Career
His 1992 memoir Going Back to Bisbee, a New York Times Notable Book was selected for the One Book Arizona program in 2007. In 2000, Shelton received a $100,000 grant from the Lannan Foundation to complete two books His poems and prose pieces have appeared in more than two hundred magazines and journals including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, and The Antioch Review.
They have been translated into Spanish, French, Swedish, Polish, and Japanese.
In 1974, Shelton established a writer"s workshop at the Arizona State Prison, and a number of books of prose and poetry written by men in Shelton’s prison workshops have been published, including the writing of authors Jimmy Santiago Baca and Ken Lamberton. Shelton is currently directing three prison writer’s workshops in three units of the Arizona State Prison.
His latest book, Crossing the Yard: Thirty Years as a Prison Volunteer is about this experience.
