Our Program
Writing National Panelists
Writing
David Lee has published 20 books of poetry. He was named Utah’s First Poet Laureate and was finalist/runner-up for Poet Laureate of the United States. He has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. As Head of the Department of Language, Literature and Humanities at Southern Utah University, he received every teaching award given by the institution, including being named Professor of the Year on three separate occasions. He has received multiple fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities. He is currently in intensive training to achieve his goal of becoming a World Class Piddler.
Gailmarie Pahmeier currently teaches creative writing and contemporary literature courses at the University of Nevada. She has received two teaching awards from the University of Nevada, the Editor’s Choice Award from New Poets of the American West, the 2009 Coal Hill Chapbook Award, a Witter Bynner Poetry Fellowship, two Artists Fellowships from the Nevada Arts Council and the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts from the state of Nevada. Her work has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and has been widely published in literary journals and anthologies.
Susan J. Tweit is a plant biologist who says she "evolved" into a writer and commentator, writing 12 books. She has won national and regional awards including an EDDIE for excellence in magazine writing, ForeWord Book of the Year Award, Outstanding Science Book for Children from the Children's Book Council, was both a finalist and winner of the Colorado Book Award and received the Colorado Authors League Award twice.
Chair / Robert Hodgson Van Wagoner’s first novel was awarded the Utah Book Award and the Utah Arts Council’s Publication Prize. His short stories have appeared in literary journals, magazines, e-zines and anthologies, and have been selected for various awards, including Carolina Quarterly’s Charles B. Wood Award for Distinguished Writing, Shenandoah’s Jeanne Charpiot Goodheart Award for Fiction, Sunstone’s Brookie and D.K. Brown Memorial Fiction Award, and Weber Studies’ Dr. O. Marvin Lewis Award for Best Fiction, 1994-1997.
