannan Foundation [ [http://uanews.org/node/3064 Richard Shelton Receives Major Lannan Foundation Award] ] .

His poems and prose pieces have appeared in more than two hundred magazines and journals including "The New Yorker", "The Atlantic", "The Paris Review", and "The Antioch Review". They have been translated into Spanish, French, Swedish, Polish, and Japanese.

In 1974, Shelton established a writer's workshop at the Arizona State Prison, and a number of books of prose and poetry written by men in Shelton’s prison workshops have been published, including the writing of authors Jimmy Santiago Baca and Ken Lamberton. [cite journal |last= Menlove|first= Mark|year= 2008|month= February 6|title= You can't take Boise out of the man|journal= Boise Weekly|volume= 16|issue= 32|pages= 33|id=|url= http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A310901|quote= The book also celebrates the success of a number of Shelton's prison proteges, such as Jimmy Santiago Baca and Ken Lamberton, now highly acclaimed writers known for their words instead of their crimes.] Shelton is currently directing three prison writer’s workshops in three units of the Arizona State Prison. His latest book, "Crossing the Yard: Thirty Years as a Prison Volunteer" is about this experience.

References

External links

* [http://www.richardwshelton.com/Home_Page.html Author's website]