Montana Book Festival 2017

Philip Schaefer observes a variety of characters and aspects of life from behind the bar he tends in Missoula, Montana, when he isn't writing poetry. His debut collection Bad Summon (2017) won the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize from the University of Utah Press, and he has published three chapbooks, two of which were co-written with friend and poet Jeff Whitney. His solo creations have appeared in Kenyon Review, Thrush, Guernica, The Cincinnati Review, Birdfeast, Salt Hill, Bat City, Adroit, Nashville Review, and Passages North among others.

Natalie Peeterse's new book Dreadful: Luminosity, Letters was published by Educe Press this year.  A graduate of UM's MFA Creative Writing Program, Natalie's work has graced the pages of Magnolia, Blackbird, and Sonora Review among other journals. She also edits Verde Que Te Quiero Verde: Poems after Federico Garica Lorca for Open Country Press. Her chapbook Black Birds: Blue Horse, An Elegy won the Gold Line Press Poetry Prize in 2011. Natalie has been a fellow with the Arizona Commission on the Arts, a participant at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and an artist in residence at the Caldera Institute. The Montana Arts Council awarded Natalie an Artist Innovation Award in 2013.