Bill Ransom will read from his newest collection of poetry and prose at Peninsula College's Foothills Writers Series at noon Tuesday, May 12, in the Little Theater at Peninsula College,

1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd., Port Angeles.

Ransom is founder and former director of the Port Townsend Writers Conference for Centrum and the academic dean of curriculum at The Evergreen State College in Olympia.

Ransom, who has been nominated for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his poetry, attended Peninsula College in the early 1990s. His new book, "The Woman and the War Baby," was released in September 2008 by Blue Begonia Press in Yakima. It is his sixth published collection.

He also is the author of six novels and numerous short stories and articles.

His book "Learning the Ropes," is a collection of poetry, short fiction and essays and has been billed as "a creative

autobiography."

Three of his short stories from this collection have been selections of the PEN/NEA syndicated fiction project, often called "the Pulitzer Prize of the short story," and they have appeared in the Sunday magazine editions of major newspapers around the country.

Ransom was born in 1945 in Puyallup. He attended Washington State University and the University of Puget Sound on athletic scholarships. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology and English education from the University of Washington in 1970.

He studied American minority literature and Old and Middle English on an NDEA Title IV Fellowship at the University of Nevada - Reno, then began a pilot project with the Poetry in the Schools program in Washington state. He received his Master of Arts degree in English from Utah State University.