For
Immediate Release
Contact:
City Art Director Joel Long: joeltlong@yahoo.com
City Art Presents John Domini, Scott
Abbott, and Kevin Holdsworth
Salt Lake Public Library Main Branch
210 East 400 South
Salt Lake City UT 84111
Wednesday October 19th, 7:00—9:00 P.M.
Writers John Domini, Scott Abbott,
and Kevin Holdsworth will read their work
on October 19th at the Salt Lake City Public Library at 7:00 P.M. as
part of the City Art Reading Series.
John Domini has won awards in all
genres, with fiction in Paris Review and non-fiction in The New York Times. The Times praised his work as
"dreamlike... grabs hold of both reader and character," and Alan
Cheuse, of NPR's "All Things Considered," described it as "witty
and biting."Domini’s grants include an NEA Fellowship and an Iowa
Major Artist Award. He has taught at Harvard, Northwestern, and elsewhere, and
makes his home in Des Moines.
Scott Abbott: "This is not a
memoir. Rather, this is a fraternal meditation on the question 'Are we friends,
my brother?’ The story is uncertain, the characters are in flux, the voices are
plural, the photographs are as troubled as the prose. This is not a memoir.”
Thus Scott Abbott introduces the reader to his
exploration of the life of his brother John, a man who died of AIDS in 1991 at
the age of forty. Writing about his brother, he finds he is writing about
himself and about the warm-hearted, educated, and homophobic LDS family that
forged the core of his identity.
Winner of the book manuscript prize in creative
nonfiction in the Utah Arts Council’s Original Writing Competition, Scott
Abbott is professor of humanities, philosophy, and integrated studies at Utah
Valley University.
Kevin Holdsworth: In essays that combine
memoir with biography of place, Kevin Holdsworth creates a public history of
the land he calls home: Good Water, Utah. The high desert of south-central Utah
is at the heart of the stories he tells here—about the people, the “survivors
and casualties” of the small, remote town—and is at the heart of his own story.Holdsworth
also explores history at a personal level: how Native American history is
preserved by local park officials; how Mormon settlers adapted to remote,
rugged places; how small communities attract and retain those less likely to
thrive closer to population centers; and how he became involved in local
politics. He confronts the issues of land use and misuse in the West, from the
lack of water to greed and corruption over natural resources, but also
considers life’s simple pleasures like the value of scenery and the importance
of occasionally tossing a horseshoe.
Kevin Holdsworth is the author of Big Wonderful:
Notes from Wyoming and Good Water. His work has appeared in numerous
periodicals, including Cimarron Review, Post Road, Creative Nonfiction, and
Denver University Law Review. In 2009 he was awarded the Wyoming Arts Council
creative writing fellowship for fiction. He lives with his wife, Jennifer, and
son, Chris, in south-central and southern Utah.
Most featured
readings are followed by an open reading. City Art is sponsored by the Utah
Arts Council, the Salt Lake City Arts Council, Catalyst, the Salt Lake City Public Library, Xmission, and the Zoo,
Arts, and Park Fund.
The
event is free and open to the public.
City Art is sponsored by the Utah Arts Council, the Salt Lake City Arts
Council, Zoo, Arts, and Parks, X-mission, and audience donations.
Joel Long