Lake Tahoe Community College hosts award-winning poets

The Lake Tahoe Community College Writers’ Series proudly presents an evening of poetry with Robert Krut and Patricia Smith on Friday, Oct. 11 at 7 p.m. in the LTCC Library. The poets will read, engage the audience in a Q & A and sign books. This free event is open to the community and books will be available for purchase.

Robert Krut’s “This Is the Ocean” is the recipient of the 2012 Melissa Lanitis Gregory Poetry Prize, offered annually by local publisher Bona Fide Books in honor of the Lake Tahoe artist who died in 2009.

Krut is also the author of “The Spider Sermons” (BlazeVox, 2009). His poems have appeared in the journals The Cimarron Review, Blackbird, The Mid-American Review and Barrow Street, among others. A chapbook, “Theory of the Walking Big Bang,” was published by H-ngm-n Books; subsequently, he began serving as an associate editor for the journal/press. He teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Writing Program and College of Creative Studies. More information can be found here.

Patricia Smith is the author of six books of poetry, including “Blood Dazzler,” a finalist for the National Book Award, and her latest, “Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah,” winner of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for the most outstanding poetry book of 2012; the Phyllis Wheatley Award; and finalist for the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America and the Balcones Prize.

Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, TriQuarterly, Tin House and in both Best American Poetry and Best American Essays.

Her contribution to the crime fiction anthology Staten Island Noir won the Robert L. Fish Award from the Mystery Writers of America for the best debut story of the year, upcoming in “Best American Mystery Stories 2013.”

A 2012 fellow at both MacDowell and Yaddo, she is also a two-time Pushcart Prize winner and a four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam, the most successful poet in the competition’s history. She is currently working on a book of short stories, a poetry volume combining text and 19th century African-
American photos and a libretto to celebrate the re-opening of Philadelphia’s Dilworth Plaza. Smith is a professor at the College of Staten Island and an instructor in the MFA program at Sierra Nevada College, where she is currently serving as Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Humanities.

The LTCC Writers’ Series is committed to providing a cultural outlet for its students and the community by offering free readings, discussions, craft talks and workshops with nationally known award-winning authors, as well as poetry slams, open mic nights and student readings.

Over the past 13 years, LTCC has hosted nationally-acclaimed poets and writers such as Brian Turner, Denise Duhamel, Luis Rodriguez, H.L. Hix, Sholeh Wolpé, Chris Abani, Dorianne Laux, Francisco Jimenez, Juan Felipe Herrera, Nathalie Handal, Tracy Ross and Lama Marut. For more information, contact LTCC Writers’ Series coordinator Suzanne Roberts at robertss@ltcc.edu.