Arts council to host spring coffee house

The Spring Coffee House, hosted by the Literary Arts Committee of the Mountain Home Arts Council, will feature a reading and Q&A with Diane Raptosh, Idaho Writer-in-Residence (2013-2016) and former Boise Poet Laureate (2013).

Scheduled for Friday, April 25, at the Best Western Foothills Inn, doors will open at 6:30 p.m., with the program beginning at 7 p.m.

Copies of Raptosh's four poetry collections, including American Amnesiac (Etruscan Press), which was longlisted for the 2013 National Book Award, will be available for purchase at the event, while coffee and other beverages will be provided by Common Ground Coffee and homemade cookies by MHAC members.

Kim Monnier will serve as master of ceremonies.

Raptosh holds the Eyck-Berringer Endowed Chair in English at The College of Idaho, where she teaches literature and creative writing as well as directs the program in criminal justice/prison studies.

She is a recipient of three fellowships in literature from the Idaho Commission on the Arts and a graduate of the University of Michigan MFA Program.

The author of three earlier books of poems: Just West of Now (Guernica 1992), Labor Songs (Guernica 1999), and Parents from a Different Alphabet (Guernica 2008), Raptosh has published in the Los Angeles Review, Women's Studies Quarterly, Terrain.org, and OccuPoetry, among more than 20 anthologies and 50 journals.

An active ambassador for poetry, she conducts writing workshops and gives readings and lectures on poetry in a variety of locations ranging from university auditoriums to maximum security prisons, school buses and riverbanks.

"The Writer-in-Residence award is the highest literary recognition and largest financial award accorded an Idaho writer," the Idaho Commission on the Arts notes.

"The residency encourages an interaction with and appreciation for excellence in literature throughout Idaho."

"Selection of the writer is made from Idaho applicants whose anonymous writing samples are judged by a panel of three out-of-state writers.

This year's panel consisted of: fiction writer Gina Ochsner, Oregon; poet Paisley Rekdal, Utah; and nonfiction writer Jack Nesbitt, Washington. Submissions are judged 60 percent for artistic excellence, 20 percent for contributions to the field, and 20 percent for oral presentation (CD). The panel makes its recommendations to the commission and the governor approves the choice with a proclamation."

Former writers-in-residence include: Ron McFarland, Moscow (1984); Robert Wrigley, Lewiston (1986); Eberle Umbach, Indian Valley (1988); Neidy Messer, Boise (1990); Daryl Jones, Boise (1992); Clay Morgan, McCall (1994); Lance Olsen, Moscow (1996); Bill Johnson, Lewiston (1999); Jim Irons, Twin Falls (2001); Kim Barnes, Lewiston (2004); Anthony Doerr, Boise (2007), and Brady Udall, Boise (2010).

For more information about the local Literary Arts Committee, producers of The Whistle Pig, Elmore County's literary journal, or the Mountain Home Arts Council, visit the website at www.mharts.org, go to its Facebook page, or contact Chris DeVore, chairperson, Literary Arts Committee, by e-mail at literaryarts@mharts.org, or calling him at 598-5548, or contact Sally Cruser, executive director of the Mountain Home Arts Council, by e-mail at mh-arts@qwestoffice.net or calling her at 587-3706.