Local Quilter Doris Wells Exhibits at Library

BISBEE, AZ – During the entire month of May, the Copper Queen Library will host an exhibit of local artist Doris Wells’ award-winning quilts. The show, “Quilting Like Our Mothers,” celebrates a traditional craft that is enjoying resurgence today. The exhibit will feature over a dozen quilts of various sizes and techniques – many of them quite non-traditional – including “Celestial Dreams,” a large quilt that to date has won two blue ribbons; “Cosmic Odyssey,” a quilt constructed of hand-dyed fabrics with hand-appliqué and beading which was featured in Quilters’ Newsletter; and “Farewell My Love,” a miniature prize-winning quilt.

In honor of the Copper Queen Library’s year-long “6 Main Centennial Celebration,” a special local quilt on loan from the Bisbee Mining and Historical Museum will also be featured. “The Bisbee Centennial Quilt,” a community effort created to commemorate Bisbee’s 1980 Centennial, features squares depicting local landmarks and includes many squares bearing late local quilter Mildred Philips’ embroidered signature. Sponsored by the Bisbee YWCA, the quilt won second place at the Cochise County Fair.

This free quilting exhibit will be open during regular business hours throughout the month (M, 12-7; T-W, 10-7; Th-F, 10-5; S, 10-2). For information regarding times that Ms. Wells will conduct free on-site quilting demonstrations or to sign up to form a local quilting bee, please call the library at 432-4232.

Former Shelton Student Cloud Leads Book Talk

BISBEE, AZ - Ann Cloud, Vice President of the Friends of the Copper Queen Library and former seventh-grade student of ONEBOOKAZ author Richard Shelton (with whom she has kept in contact throughout the years), will bring her own unique, personal perspective to Shelton's Going Back to Bisbee on Wednesday, April 11, at 6:30pm in the Library Meeting Room.

Anyone interested in participating in the discussion may pick up a copy of the book at the Library Circulation Desk. Multiple copies are available for loan through the auspices of the Arizona State Library and may be kept until the end of April as part of ONEBOOKAZ programming.

For further information, call the library at 432-4232.

Richard Shelton Reads at CQL April 12

BISBEE, AZ – "It is July 20, 1989, early afternoon, monsoon season in the Sonoran Desert, and I am going back to Bisbee..."

So begins local author Richard Shelton's Going Back to Bisbee (University of Arizona Press), a powerful and evocative memoir of his journeys of discovery to, from, and back to Bisbee, Arizona. The Arizona State Library recognized Shelton's work by nominating it as a candidate for the 2007 ONEBOOKAZ statewide adult read, and Arizona readers from around the state showed their enthusiasm by voting Going Back to Bisbee as 2007’s ONEBOOK winner.

Now, Bisbee residents will have a chance to meet and hear Shelton first-hand when he presents a free reading from Going Back to Bisbee in the Library Meeting Room, 6 Main Street, on April 12 at 6:30pm. If time permits, he also plans to read from his latest book of poetry, The Last Person to Hear Your Voice. Those interested in asking him to autograph copies of any of his books, many of which are on sale at Atalanta’s Music and Books, 38 Main Street, can catch him there before the Read from 3-4:30pm.

The ONEBOOK read is one of many events scheduled in the Copper Queen Library's year-long celebration of the “6 Main Centennial” (A Century of Service at 6 Main Street -- and 125 years of library service to Bisbee!) and is part of the annual statewide ONEBOOK read sponsored by the Arizona State Library.

ONEBOOK is an exciting program that brings communities together through literature. Beginning in April every year, the program encourages communities across the state to read the same book at the same time and participate in discussions and programs centered around that book.

In Going Back to Bisbee, Shelton chronicles his nearly lifelong love affair with southwestern deserts, beginning in 1956 when he came to Arizona, first serving as a soldier stationed at Fort Huachuca and later as an English teacher at Lowell School in Bisbee.

