Thumbs up: A Pulitzer prize winner in Petaluma

Thumbs up for Forrest Gander. We're a little reluctant to say more as someone might compare our prose to his Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry. Gander, who lives in Petaluma, was honored this week for “Be With,” a collection of elegies inspired by the loss of his wife, the distinguished poet C.D Wright, and his mother's battle with Alzheimer's diseases.

“People are looking for something deeper than their Twitter feed and Facebook posts of cats,” he told Matt Brown of the Petaluma Argus-Courier. “Language is what we have to offer our individual worlds to each other.”

But don't get the idea that Gander is without whimsy. Uponing winning the Pulitzer, Gander told the Boston Globe, “No one's expecting to get a Pulitzer any more than to get a visit for the Spanish Inquisition.” Gander, who taught at Harvard and Brown, has been a permanent resident of Petaluma since 2016.

Also, a tip of our cap to our colleagues at the Chico Enterprise-Record and the Bay Area News Group, who were finalists in the breaking news category for their coverage of the Camp fire in Butte County.

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