Richard Shelton (June 24, 1933 – November 29, 2022) was an American writer, poet and emeritus Regents Professor of English at the University of Arizona.
Shelton also won the Western States Book Award for Creative Nonfiction in 1992 [4] for Going Back to Bisbee.
In 2000, Shelton received a $100,000 grant from the Lannan Foundation to complete two books.
In 1974, Shelton established a writer's workshop at the Arizona State Prison,[5] 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.
His last book, Crossing the Yard: Thirty Years as a Prison Volunteer is about this experience.