On Thursday, 8 June 2023, Helicon West is pleased to feature Kelly Hoffer, author of Undershore at the USU Amphitheater. The reading will begin at 7:00pm.
Kelly Hoffer is a poet and book artist. Her poetry was recognized as a finalist for the National Poetry Series in both 2020 and 2021. She has taught literature and creative writing classes at Cornell University, Victoria University, and the University of Iowa. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and she is currently a doctoral candidate in Literatures in English at Cornell University. She will jointhe faculty of the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan in the fall of 2023. Undershore is her first book of poems.
This week we interviewed Shaun Anderson (he/him/his), the current Helicon West coordinator. Shaun is a creative nonfiction and fantasy writer who dabbles with poetry.
Helicon West: Hello Shaun! Could you tell us a bit about where you’re from.
Shaun Anderson: I was born in Brigham City and moved to Alabama when I turned twelve. I spent summers traveling back to Utah to visit my older siblings at USU. Those Logan summers helped me see the beauty of this valley, and I’m grateful I get to call this place my home.
HW: What role does writing play in your life?
SA: Anyone who’s heard/read any of my writing knows that I’ve written a lot about being a queer man who grew up as a Mormon. My writing has helped me sift through the dissonance of those two core identities. I studied creative writing through an undergraduate and graduate program at USU, and planned to continue to pursue degrees and academic work in creative writing, but during the pandemic my plans shifted. I realized I wasn’t enjoying writing. I’d become competitive and arrogant. I dropped out of my MFA program and stopped taking my writing so seriously. I started writing cheesy romance, fantasy, terrible poetry. Now writing has become a hobby that I love to share with the people in my life. I’m part of an incredible generative writing group with guidelines that keep my competitive side in check. I still like using writing as a tool to help me sift through the dissonance of life, but I’ve realized writing is more than a tool to process trauma. It’s fun.
HW: How do you find consistency in writing practice?
SA: I adore Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. Cameron recommends a creativity tool called morning pages: three pages, handwritten, every morning. It’s usually not “productive” (publishable) writing, but I’m grateful to sit on my porch most mornings with a cup of coffee and my journal. Normally my morning pages are nothing more than bitching about nonsense, but I’m happy to be writing. My writing group also meets twice a month, and I make sure I attend the Helicon West Workshop Series so I know that every month I have at least two-and-a-half hours of productive writing time. Community has been the trick for me establishing any sense of consistency, and I am so deeply grateful to the writers who are willing to sit in silence with me and write.
HW: Could you tell us a bit about some of your favorite authors, books, or journals?
SA: Hell yes I can! I adore The Sun. It’s a literary magazine that publishes monthly. I’ve got a stack of rejection letters from them, and I intend to keep making that list of rejections grow. If the writing The Sun published weren’t as heartfelt and human as it is, I’d think the title was pretentious, but damn, it’s good stuff. I also love T.J. Klune. If you want to read the most wholesome book, I cannot recommend The House in the Cerulean Sea enough. And finally, Cheryl Strayed’s Tiny Beautiful Things came into my life at the right moment (early twenties, navigating dating men and leaving Mormonism). Tiny Beautiful Things is filled with empathy and an unflinching willingness to look at the harder moments of being human.
HW: What inspires you?
SA: Morning coffee. The mountains (the lazy sprawling mountains around Brigham City and the more ambitious, vertical Wellsvilles). Loud music. Sitting in the bleachers at a softball game and watching the rain through the stadium lights. Late night drives. Shooting the shit with friends. Baking. The world is vast and beautiful, and for someone who is inspired by the pursuit of beauty, this list could be endless.
HW: What advice do you have for up-and-coming writers?
SA: More people than you could ever imagine want to write. If you’re a competitive asshole like me, that’s really bad news. If you can keep your competitive nature in check, that’s the best news you’ll ever hear. If you want to be a writer, you’re part of a vast community of people who are often self-reflective, generous, and wise. Put yourself out there. When you read or hear a writer whose work you love, tell them. When you want advice from a writer you admire, ask them. Immerse yourself in that self-reflective, generous, wise community, and let it transform you and your writing.
