Valley Writers Series Hosts Poet Laureate Paulann Petersen

The Valley Writers Series at Linn-Benton Community College will host a reading by Oregon Poet Laureate Paulann Petersen on Wednesday, April 6 in the LBCC Library Reading Room, 6500 Pacific Blvd. SW, Albany.

A reading will take place from Noon to 12:50 p.m., and a free workshop will be held from 1 p.m. to 1:50 p.m. Petersen was named to a two-year appointment as Oregon’s sixth Poet Laureate.

Born and raised in Oregon, Petersen is a widely published poet, with four collections – The Wild Awake (2002), Blood-Silk (2004), A Bride of Narrow Escape (2006) and Kindle (2008) – and several chapbooks to her credit.

Petersen has received several awards, including Stanford University’s Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Poetry, two Carolyn Kizer Poetry Awards, and Literary Art’s Stewart Holbrook Award for Outstanding Contributions to Oregon’s Literary Life. She is a committed teacher who has taught high school English and led dozens of workshops in schools libraries, colleges, and writer’s conferences across Oregon.

This event is co-sponsored by the LBCC Library, LBCC Poetry Club, and Valley Writers. The Valley Writers Series is sponsored by the LBCC English Department and exists to connect beginning writers with professional writers and to stimulate creative writing among area students, to enhance literary awareness in our community, and to encourage Oregon writers.

Valley Writers Series is free and open to the public. For questions about this event or suggestions for future events, contact Jane White at whitej@linnbenton.edu or Lucette Wood at woodl@linnbenton.edu.