Chris Ransick (1962 – 2019) was a writer of literary fiction and poetry from

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

. Ransick was appointed by Mayor

John Hickenlooper John Wright Hickenlooper Jr. (; born February 7, 1952) is an American politician serving as the junior United States senator from Colorado since 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 42nd governor of Colorado from 2011 to 20 ...

as the

poet laureate A poet laureate (plural: poets laureate) is a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special events and occasions. Albertino Mussato of Padua and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) ...

for the City of

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

, a post Ransick held from 2006 to 2010. He died of Pancreatic Cancer on November 4, 2019.

Life

Chris Ransick was born in Syracuse, NY and raised in nearby Auburn, in the Finger Lakes region. He earned a B.A from San Francisco State University (1983), an M.A. in journalism from the University of Montana (1988) and an M.A. in English/Creative Writing from the University of California, Davis (1990). During the years he was earning his degrees he worked as a newspaper reporter and editor, and also served as an editorial assistant to the editors of ''The Last Best Place: A Montana Anthology.'' Ransick married Shannon Skaife in 1983 and is the father of two children. He settled with his family in Englewood, Colorado in 1990, where he worked as a college professor for 24 years teaching courses in English, creative writing, screenwriting, film studies, humanities, and media studies. He has been a faculty member at Denver's well regarded literary center, Lighthouse Writers Workshop, since 2005. He was awarded the organization's Beacon Award for Teaching Excellence in 2013. Ransick has served as a member of PEN USA's Freedom to Write Committee, as well as serving on his local public library board for 8 years. Upon appointment as Denver's poet laureate, he helped establish the city's program supporting literary arts by organizing readings and engaging with a diverse range of literary groups in the city. He was reappointed to a second term as poet laureate and completed his service in 2010.

Bibliography

''Never Summer: Poems from Thin Air.'' Colorado Book Award for poetry, 2003 ''A Return to Emptiness.'' Colorado Book Award finalist for fiction, 2005 ''Lost Songs & Last Chances.'' ''Asleep Beneath the Hill of Dreams.'' ''Language for the Living and the Dead.'' ''mummer prisoner scavenger thief.'' Temporary House, 2022 Middle Creek Publishing (Posthumously published new poems) Joe the Ghost, 2022 Middle Creek Publishing (Posthumously published new poems)

References

Poets from Colorado Municipal Poets Laureate in the United States University of California, Davis alumni 1962 births 21st-century American poets 2019 deaths {{US-poet-1960s-stub