You’d be right to recognize Ron Koertge as a poet --- an esteemed and celebrated LA poet --- but another big audience of devoted readers knows and delights in his seven Young Adult novels, including the recent Stoner & Spaz, winner of the PEN Literary Award. Koertge’s books for young readers have been chosen American Library Association Best Books and Books for Reluctant Readers. In my continuing survey of prizewinning literature for young people and adults who love them, Ron Koertge reads from his newest novel, Deadville, about a too-smart-for-his-own-good alienated teen who sits vigil for a popular high school girl in a coma, messes with the Big Man on Campus and grieves for his own dead little sister. Formerly a faculty member at Pasadena City College for 35 years, he now teaches in the MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults program at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He continues to write poetry for adults and has been dubbed “the wisest, most entertaining wiseguy in American poetry” by former US poet laureate Billy Collins. Monday, noon, on KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles, 98.7 FM in Santa Barbara, live streaming and archived at the station's website. Thanks for listening.
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