Spokane teachers win state writing awards

One is a book of poetry, the other a novel. Both are tough, even grisly at times, and exceptionally well written. Both are the work of Spokane teachers, and both have won Washington State Book Awards.

“Bugle,” a poetry collection from Tod Marshall, and “The Hour of Lead,” the second novel by Bruce Holbert, were honored during an awards ceremony at the Seattle Central Library on Saturday night. Both are first-time Washington book award winners.

Marshall’s book, which shares the poetry prize with Red Pine’s translation of “The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse,” is centered around the notion of a bugle call, a reveille. His dark words are jarring, but he isn’t wallowing. “Bugle” is no pity party. As Marshall wrote for the Spokesman-Review just before the book’s release last December: “One of the reasons for the caustic tonality of this book is driven by the attempt to bugle blast a reader to wakefulness. Reveille.”

Marshall, an English professor at Gonzaga University who also organizes the GU Visiting Writers Series, will be honored with another award this fall: The 2015 Humanities Washington Award for Scholarship and Service. The award, recognizing his efforts with the Prime Time Family Reading program aimed at at-risk kids and their families, will be presented at the Bedtime Stories fundraiser on Oct. 23.

Marshall’s previous poetry collections are “Dare Say,” winner of the 2002 University Georgia Contemporary Poetry Award, and “Tangled Lines” (2009), a previous finalist for the Washington State Book Award.

Marshall was born in Buffalo, New York, and raised in Wichita, Kansas. He did his undergraduate work at Siena Heights University, earned a Master of Fine Arts from Eastern Washington University and a doctorate from the University of Kansas. He’s been at Gonzaga for 16 years and is the Ann Powers Chair in the Humanities.

Holbert, winner of the fiction prize, is a teacher at Mt. Spokane High School. “The Hour of Lead” (2014, Counterpoint Press) followed in the footsteps of his first novel, 2012’s “Lonesome Animals” as historical fiction set in Eastern Washington.

In “Lead,” his main character Matt Lawson moves through the Columbia River Plateau in his quest to find peace in his life. His story is paralleled by that of Wendy, a storekeeper’s daughter Lawson meets and courts, to disastrous effect. The two spend years trying to get back to each other, and when they do, the past finds a way to catch up to them.

In telling Matt and Wendy’s story, Holbert tells the story of the basin, from the end of frontier times in the late 1800s through the Great Depression and the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam. It’s a rough book, and violent at times, but beautifully written.

Writing about the basin comes naturally to Holbert, as it’s where he spent his childhood. He attended EWU, and eventually the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop. His fiction has appeared in the Iowa Review, Hotel Amerika, Other Voices, the Antioch Review, Crab Creek Review and The Spokesman-Review, among other journals.

Winners receive a $500 prize. The judges were Linda Andrews, English instructor, Walla Walla Community College; Lisa Bitney, adult services librarian, Tacoma Public Library; Lisa Gresham, collection support manager, Whatcom County Library System; Paul Hanson, general manager, Village Books; and Jamil Zaidi, former bookseller, buyer, assistant manager, The Elliott Bay Book Co.

We have (another) winner

Another Spokane writer, Shann Ray, has taken home a prize: the High Plains Book Award for poetry.

Ray won for “Balefire,” his debut poetry collection released in 2014 from Lost Horse Press. Among his competition for the award was “Splitting an Order” by Ted Kooser, a Pulitzer Prize winner and former poet laureate of the United States.

The awards, sponsored by the Billings Public Library and announced Oct. 3, honor authors or works that examine and reflect life on the High Plains, including Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Ray is the author of the award-winning story collection “American Masculine.” His debut novel, “American Copper” will be released Nov. 10 and celebrated with a book launch party featuring Sherman Alexie that night at the Bing Crosby Theater.

Ray, under his given name, Shann Ferch, teaches leadership and forgiveness studies at Gonzaga. The Montana native also is a former professional basketball player.