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Roz Spafford and
William Minor
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Roz Spafford has been a writer, teacher and activist for the last three
decades, for most of that time in Santa Cruz. Until recently she taught in the Writing Program at the University of California,
Santa Cruz, where she also served as a negotiator for the University Council—American Federation of Teachers and as provost of College Eight.
She was coordinator of UCSC’s Journalism Program, and wrote book reviews and a column of media and cultural criticism—Mediations—for
local and regional newspapers. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in numerous literary magazines, including Quarry West and Viz, and
several poems were published in broadside by Mary Warshaw and by Felicia Rice. Her first book, Requiem (Big Pencil Press, 2008),
received the 2008 Gell Poetry Prize from Writers & Books in Rochester, New York. She now lives in Canada.
Read a synopsis of Requiem. William Minor was originally trained as a visual artist
(Pratt Institute and U.C. Berkeley), and exhibited woodcut prints and paintings at the San Francisco Museum of Art,
the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Smithsonian Institution, and other museums and galleries.
He has published three nonfiction books on music: Unzipped Souls: A Jazz Journey Through the Soviet Union
(Temple University Press, 1995), Monterey Jazz Festival: Forty Legendary Years (Angel City Press, 1997—he
served as scriptwriter for a Warner Bros. film documentary, same title as book), and Jazz Journeys to
Japan: The Heart Within (University of Michigan Press, 2004). He produced his first book containing poems and prints, Pacific Grove, in 1974; and has, since that time,
published five more books of poetry: For Women Missing or Dead, Goat Pan, Natural Counterpoint
(with Paul Oehler), Poet Santa Cruz: Number 4, and Some Grand Dust (Chatoyant Press, 2002)—the latter
a finalist, nationally, for the Benjamin Franklin Award. His most recent work is a comic novel:
Trek: Lips, Sunny, Pecker and Me (Park Place Publications, 2007; Winner of First Place for First
Chapter of a Novel, Friends of the Sacramento Public Library and the Focus on Writers Committee).
A professional musician since the age of sixteen, he set poems from his book For Women Missing or
Dead to music and released a CD, Bill Minor & Friends, on which he plays piano and sings; and he
has just released a spoken word CD, Mortality Suite, which features his most recent poems and
original music.
Learn more at William Minor’s website www.bminor.org.
Watch an online video of William Minor and friends playing selections from the Mortality Suite CD
on the livenetworks.tv website.
Roz Spafford and William Minor
will be featured on The Poetry Show with host Morton Marcus
on KUSP 88.9 FM Sunday January 11, 8:00 to 9:00 PM. The show will also be posted
on the KUSP website podcast to be listened to at your convenience.
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