Esteemed Writers Gather in Livingston for Gala Reading

Tickets go on sale October 1 for the inaugural Elk River Writers Workshop Gala Faculty Reading, featuring six nationally renowned writers. Novelists William Kittredge and Rick Bass, poets William Pitt Root and Pamela Uschuk, naturalist Doug Peacock, and non-fiction writer Maryanne Vollers will read from their recent work during a party at the Shane Center that will include hors d’oeuvres, a cash bar and silent auction.

The reading concludes a weekend-long workshop in Paradise Valley, in which more than 30 writers from across the country gather for lectures and teaching sessions with top poets, novelists and non-fiction writers.

This year’s faculty features award-winning authors, with an outdoor and Western emphasis. Kittredge is a Montana literary institution, with both Stegner and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships to his credit; Bass is a prolific writer whose work spans genres and continents, and expresses a passionate commitment to wildlands; Peacock, a Vietnam veteran and former Green Beret medic, melds memoir and natural history to produce modern classics of the American West, and has been awarded both Guggenheim and Lannan Foundation fellowships for his work; Pitt Root and Uschuk are internationally-recognized poets with countless awards and publications to their names. Together, they publish the prestigious Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts, and are tireless champions for social justice and the voiceless of the earth. Vollers’ career has taken her from Rolling Stone to the plains of Africa, from the inner circles of Washington, D.C., to the backwaters of the Mississippi Delta. She has written extensively about politics, show business, crime and justice, adventure, and the environment.

Proceeds from the event will benefit the nonprofit Elk River Arts & Lectures series, which brings writers to Livingston for free public readings and provides opportunities for those writers to interact with public high school students.

Tickets are $20 and available from Elk River Books, 120 N. Main St. The event takes place in the Shane Center ballroom, 415 E. Lewis St. Festivities begin at 6 p.m. with refreshments and the silent auction. For more information, call 333-2330.