I'm Steve Ochoa from KQED TV news
13 and honored and delighted to be here
and we thank you for your participation.
We would first of all like to welcome you
to the first annual and certainly the beginning
of a lifelong learning and authorship
here at the University of Arizona.
It's the first annual Tucson festival of books.
And I'd be remiss if first of all, I
didn't thank our sponsors, Barnes and Noble
for this wonderful setup, and our dear friend from the Poetry
Center.
I had Bill Viner on the air the other day
and he said, Steve he said, I don't
know if anybody will be coming.
Yesterday, they reported between 25,000 and 30,000 people
came to the inauguration.
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So welcome.
You're part of a phenomenal number.
We have a wonderful program for you this morning
and I've had the good fortune of meeting now Robert Shelton
and Ken Lamberton.
And I think when they're finished,
you're going to be just mesmerized
by their personal stories but also by their creative writing
talents.
The-- I'm sorry, Richard.
Who did I say?
Robert?
Typical journalist.
Not scripted up here.
So sorry about that, Richard.
We're going to have--
Richard will read a little bit about 20 minutes then
our friend Ken Lamberton will read for about 20 minutes,
and then we'll leave it up to all of you
to ask some great questions and they're happy to respond.
Let me give you a little background on Richard Shelton.
He is a Regents Professor teacher here at the University
of Arizona, retired.
He retired in-- I think Richard, it
was 2007 after serving here for many, many years.
You may know him for his first non-fiction book,
Going Back to Bisbee.
But prior to that, he had written over 12 poetry books
and he's going to do some reading from a book called
Crossing the Yard.
As you probably know, Richard has
spent 30 years within the prison system
having workshops for prisoners.
And I think you're going to find him very, very much engaging.
And then on the opposite end of the spectrum,
we have a wonderful guy named Ken Lamberton.
And Ken Lamberton was actually a graduate of Richard Shelton's
workshops and so you're going to find that fascinating.
And he's written a couple of books, one called Time of Grace
that he's going to be talking about
and then also one called, Wilderness and Razor Wire.
So let's please welcome first to the podium Richard Shelton.
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