Shaun will be emceeing the Welcome Summer Open Mic 25 May 2023 at 7:00 pm at the Cache-ARTS Thatcher-Young Mansion.
On Thursday, 25 May 2023, Helicon West is pleased to begin our summer season with an all open-mic event at the Cache-ARTS Thatcher Young Mansion (35 West 100 South). We hope to see you there with your favorite work.
If you missed our Taking Humor Seriously Workshop with Tim Keller, you can watch below:
This week we interviewed Tim Keller (he/him/his), who will be leading our Taking Humor Seriously workshop. Tim is a writer of creative nonfiction, short fiction, and upmarket fiction.
Helicon West: Hi Tim! Could you tell us a bit about where you’re from?
Tim Keller: I’m from right here in Cache Valley. I attended USU when it enjoyed a reputation as one of the premier party schools in the country. Alas, I was blissfully if not bashfully unaware and fled the valley for Texas, Florida, and a veritable Odyssey of adventures in between.
HW: What is your current profession?
TK: Most recently, caregiver and computer repair technician, with a dash of gentleman farmer thrown in. I’m working on the transition to full-time writer.
HW: What role does writing play in your life?
TK: Writing, regardless of genre, breathes life into the past and illuminates what’s to come. I write to share and entertain, but also to discover. I love the challenge of finding just the right word or phrase, knowing that even the most innocuous of alterations can dramatically change the tenor of the work. I write because I read, which brings me great joy. A joy I hope I generate in others.
I’m particularly enthralled with change. With delving deeper than the thumbnails of memory for those long dormant details between what was and what is.
HW: How often do you write?
TK: I try to write every day, even if it’s only a few paragraphs, bouncing between projects. Of course, most are what I think of as blue-collar days, when I feel like more a bricklayer than a writer, stacking one word on top of another. It’s productive, but it’s also hard work. The part, the addictive part of process is when the muse shows up to make you better than you are. That I think is what we’re all after. Unfortunately, I spend most of my time chasing the muse. So I don’t produce as much as I should.
HW: How do you find a healthy life-writing balance?
TK: There’s no such thing. Most of the writers I know are delightfully unbalanced. When we’re not writing we’re thinking about it. When we are writing we obsess over making it better. I’m no different, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
HW: Do you have any pieces published?
TK: I’ve had a number of essays and short stories published and won numerous writing awards.
HW: How do you deal with rejection?
TK: In my experience as an acquisitions editor and judge for numerous writing contests, I’ve learned that sometimes the submission just doesn’t fit the publication. I feel like if you’ve done due diligence, made the piece as clean, and strong as possible, then rejection likely has little to do with the quality of your work. I operate under the premise that sooner or later, my work will find a home.
HW: How do you craft a piece with the intent of publishing it?
TK: I don’t. I write what moves me, what I like. Then I submit and hope for the best.
HW: Could you tell us a bit about some of your favorite authors, books or journals?
TK: I love almost anything character-driven, again, regardless of genre. Books like that come alive for me. So much so that I can forget I’m reading and immerse myself in the stroy.
HW: What advice do you have for up-and-coming writers?
TK: Write everything! And have fun doing it. Save the angst for revision.
Tim will be leading the Helicon West Workshop on 11 May 2023 at 7:00 pm, at the Cache-ARTS Thatcher-Young Mansion.
Helicon West is excited to announce that our May craft workshop will be led by Tim Keller, who will be teaching us about taking humor seriously! This event will take place on May 11th at 7:00 pm at the CacheARTS Thatcher-Young Mansion. A brief open mic will follow the workshop. We hope to see you there!
If you missed the April reading series event, or if you’d like to watch it again, it is available to view on our YouTube channel (or in the embedded video below). This event featured the USU Creative Writing Contest Winners.
