Keith Abbott BA, San Francisco State
MA, Western Washington State
Keith Kumasen Abbott teaches fiction, non-fiction and screenplay writing along with poetry and art at Naropa University. He recently expanded his memoir of Richard Brautigan Downstream from Trout Fishing in America for the Astrophil Press 2009 edition. Abbott was filmed for a forthcoming Brautigan documentary produced by award winning Don Ranvaud (Farewell my Concubine, City of God, The Constant Gardener). He contributed to Richard Brautigan:Essays on the Writing and Life. (McFarland & Co). Publications include novels Gush, Rhino Ritz and Mordecai of Monterey, as well as the short story collections, Harum Scarum, The First Thing Coming and The French Girl. His story “Spanish Castle” was optioned by Ziji Productions, and he co-wrote the screenplay. His novel Racer was short-listed for the Berlinale Film Conference 2007. An essay “Raymond Carver The Gift of Anonymity: Social Class and Property in ‘Why Don’t You Dance?’” will appear in the International Raymond Carver Review. His pedagogical essay “The Things I Used To Do” appeared in the anthology, Does The Writing Workshop Still Work? (Multilingual Matters 2010). His essay “Rhythm-A-Ning: Philip Whalen’s Rhythmic Inventions” will reprinted in The Beats and Philosophy in the University of Kentucky Press Popular Culture series. His essay “Nothing Is Forever: Philip Zenshin Whalen’s Poem ‘Kozanji’ And The Kyoto Years” was accepted for the 2009 Northeast Modern Language Association panel "Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form: Buddhism and American Poetry.” For the 2008 Western Literature Association conference he presented, "Twisting in the Wind: A Memoir of Ken Kesey" about Kesey's Naropa workshop and play Twister, staged in Boulder July 4, 1994. His latest poetry books are Next Door to Samsara (Fell Swoop, 2005) and Poetry For Sale (Mountains Rivers Forest Editions 2009). His poems are in the anthologies Saints of Hysteria (Soft Skull 2007) and Rimbaud Après Rimbaud (Except Collection Textual 2004). His art/calligraphy appear in Shambhala Sun and Buddhadharma magazines and in group and/or solo shows in San Francisco, Denver, Boulder, Shanghai, Seoul and San Antonio.