In the book, which uses a routine day trip to Bisbee as its setting, Shelton reflects on the history of the area, the beauty of the landscape, and his own life. Couched within the narrative of his journey are passages revealing Shelton’s deep familiarity with the region’s natural and human history. Whether conveying the mystique of tarantulas or the diversity of the mountain-studded topography, he brings, not surprisingly, a poet’s eye to this seemingly desolate country.

Now a Regents Professor in the English Department at the University of Arizona, Shelton is the author of nine books of poetry, including The Bus to Veracruz (1978) and Selected Poems: 1969-1981 (1982). His first book, The Tattooed Desert, won the International Poetry Forum's United States Award, and The Bus to Veracruz was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Going Back to Bisbee, his first major work of nonfiction, won the Western States Book Award for Creative Nonfiction.

His latest book of poetry, The Last Person to Hear Your Voice, was published in February 2007 by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

He is also the recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and a prestigious Completion Grant from the Lannan Foundation. In 1974, Shelton established, under the auspices of the Arizona Commission on the Arts, a writer’s workshop at the Arizona State Prison, out of which have come eight books of poetry and prose.

A book about his experiences teaching creative writing to inmates in the Arizona prison system is scheduled for publication this year by the University of Arizona Press.

In 2006, Richard and his wife Lois were honored with the first annual Arizona Literary Treasure Award. This award recognizes an individual or individuals who’ve made a significant contribution to the literary fabric of Arizona.

April Events Celebrate “6 Main Centennial"

BISBEE, AZ – In Spring 2007, the Copper Queen Library, one of Bisbee’s most cherished cultural treasures, will celebrate her hundredth birthday at the 6 Main Street location in Downtown’s Historic District, and residents are invited to join in the celebration in a variety of ways: by participating in an April 11 book discussion of Going Back to Bisbee at 6:30pm; by dropping in to share birthday cake and beverages on April 12 at 11am; by attending Richard Shelton’s free reading from Going Back to Bisbee – and, perhaps, if time permits, from his newest book of poetry, The Last Person to Hear Your Voice -- on April 12 at 6:30pm; by joining the Friends of the Copper Queen Library for their annual membership tea on April 14 from noon-2; or by joining Arizona Humanities Council Chautauquan Judy N. Temple on April 18 at 6:30 as she presents the life of Mary Hunter Austin, author of Land of Little Rain and one of the Southwest’s first environmental writers.

For further information on any of these free events, contact the library at 432-4232.

Workshops Help Reduce Teen Drug Risk

BISBEE, AZ – In the “Guiding Good Choices” workshop series, parents will learn how to strengthen the bonds with their children and reduce the risk that their children will use drugs. The five-week program, funded by Phelps Dodge, is being offered by The Parent Connection, Inc., and will be held at the Copper Queen Library on successive Tuesdays from 4:30-6:30 beginning April on 17. (This is a change from the original schedule, which was to begin on April 3).

“Guiding Good Choices” is an interactive program for parents of children in grades 4-8. In a lively and open atmosphere, parents will learn specific strategies to help their children avoid drug use and other adolescent problem behaviors so they can develop into healthy adults. Parents will learn to set clear family guidelines on drugs, as well as learn and practice skills to strengthen family bonds, help their children develop healthy behaviors, and increase children’s involvement in the family.

Research has shown that when children are bonded to their parents, school, and non-drug-using peers, they are less likely to get involved in drug use or other behavior problems. Studies of the “Guiding Good Choices” program have shown that it is effective in strengthening parent-child bonds and preventing teenagers from starting to use alcohol and other drugs.

This workshop series is based on a theory of human behavior that identifies the factors that promote social boding and positive behavior. It also identifies nineteen factors that increase the risk of teenage drug use, as well as delinquency, teen pregnancy, dropping out of school and violence.

For more information or to register for the series, please call presenter Liz Williams at 458-2131, ext. 109, or contact the library at 432-4232.