Poet Paul Guest, winner of the 2006 Prairie Schooner poetry prize, will give a reading from his book, “Notes for my Body Double,” at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 12 at the Great Plains Art Gallery. A reception and book signing will follow the reading. The event is sponsored by Prairie Schooner, the national literary journal published with the support of the English department at UNL. The reading and reception are free and open to the public.

Guest’s first collection, “The Resurrection of the Body and the Ruin of the World,” won the 2002 New Issues Poetry Prize.  His poems have appeared in Poetry, The Southern Review, Slate, Crazyhorse, and Verse. “Notes for my Body Double” was published in 2007 by the University of Nebraska Press. He is a visiting professor of English at the University of West Georgia, and is the recipient of a 2007 Whiting Award.

Guest

Guest is one of many winners of the Prairie Schooner book prizes to achieve significant success as a creative writer. The prizes for poetry and prose manuscripts are awarded annually and include a $3,000 award and publication by the University of Nebraska Press. The awards have proven since their inception to be a launch pad for emerging writers.

The 2008 winners were poet Kara Candito, for her collection, “Taste of Cherry,” and Anne Finger, for the novel, “Call Me Ahab.” Candito’s poems and critical prose have appeared in Best New Poets 2007, Poet Lore, the Florida Review and the Pedestal Review. Finger has published four other books, including two works of nonfiction, “Elegy for a Disease: A Personal and Cultural History of Polio” (St. Martin’s Press) and “Past Due: A Story of Disability, Pregnancy and Birth” (Seal Press); a collection of short stories, “Basic Skills” (University of Missouri Press); and a novel, “Bone Truth” (Coffee House Press).

For more information on Prairie Schooner go to http://prairieschooner.unl.edu.

— By Sara Gilliam, University Communications