ROCK SPRINGS — Christmas time has often been a good time for stories—stories from the past and stories that cause us to reflect for a moment on the meaning of the season. Local author Barbara Smith will be giving a reading of stories and poems Wednesday, December 21, at the Broadway Theater at 7 p.m.

Smith, author of a collection of poetry, Putting a Name on It, has been teaching memoir writing for Western Wyoming Community College (Western) for many years and has written several stories and poems centered around this time of year.

“I grew up in ‘cold country’ in North Dakota and Montana, in a family that really enjoyed Christmas, and as a child I remember the anticipation, the excitement, and especially the surprises our parents generated around this time of year. So in my writing I have attempted to recreate those feelings,” Smith said. “ I think that it will be fun to hear some stories like these just before Christmas.”

“I will also be reading some of my poems from my book, which are small stories of life in Rock Springs and the West,” Smith said.

Smith has lived the boom and bust of the American West. When she came to Rock Springs it was “a friendly immigrant mining community. Then the boom hit town.”

She writes about these times of rapid change and the effects it has on people. Smith is the granddaughter of Norwegian homesteaders, and daughter of Great Depression parents, all of whom kept moving West, looking for better lives, like many who come to the West today. Their stories inform her writing.

“I am a writer of stories, whether I am writing poetry, fiction, or memoir. The stories my immigrant grandparents told of their pioneer days, struggling and living in the harsh West, and stories my parents told of growing up during the depression inspired me as a youth,” Smith said. “The stories we tell connect us and enable us to better understand our similarities and differences, our various cultures, generations, and places where we find ourselves.”

Smith has received recognition for her writing over the years. In 2008 Smith was named the recipient of the Neltje Blanchan Memorial Writing award for nature writing, sponsored by the Wyoming Arts Council and funded by artist and arts patron Neltje. In 2006, Smith received the Wyoming Governor’s Arts Award for her contributions in support of the arts in Sweetwater County as well as for her own writing. She also received the Wyoming Arts Council Literary Fellowship in 1990 and an artist’s residency from the Ucross Foundation.

Smith is professor emeritus at Western retiring in 2007. In retirement, Smith continues to teach a memoir writing workshop in collaboration with Western and the Young at Heart Senior Center.

The reading is sponsored by Sweetwater Board of Cooperative Educational Services and is open to the public at no charge. Refreshments will be served.