Finally, our May reading series will be an all open mic event to welcome the summer. This open mic night will happen on May 25th at 7:00 pm at the CacheARTS Thatcher-Young Mansion.
On Thursday, January 26th, Helicon West is pleased to feature Shaun’s Front Room Writing Group! The event will begin at 7pm at the CacheARTS Thatcher-Young Mansion (35W 100S) in Logan.
Shaun’s Front Room is a local, generative writing group, where writers come together to write. The featured readers for this event will be Star Coulbrooke, Jay Paine, Jessie Hahn, Jack Bylund, Millie Tullis, and Shaun Anderson.
The reading will be followed by an open mic, where all are invited to read up to seven minutes of their own original work! The open mic is uncensored and open to all.
On December 8th, 2022, Helicon West invites you to join us for an all open mic night celebrating our seventeenth year! Our party will take place at The Annex (64 Federal Avenue) in Logan at 7pm.
There will be food! There will be coffee! There will be buckets of fun (metaphorically)! As always, Helicon West is free, uncensored, and open to all.
Join Helicon West this Thursday, November 10th at 7pm at THE ANNEX in Logan (64 Federal Ave) to hear from Utah State’s Creative Writing Club, the Bull Pen!
Helicon West is free, uncensored, and open to all. An open mic will follow the featured readers. Coffee and refreshments provided.
On Thursday, October 27th, Helicon West is pleased to feature USU Alumna Alyssa Quinn! The event will begin at 7pm at the CacheARTS Thatcher-Young Mansion (35W 100S) in Logan.
Alyssa Quinn graduated from USU in 2016, earning a BA in English and being named the Outstanding Creative Writing Student of the Year, the CHaSS Valedictorian, the CHaSS Scholar of the Year, and the recipient of the Joyce Kinkead Outstanding Thesis Award. She went on to earn an MFA in creative writing at Western Washington University, where she also worked as an editor at the Bellingham Review. She is currently a fifth-year doctoral candidate at the University of Utah, where she has taught composition and creative writing, worked as an editor with the journal Quarterly West and the small press FC2, and been a recipient of the Burton Scholarship, the Steffensen Cannon Scholarship, and the Snow Fellowship. Her prose chapbook, Dante’s Cartography, was published in 2019 by The Cupboard Pamphlet, and her debut novel, Habilis, came out earlier this year with Dzanc Books. Her short work has been published in Ninth Letter, Passages North, Cream City Review, The Rupture, Wigleaf, Mid-American Review, Brevity, and elsewhere.
The reading will be followed by an open mic, where all are invited to read up to seven minutes of their own original work! The open mic is uncensored and open to all.
On Thursday, October 13th, Helicon West is pleased to feature visiting professor and writer Eric Freeze! The event will begin at 7pm at the CacheARTS Thatcher-Young Mansion (35W 100S) in Logan.
Eric Freeze grew up in southern Alberta, Canada in the shadow of the Canadian Rockies. He studied creative writing and African-American literature in the US, getting a PhD at Ohio University and eventually teaching at Wabash College in Indiana where he is a tenured professor. He writes both fiction and creative nonfiction, and teaches in other genres such as screenwriting and writing for video games.
French Dive: Living More with Less in the South of France is Freeze’s second book of creative nonfiction. His first is a collection of essays titled Hemingway on a Bike (2014), another book that also celebrates his experiences living and working in France. He has published two short story collections: Dominant Traits (2012), and Invisible Men (2016). His stories, essays, and translations appear in numerous periodicals including The Southern Review, Boston Review, and Harvard Review.
He is married to academic and birth educator Rixa Freeze and is the father of four bilingual soccer-crazed children. He lives half the year in Crawfordsville, Indiana and the other half in Nice, France.
The reading will be followed by an open mic, where all are invited to read up to seven minutes of their own original work! The open mic is uncensored and open to all.
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