27th Annual Governor's Arts Award - Nevada Arts Council

EXCELLENCE IN THE ARTS
GAILMARIE PAHMEIER, RENO
A widely published poet and educator, Gailmarie Pahmeier writes of ordinary
experiences with a voice that is described as uniquely her own.A graduate of the
Creative Writing Program at the University of Arkansas, Pahmeier is an instructor
of creative writing and literature at the University of Nevada, Reno where she has
been honored with the Alan Bible Teaching Excellence Award and the University
Distinguished Teacher Award. Her students and colleagues consider her a mentor
who honors the individual voice, an academic with an extraordinary depth of
knowledge and a writer of intelligence, wit and personality. Her literary
accomplishments include the Chambers Memorial Award, a Witter Bynner
Foundation Poetry Fellowship, the Paumonok Poetry Award, the Silver Pen
Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame and two Artist Fellowships from
the Nevada Arts Council. Pahmeier also served on the board of the Nevada Arts
Council as a gubernatorial appointee. Her work has been widely published in
literary journals and anthologies, including Webster Studies, Rio Grande review,
Pinyon Poetry, neon, Northern Contours, Slipstream, Mudfish and Interim, among
others. Her publications include What Emma Loves, With Respect for Distance
and The House on Breakaheart Road. Reflecting on the work in The House on
Breakaheart Road, Oregon poet Dorianne Laux commented, "Pahmeier's is a
purely American poetry, a tough female vision that includes the language of
baseballs and bread baking, well-tuned transmissions and hard-packed snow,
truckstops and ‘wound-red lipstick’.”