Matt Cashion

press release: Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts announces the 2018-19 Winter Writers-in-Residence Series featuring award-winning Wisconsin writers and poets reading from their work and answering questions on select Wednesday evenings at the Lind Pavilion, 411 Commerce St.

Since 2011 Shake Rag Alley, has partnered with the the Council for Wisconsin Writers, the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters, Wisconsin People & Ideas magazine, and the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission to offer week-long residencies to their annual writing contest winners. From December through April, contest-winning writers and poets are provided with a week of uninterrupted time in Shake Rag Alley's inspiring lodging facilities surrounded by the nurturing environment of historic Mineral Point’s artist community. Past writers-in-residence include Chloe Benjamin, New York Times best-selling author of “The Immortalists” and “The Anatomy of Dreams,” and Kathleen Ernst, award-winning author of the Chloe Ellefson mystery series.

Save the date to enjoy the chance to meet and hear from the following award-winning authors during the upcoming free Winter Writers Reading Series:

7 p.m. March 20, 2019: Matt Cashion, 2017 Council for Wisconsin Writers Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award Winner

Matt Cashion, author of the award winning book “Our Thirteenth Divorce” (Livingston Press), was born in North Wilkesboro, N.C., in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where his first words were mumbled, where his father’s side of the family still lives and where some of his writing is set. Prior to earning an MFA from the University of Oregon, Cashion was an award-winning journalist. After working with facts for two years, he graduated to other jobs such as piano-moving, bartending and third-shift convenience store clerking. He lives now in beautiful western Wisconsin, next to the Mississippi River, where he is happy to be employed as a professor of creative writing and literature at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. He lives with Heather, his partner, and their many wild and domestic animals.