Poet to appear at Sisters Library

Oregon poet and creative non-fiction writer Floyd Skloot will read from his poetry, including his most recent work, at Sisters Public Library on October 22 at noon.

The program is free and open to the public, and books will be available for sale.

Skloot has published 15 books and won three Pushcart Prizes, a PEN USA Literary Award, two Pacific NW Booksellers Association Book Awards, two Oregon Book Awards, The ForeWord Magazine Poetry Book of the Year Silver Award, the Emily Clark Balch Prize from Virginia Quarterly Review, and a Glenna Luschei Award from Prairie Schooner.

He was a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Award in 2003, for his memoir "In the Shadow of Memory," which was also a finalist for the PEN Award for the Art of the Essay.

Skloot was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1947, and moved to Long Beach, New York 10 years later. He graduated from Franklin & Marshall College with a B.A. in English, and completed an M.A. in English at Southern Illinois University. From 1972 until becoming disabled in 1988, Floyd worked in the field of public policy in Illinois, Washington and Oregon.

He began publishing poetry in 1970, fiction in 1975, and essays in 1990. In May 2006, he received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Franklin & Marshall College.

An Oregonian since 1984, Skloot moved from Portland to rural Amity when he married artist Beverly Hallberg in 1993. They lived in a cedar yurt in the middle of 20 hilly acres of woods for 13 years before moving back to Portland.

His current projects include new poems for a seventh collection, which he hopes to complete by 2010, and new essays.

"The Wink of the Zenith: The Shaping of a Writer's Life," published by University of Nebraska Press, is an Oregon Book Award finalist for the Sarah Winnemucca Creative Non-fiction Award.

For more information about this or other library programs, visit the library Web site at http://www.dpls.us or call 312-1032.