Visiting Writers 
The Visiting Writers Series, organized by Andrea Mason and Chris Arigo, has been an integral part of the cultural life of Washington State University for the past eight years. Each year, the English Department invites three to four writers to read from their work and meet with students. Recently, the Series has paid particular attention to Northwest writers who focus on place and the environment. The Series is supported by the Visual and Performing Arts Council and the Associated Students of WSU.
Fall 2008 Writers
Rick Barot
Rick Barot was born in the Philippines and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. His first book, The Darker Fall, was the winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry and was published by Sarabande Books in 2002. His poems and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including The New England Review, The New Republic, Poetry, and The Virginia Quarterly Review. His work has also appeared in many anthologies, including The New Young American and Legitimate Dangers. In 2001 he received a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has taught at Stanford University, California College of the Arts, The George Washington University, and Lynchburg College. He lives in Tacoma, Washington, and teaches both in the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and at Pacific Lutheran University.
Brandon R. Schrand
Brandon R. Schrand is the author of The Enders Hotel: A Memoir, the 2007 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize winner and a summer 2008 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writer selection. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Dallas Morning News, The Utne Reader, Tin House, Shenandoah, The missouri Review, Columbia, Colorado Review, Green Mountains Review, River Teeth, Ecotone, Oklahoma Review, Isotope, and numerous other publications. He has won the Wallace Stegner Prize, the 2006 Willard R. Espy Award, the Pushcart Prize, two Pushcart Prize Special Mentions, and his essay, "The Enders Hotel," the title piece from his memoir, was a Notable Essay in the Best American Essays 2007. A two-time grant recipient of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, he lives in Moscow, Idaho with his wife and two children where he coordinates the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Idaho.
Buddy Levy
Buddy Levy is the author of Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, Kind Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs (Bantam Dell, 2008); American Legend: The Real-Life Adventures of David Crockett (Putnam, 2005, Berkley Books, 2006); and Echoes On Rimrock: In Pursuit of the Chukar Partridge (Pruett, 1998). As a freelance journalist he has covered adventure sports and lifestyle around the world, including several Eco-Challenges and other adventure expeditions in Argentina, Borneo, Europe, Greenland, Morocco and the Philippines. His magazine articles and essays have appeared in Backpacker, Big Sky Journal, Couloir, Discover, high Desert Journal, Poets & Writers, River Teeth, Ski, Trail Runner, Utne Reader, TV Guide, and VIA. He is clinical assistant professor of English at Washington State University.