Literary Salon: Rebecca Foust, Marin County Poet Laureate 🗓

Why Community Matters in Writing:  Notes from the Current Marin County Poet Laureate Ending her Term

Current Marin County Poet Laureate Rebecca Foust reflects on her 2016-18 term, discussing her project “Poetry as Sanctuary” and what she learned about how being an engaged literary citizen can have positive and practical impacts on a writer’s work and career. Writing can be a solitary occupation, so the chance to have positive impact on the community can be personally (and, hopefully, socially) rewarding. It can also offer unexpected opportunities to reach new audiences, make worthwhile connections, and find subjects to explore in new writing. Foust will talk briefly about these issues and then read a few poems written during her tenure.

Rebecca Foust’s books include Paradise Drive (2015 Press 53 Award for Poetry), reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement, The San Francisco Chronicle, and the Georgia, Harvard, and Hudson Reviews. Recent recognitions include the Cavafy Prize, the James Hearst Poetry Prize, the Lascaux Prize for Flash Fiction, the American Literary Review Fiction Prize,  the Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize, and fellowships from MacDowell, Sewanee, and The Frost Place. Foust is Poet Laureate of Marin County, Poetry Editor for Women’s Voices for Change and an Assistant Editor and Team Leader reading fiction for Narrative Magazine.