News release Public Information Office   SLU 10880   Hammond, LA 70402   phone: 985-549-2341   fax: 985-549-2061 publicinfo@selu.edu     www.selu.edu/news Contact: Christina Chapple Date: 8/21/03   SOUTHEASTERN POET JACK BEDELL TO SIGN NEWEST POETRY COLLECTION AT CAMPUS BOOKSTORE AUGUST 30       HAMMOND -- Southeastern Louisiana University English professor and poet Jack Bedell will sign copies of his newest poetry chapbook, which contains a dozen of his best poems anthologized by Pudding House Press.       The book signing is scheduled for 4-6 p.m., August 30, at the Southeastern Bookstore.       The chapbook is part of Pudding House Press’s invitation-only national archiving project, “Greatest Hits.” Two years ago the successful small-press poetry publisher in Central Ohio began archiving the top 12 signature works from poets of reputation. Each invited poet chooses a dozen of their most important poems and provides an introduction.         Pudding House Press publisher and editor Jennifer Bosveld said the series archives poets “whose work changes the way we work, volunteer, love, teach, nurture, see.” She said the press has released more than 200 “Greatest Hits” chapbooks, including works by Stephen Corey, David Chorlton, Jeanne Lohmann, Susan Terris, Hale Chatfield, Jim Bertolino, David Alpaugh, Ruth Daigon, Floyd Skoot, and David Citino.       Bedell has previously published three poetry chapbooks, including “What Passes for Love,” which won the 2000 Texas Review Poetry Chapbook Prize. A Houma native, Bedell won the1997 Texas Review Poetry Prize for “At the Bonehouse,” a collection of approximately 30 poems set in his native Acadiana. He has received a number of other awards, including the Devil's Millhopper Chapbook Award for his first poetry collection, “Sleeping with the Net Maker”; the Felix Christopher McKean Award for Poetry at the University of Arkansas in 1989; and honorable mention in the Deep South Writers Conference Contests, 1989, and the Academy of American Poets Competition in 1992. His poems have been published in literary journals such as “Kansas Quarterly” and “Aethlon” and “Something in Common: An Anthology of Louisiana Poets.”       Bedell received Southeastern's 1997 President's Award for Excellence in Artistic Activity, one of the university's highest faculty honors. A member of the Southeastern faculty since 1992, he earned bachelor's and master's degrees in English from Northwestern State University and a master’s degree from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. He previously taught at both his alma masters and at the University of Missouri at Rolla.       Bedell has served as editor of the “Argus,” a literary magazine at Northwestern State University and is poetry editor for Southeastern's “Louisiana Literature.”  Return to News Releases