OTHER DESERT MOTHERS

The Riverside Art Museum and SALT + SPICE Present:

OTHER DESERT MOTHERS

A reading of DESERT POETRY by Ruth Nolan

Boy Scout Trail,

Indian Cove,

Two months pregnant

with my daughter

when I hiked there

with two guys from the fire crew

All in one day…..

–Ruth Nolan, from OTHER DESERT MOTHERS (Old Woman Mountains Press, 2014, copyright © Ruth Nolan, 2014)

Join award-winning poet/writer educator RUTH NOLAN for an evening of desert magic and mystery through poetry and prose. OTHER DESERT MOTHERS will showcase desert-themed, desert-inspired poems written by Ruth Nolan from her new collection of poems, OTHER DESERT MOTHERS, published by Old Woman Mountains Press (2014.) Ruth, a longtime desert resident, has a long history of literary arts-based community involvement in the Inland Empire and desert areas as a poet, writer, environmental advocated, and lecturer. A slide show of desert beauty images will accompany her reading. Copies of OTHER DESERT MOTHER will be available for sale, along with other desert-themed works written/edited by Ruth Nolan. Reading is sponsored by RIVERSIDE ART MUSEUM, COLLEGE OF THE DESERT and SALT+SPICE.

RUTH NOLAN BIOGRAPHY

Ruth Nolan was born in San Bernardino and grew up in the neighboring Mojave Desert. She is professor of English and Creative Writing at College of the Desert, and is also a prolific and award-winning poet and writer whose work has appeared recently/is forthcoming in The Rattling Wall; The Sierra Club Desert Report KCET Artbound LA; Riverside Press Enterprise-Inlandia Literary Journeys; Orangelandia: the Literature of Inland Citrus (Inlandia); New California Writing, 2011 (Heyday); Pacific Review; Mosaic; Tin Cannon; Poemeleon; Southern California Haiku Study Group Anthology; San Diego Poetry Annual; and forthcoming in Short Fiction Los Angeles (Red Hen Press.) She writes a blog column, “Desert Word Walk,” for Heyday Books, is editor the critically-acclaimed anthology, No Place for a Puritan: the literature of California’s Deserts (Heyday, 2009,) and advisory committee member/contributor to Inlandia: A Literary Journey through Southern California’s Inland Empire (2006.) She is currently working on a memoir about her experiences as a wildland firefighter in Southern California and the Western U.S. for the BLM and USFS during the 1980’s. An avid desert advocate and conservationist, she lectures widely on literature of the desert, and has taught desert-based writing workshops for the Desert Institute at Joshua Tree National Park, for CSUSB and UCR; was co-founder of the first Inlandia Institute Writing Workshop, in Riverside, which she taught from 2008-2012; and has taught for the (In) Visible Memoir Project (2013.) She has been an advisory committee member of the Inlandia Institute since its inception in 2006. In 2008, she collaborated, as a writer, with the UCR-CA Museum of Photography on the acclaimed Joshua Tree National Park-centered film, “Escape to Reality: 24 hrs @ 24 fps,” and has received Writing Residencies for Joshua Tree National Park (2008-09) and at Vermont Studio (2004 and 2006.) Ruth, a lifetime member of Phi Kappa Phi Honorary Society, received her M.F.A. in creative writing and writing for the performing arts in the UCR Low Residency M.F.A. program in June, 2014, holds her M.A. in English/Creative Writing from Northern Arizona University (1995), and is a graduate of CSUSB (1988.) She currently lives in Palm Desert, where she hikes and explores the desert hills and canyons, and is the proud mother of daughter, Tarah, 26, and overjoyed by new baby grandson, Simon, who just turned 1.

SALT + SPICE is a community arts organization offering art workshops, readings and cultural events in the Inland California. All events are free and open to the public. SALT + SPICE is based in Riverside, CA and managed by independent curator and art educator, Lisa Henry. For more info about SALT+SPICE events contact Lisa Henry at: leicalisa@gmail.com 951.323.8243.