During this program, John Holbrook talks about and reads from his collection of poetry, A Clear Blue Sky in Royal Oak.

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John Holbrook, with wife Judith, lives and writes in Missoula, Montana. He won first place for his poem “Petition to Common Sense,” chosen by the poet James Dickey in the 1990 Florida Poetry Contest. His first book, Clear Water on the Swan, shared first prize with short story writer Ron Fischer, in Montana Arts Council's 1991 First Book Award.

In 2002, Pudding House Publications published his chapbook Loose Wool, River Tackle, Pencil Drafts, a manuscript which grew out of a grant from the Ludvig Vogelstein Foundation in 2000 to write a sequence of poems on various rivers in his region. Pudding House published another chapbook entitled The Dance, in 2007. A Clear Blue Sky in Royal Oak is his fourth collection, released in 2010 by Foothills Publishing.

Over the years Holbrook has worked as a mechanical draftsman, an industrial diamond salesman, a laborer, contract house painter, and as a participating poet in the Montana and Utah artists and writers in the schools programs. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including: Antaeus, the Carolina Quarterly, Comstock Review, Cutbank, the Florida Review, Hubbub, Mississippi Review, Nebraska Review, Poetry Northwest, South Carolina Review, and the Southern Poetry Review.

You'll find A Clear Blue Sky In Royal Oak at Fact & Fiction in Missoula or at your local independent bookseller.

The Write Question is produced by Chérie Newman.

Read an interview with TWQ producer Chérie Newman on the Humanities Montana Web site.

Executive producer, Michael Marsolek.

Special thanks to Lisa Simon, David Moore, Barbara Theroux, and Kim Anderson.

This program is supported in part by Humanities Montana, connecting kids to community, supporting vital cultural institutions, and encouraging community conversations. And by Montana's Cultural Trust, Fact & Fiction book stores, and Public Radio Listeners.

The Write Question: a program that explores the world of writing and publishing in the western United States.

The music in this program was written and performed by John Floridis.

Send comments to Chérie Newman.

Guests on the The Write Question are writers, publishers, and illustrators living, or working for an extended period of time, in the western United States. The Write Question is a production of Montana Public Radio.