FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 21, 2007

Contact: Rick Collin (701) 328-2666 or Janet Daley (701) 255-3360

AN EVENING WITH LARRY WOIWODE FEATURED
AT NORTH DAKOTA HERITAGE CENTER OCTOBER 4

BISMARCK – Distinguished writer and North Dakota’s poet laureate, Larry Woiwode, will present a program on memoirs and the art of writing on Thursday, October 4 at the North Dakota Heritage Center in Bismarck. An Evening with Larry Woiwode, which begins at 7 p.m., is sponsored by Read North Dakota, a consortium of organizations dedicated to celebrating and promoting literature created in and about North Dakota.

Prairie Public Broadcasting will broadcast Woiwode’s program on Prairie Public Radio on Wednesday, October 10, at 3 and 7 p.m. A videocast of the program will be broadcast on Prairie Public Television on Thursday, October 11 at 8 p.m. and can be viewed again after that on a videostream on the website at www.prairiepublic.org.

Woiwode conducted a series of workshops statewide in July and August about writing memoirs. Read North Dakota is offering high school students and teachers the opportunity to participate in an interactive statewide videoconference project with Woiwode on Monday, October 1. For more information, call Bev Pearson with Prairie Public Broadcasting at (701) 239-7575.

Woiwode is the author of eight novels, including the widely acclaimed What I'm Going To Do, I Think (1969), and Beyond the Bedroom Wall (1975). His stories and poetry have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, GQ, Esquire, Harper's, The Paris Review, and other publications. Woiwode is a Guggenheim Fellow, a John Dos Passos Prize winner, a recipient of awards from the William Faulkner Foundation and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and a nominee for both the National Book Critics Circle and National Book Awards. In 1992 he received the North Dakota Rough Rider Award, and in 1995 was named by Governor Schafer as poet laureate of North Dakota. A native of Sykeston, North Dakota, he returned to the state in 1978 with his family and now lives on a 160-acre farm near Mott where he continues to write. He is currently a Writer in Residence and adjunct faculty member of the English department at Jamestown College. His memoir, What I Think I Did, was published in 2001 and is one of the featured memoirs for Read North Dakota’s 2007 programs.

A website hosting a suggested reading list of North Dakota memoirs, book discussion points, curriculum resources for use in the classroom, and a discussion board for interactive student participation is available at www.readnd.org.

Read North Dakota is a consortium of members, including the State Historical Society of North Dakota, North Dakota Humanities Council, North Dakota Council on the Arts, Prairie Public Broadcasting, and the North Dakota Library Association. The group encourages readers, writers, and educators to enjoy good literature rooted in our place by identifying relevant book titles and authors on a website, in printed materials, and through public events and discussion groups. Visit www.readnd.com to learn more.

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