Writer Lisa Coffman of Los Osos is the winner of the 2010 Ingrid Reti Literary Grant. She will receive $1,000 for her selected piece of non-fiction.

“Coffman’s essay titled No Business is a wonderful ride through the history of a Tennessee town with unforgettable characters," said to the Reti grant reviewers. "Since Lisa comes from Tennessee, her characters have the cadence of that accent perfectly.”

This annual grant was established as a partnership of ARTS Obispo, San Luis Obispo County Arts Council and the family of Ingrid Reti, in memory of the beloved local writer and teacher.

Coffman, who grew up in East Tennessee, is a Cal Poly English Department lecturer. She studied poetry at the University of Tennessee, New York University and at the University of Bonn in Germany.

“Both the landscape (smokey blue hills in every direction) and speech (rhythmic, vivid, sprawled like Kudzu) have colored my writing,” Coffman says.

Coffman’s book of poetry "Likely" was published by Kent State University Press. Her poetry has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pew Charitable Trusts.

The story at the heart of the winning essay "No Business, Tennessee" is about the 1933 lynching of Jerome Boyatt. Coffman first heard about the lynching 15 years ago when she was doing volunteer work for the oral history archives of Big South Fork National Park on the Cumberland Plateau.

The writer said she was haunted by the story, and six years later, in 2001, went back to the Plateau and did research and extensive interviews with a surviving Boyatt family member, Bonnie Chambers. Chambers died in 2002.

Because of the sensitive nature of the story, Coffman said she “struggled with how to write it up and present it. “I had shut the file drawer on the whole project. The Ingrid Reti contest provided me with an opportunity to go through the material again and begin writing.” The grant will enable Coffman to continue work on the “No Business” story, for which she is “deeply grateful.”

The goal of the Ingrid Reti Literary Grant is to continue Reti’s work of mentoring San Luis Obispo County writers. This year’s award was given to the writer of non-fiction whose work best addressed “a sense of place, natural and/or cultural,” as chosen by a panel of respected literary reviewers from the local community.

A reception to honor the grant recipient will take place in May. Time to be announced. For more information regarding the annual grant or the reception, please contact ARTS Obispo at (805) 544-9251 or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .