2024 Authors + Presenters
We’re Proud to Host the Following Writers and Presenters
Timothy Egan
Timothy Egan is an acclaimed writer and veteran chronicler of the American experience, whose interests range wide across history and landscape, and into the spiritual realm. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, a popular columnist, and a National Book Award-winning author of eleven books.
His most recent book is A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them (Penguin Viking, April 4, 2023). It tells the story of a murderous con man, the Klan’s rise to power in Indiana in the 1920s, and the woman who led to their downfall. Booklist calls it “[A] riveting exposé” in a starred review. His previous book, A Pilgrimage to Eternity, goes to the core questions of humanity, as Egan follows an ancient pilgrimage route a thousand miles from Canterbury to Rome. It received rapturous reviews and was a New York Times Notable Book of 2020. “Egan is so well-informed he starts to seem like the world’s greatest tour guide,” wrote The New York Times. The book is “impossible to put down,” said The Chicago Tribune.
Beth Nguyen
Beth Nguyen also goes by Bich Minh Nguyen. Her essay in The New Yorker explains why she has two names. Please call her Beth.
She is the author of four books, most recently the memoir Owner of a Lonely Heart, published by Scribner in 2023. Owner of a Lonely Heart was a New York Times Editors’ Choice pick and was named a best book of 2023 by NPR, Time, Oprah Daily, and BookPage. Nguyen’s three previous books, the memoir Stealing Buddha's Dinner and the novels Short Girls and Pioneer Girl, were published by Viking Penguin. Her awards and honors include an American Book Award, a PEN/Jerard Award from the PEN American Center, a Bread Loaf fellowship, and best book of the year honors from the Chicago Tribune and Library Journal. Her books have been included in community and university read programs around the country. Nguyen's work has also appeared in numerous anthologies and publications including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The New York Times, Literary Hub, Time Magazine, and The Best American Essays.
Nguyen was born in Saigon. When she was a baby, she and her family came to the United States as refugees and were resettled in Michigan, where Nguyen grew up.
She received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan and is currently a professor in the creative writing program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Betsy Gaines Quammen
Betsy Gaines Quammen is a historian and writer. She received a PhD from Montana State University where she studied religion, history and the philosophy of science. Her dissertation focused on Mormon history and the roots of armed public land conflicts occurring in the United States. She is fascinated at how religious views shape relationships to landscape. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, New York Daily News, and the History News Network. She is the author of American Zion: Cliven Bundy, God, and Public Lands in the West and True West: Myth and Mending on the Far Side of America. Betsy lives in Montana with her husband, writer David Quammen, three giant dogs, a sturdy cat, and a lanky rescue python.
Shelley Read
Shelley Read's internationally bestselling debut novel, Go As A River, is being translated into over thirty languages and has been optioned for film by Mazur Kaplan in partnership with Fifth Season. An instant Sunday Times and American Booksellers Association bestseller, Go As A River is also a 2023 Amazon Editor's Pick Best Debut, a Goodreads Choice Award Nominee, and a Colorado Public Radio Best Book of the Year.
Shelley was a Senior Lecturer at Western Colorado University for nearly three decades where she taught writing, literature, environmental studies, and honors. She holds degrees in writing and literary studies from the University of Denver and Temple University's Graduate Program in Creative Writing and is a regular contributor to Crested Butte Magazine and Gunnison Valley Journal.
Shelley is a mom, mountaineer, world traveler, and fifth generation Coloradoan who lives with her family in the Elk Mountains of the Western Slope.
Chris La Tray
Chris La Tray is a Métis storyteller. He is the Montana Poet Laureate for 2023-2025.
His first book, One-Sentence Journal: Short Poems and Essays From the World At Large (2018, Riverfeet Press) won the 2018 Montana Book Award and a 2019 High Plains Book Award.
His second book, a collection of haiku and haibun poetry called Descended From a Travel-worn Satchel was published by Foothills Publishing in September, 2021.
Chris is an enrolled member of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians and lives near Frenchtown, Montana.
Hampton Sides
Hampton Sides is best-known for his gripping non-fiction adventure stories set in war or depicting epic expeditions of discovery and exploration. He is the author of the bestselling histories Ghost Soldiers, Blood and Thunder, Hellhound On His Trail, and, most recently, In the Kingdom of Ice, which recounts the heroic polar voyage of the U.S.S. Jeannette during the Gilded Age.
Hampton is editor-at-large for Outside and a frequent contributor to National Geographic and other magazines. His journalistic work, collected in numerous published anthologies, has been twice nominated for National Magazine Awards for feature writing.
Clay Smith
Clay Smith is the literary director at the Library of Congress. In that role, he oversees the Library’s ambassadorships, which include the United States Poet Laureate and the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. His department also curates the lineup for the annual National Book Festival. He previously was the literary director of the San Antonio Book Festival and Texas Book Festival, the editor-in-chief of Kirkus Reviews, and also worked for Sundance Film Festival.
Zak Podmore
Zak Podmore is an award-winning author and journalist who has spent more than a decade writing about water and conservation issues in the western United States. His first book, Confluence: Navigating the Personal & Political on Rivers of the New West was published in 2019, and his new book Life After Dead Pool: Lake Powell's Last Days and the Rebirth of the Colorado River will be published by Torrey House Press in August 2024. Zak is the recipient of the Ellen Meloy Desert Writers award and was the Entrada Institute’s writer-in-residence in 2023. Most recently, Zak was the southern Utah reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune. He lives in Bluff, Utah.
Suzi Q. Smith
Suzi Q. Smith is an award-winning author, artist, educator, and organizer who lives in Denver, Colorado. While primarily known for her poetry, Suzi is also a singer-songwriter, playwright, and interdisciplinary creative. She has created, curated, coached, and taught for over 20 years, touring throughout the United States.
She is the author of poetry collections. Poems for the End of the World, A Gospel of Bones (winner of the 2019 Electric Press Award), and the chapbook collection, Thirteen Descansos. In 2023, she was a writer in residence at Chateau d’Orquevaux in France while she worked toward completing her first memoir.
Michelle Nijhuis
After 15 years off the grid in rural Colorado, my family and I now live in White Salmon, Washington, on the north side of the Columbia River Gorge. A lapsed biologist, I specialize in stories about conservation and global change, but I’ve covered subjects ranging from theater to wrestling to my preschooler’s conviction that Bilbo Baggins is a girl. My book Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction, a critical history of the modern conservation movement, was published by W.W. Norton in 2021 and was named one of the best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune, Smithsonian, Booklist, and other publications.
I’m proud to be a longtime contributing editor of High Country News, an independent magazine that produces some of the finest journalism in the American West, and the lead editor of its Conservation Beyond Boundaries series.
Paolo Bacigalupi
Paolo Bacigalupi is a renowned author of speculative fiction, boasting international bestseller status. His accolades include prestigious awards such as the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, John W. Campbell, and Locus Awards. Notably, he has been a finalist for the National Book Award and a recipient of the Micheal L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature. Bacigalupi's thematic focus often centers around sustainability and environmental issues, particularly the ramifications of climate change. He has penned novels catering to adult, young adult, and children audiences, showcasing his versatility as a writer.
David Quammen
David Quammen was born in 1948 and raised in the suburbs of Cincinnati, where he spent much of his boyhood exploring a hardwood forest nearby. The destruction of this forest by bulldozers left a lasting impression on him, shaping his perspective in a profound way. After completing his education at Yale and Oxford, and publishing his first novel, he relocated to Montana in 1973, initially unaware that it would become his permanent home. His second book, a spy novel, was published in 1983, followed by "The Soul of Viktor Tronko," based on historical events involving a Russian defector, which was released by Doubleday in 1987 to little success. In 1988, "Blood Line: Stories of Fathers and Sons" was published by Graywolf. During this time, he transitioned into a nonfiction writer.
Laura Pritchett
Laura Pritchett is the author of seven novels, two nonfiction books, and editor of three environmental-based anthologies. Her work has been the recipient of the PEN USA Award, the Milkweed National Fiction Prize, the WILLA, the High Plains Book Award, and several Colorado Book Awards. Known for championing the complex and contemporary West, giving voice to the working class, and “re-writing the traditional Western,” her books are always explorations of the very-serious business of living a full and honest life. Pritchett developed and directs the MFA in Nature Writing at Western Colorado University. When not writing or teaching, she’s generally found exploring the mountains of her home state of Colorado.
Kevin Fedarko
Over the past two decades, Kevin Fedarko has dedicated his writing to topics revolving around conservation, exploration, and the iconic Grand Canyon. His professional journey includes roles as a staff writer at Time magazine, focusing primarily on foreign affairs, and as a senior editor at Outside, where he delved into the realm of outdoor adventure. Fedarko's byline has graced the pages of esteemed publications such as National Geographic, the New York Times, and Esquire. His debut book, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon, not only claimed a National Outdoor Book Award but also secured the Reading the West Book Award and attained New York Times bestseller status. Currently residing in Flagstaff, Arizona, Fedarko continues to weave narratives that shed light on the natural wonders and challenges facing the environment.
Laura Krantz
Laura Krantz is a journalist, editor and producer, in both radio and print, and co-founder of Foxtopus Ink. Her podcast, Wild Thing has received critical acclaim from Scientific American, Rolling Stone, and The Atlantic, which named it one of the best 50 podcasts in 2018 and 2020. Wild Thing is also the inspiration for a series of non-fiction, middle-grade books from ABRAMS Kids, including The Search for Sasquatch and Is There Anybody Out There?.
In addition to Wild Thing, her recent work includes editing and production work on The Syndicate (Imperative Entertainment/Foxtopus), Side Door (Smithsonian), Air/Space (Smithsonian), and others. Laura's prior experience includes a decade of editing and producing at NPR in Washington, DC, and at KPCC in Los Angeles.
Her writing has appeared in Popular Science, Smithsonian Magazine, Outside, High Country News, Newsweek and, her personal favorite, the Archie McPhee Catalog. She currently lives in Denver.
Rebecca Boyle
As a journalist, Rebecca Boyle has reported from particle accelerators, genetic sequencing labs, bat caves, the middle of a lake, the tops of mountains, and the retractable domes of some of Earth’s largest telescopes. Her first book, OUR MOON: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are (Random House, 2024) is a new history of humanity’s relationship with the Moon, which Rebecca has not yet visited on assignment.
Steven Dunn
A 2021 Whiting Award winner, and shortlisted for Granta magazine’s “Best of Young American Novelists,” Steven Dunn is the author of two books from Tarpaulin Sky Press: Water & Power (2018) and Potted Meat, which was a co-winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards, a finalist for the Colorado Book Award, and has been adapted for a short film entitled The Usual Route, from Foothills Productions. Steven was born and raised in West Virginia, and after 10 years in the Navy he earned a B.A. in Creative Writing from University of Denver.
Buzzy Jackson
Buzzy Jackson is the award-winning author of three nonfiction books and the novel To Die Beautiful (Dutton). Buzzy grew up in an extended family of writers in Truckee, California and Missoula, Montana and currently lives in Colorado. She has a Ph.D. in History from UC Berkeley and is a member of the National Book Critics’ Circle. She is currently at work on a new novel inspired by a midcentury American true crime. Buzzy’s favorite quote about writing is from the poet Muriel Rukeyser:
The universe is made of stories,
not of atoms.
– Muriel Rukeyser, “The Speed of Darkness”
Aaron Abeyta
Aaron Abeyta is a Colorado native, Professor of English and the former Mayor of Antonito, Colorado, his hometown. Abeyta is also the co-founder of The Justice & Heritage Academy.
He is the author of five collections of poetry and one novel. For his book, colcha, Abeyta received an American Book Award and the Colorado Book Award. His most recent book, Ancestor of Fire is shortlisted for the Reading the West Book Award. In addition, his novel, Rise, Do Not be Afraid, was a finalist for the 2007 Colorado Book Award and El Premio Aztlan. Abeyta was awarded a Colorado Council on the Arts Fellowship for poetry, and he is the former Poet Laureate of Colorado’s Western Slope, as named by the Karen Chamberlain Poetry Festival. Abeyta is also a recipient of a Governor’s Creative Leadership Award for 2017. Abeyta was a finalist for Colorado Poet Laureate, 2019.
Olivia Chadha
Olivia writes science fiction, fantasy, comic books, and literary novels for MG, YA, and adult audiences. BALANCE OF FRAGILE THINGS is her debut adult literary novel. RISE OF THE RED HAND, her YA debut, was awarded the Colorado Book Award for Young Adult Literature. Book two of The Mechanists Series, FALL OF THE IRON GODS will be out April 2024. She is a contributor to the YA folk horror anthology THE GATHERING DARK (Page Street), the desi anthology MAGIC HAS NO BORDERS (HarperTeen), and the STAR WARS anthology, Return of the Jedi: From A Certain Point of View. She lives in Colorado with her family.
Ryan Warner
Ryan Warner is senior host of Colorado Matters, the flagship daily interview program from CPR News. His voice is heard on frequencies around the state as he talks with Coloradans from all walks of life — politicians, scientists, artists, activists and others. Ryan’s interviews with Colorado’s governor now span four administrations. During his tenure, Colorado Matters has consistently been recognized as the best major market public radio talk show in the country. He speaks French, geeks out on commercial aviation, adores and tolerates his tuxedo cat Bob, and owns too many shoes.
Sarah Scoles
As a Colorado-based science journalist, Sarah Scoles serves as a contributing editor at Scientific American and holds the position of senior contributor at Undark. Sarah’s insightful articles have been featured in prestigious publications such as the New York Times, Wired, Popular Science, the Washington Post, and Outside, among others. They are also an accomplished author, having penned books including Making Contact: Jill Tarter and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence and They Are Already Here: UFO Culture and Why We See Saucers. Sarah’s forthcoming book, titled Countdown: The Blinding Future of Nuclear Weapons, is set to be released on February 6, 2024, and is currently available for pre-order. Sarah’s exceptional writing has earned her accolades such as the American Geophysical Union's David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Writing in 2021, as well as the American Astronomical Society Solar Physics Division's Popular Media Award in both 2019 and 2020.
Dave Gonzales
Dave Gonzales is a versatile writer, producer, and podcast host based in Denver, Colorado. His insightful commentary on movies and pop culture has graced the pages of esteemed publications such as the New York Times, the Guardian, Forbes.com, TVGuide.com, VanityFair.com, Thrillist.com, Polygon.com, and Geek.com. Notably, he authored a weekly column about Marvel for LatinoReview.com from 2013 to 2017. During his time at New York University, he co-founded the acclaimed independent podcast "Fighting In The War Room," recognized as one of Time magazine's top ten podcasts of 2021. Upon returning to Colorado, Dave expanded his podcasting endeavors, helming "The Storm: A Lost Rewatch Podcast" and "Trial By Content" for The Ringer network.
Karen Auvinen
Karen Auvinen is an award-winning poet, mountain woman, life-long westerner, writer, educator, speaker, and the author of the memoir Rough Beauty: Forty Seasons of Mountain Living (Scribner).
Her work has appeared in The New York Times, LitHub, Real Simple, Westword, and The Rumpus, as well as numerous literary journals. Karen is the founder of Writing Wild Workshops and is on the Graduate Faculty in Nature Writing at Western Colorado University and also teaches writing workshops at Lighthouse Writers Workshop, for Fishtrap Writing the West and Hudson Valley Writers Center, in addition to teaching film, pop culture, and storytelling to first-years at the CU – Boulder.
Karen lives in the Colorado mountains with the artist Greg Marquez, their dog River, and Dottie the Cat.
Manuel Aragon
Manuel Aragon is a Latinx writer, director, and filmmaker from Denver, CO. He is currently working on a short story collection, Norteñas. Norteñas is a collection of speculative fiction short stories centered in the Northside, a Mexican and Mexican-American-centered part of Denver, and the people, ghosts, and demons that live there.
His work has appeared in ANMLY. His short story, A Violent Noise, was nominated for the 2020 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. He is a 2021 Periplus Collective Fellow, a 2021 NYFA IAP Mentor, and a 2023 Tin House Residency winner. He is also a Colorado Book Award finalist as editor of the anthology, All The Lives We Ever Lived: Vol 2. He graduated from NYU’s Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film and Television. His film work - writing and directing - has been featured on MTV, Pitchfork, and Stereogum. He most recently won the CineLatino Pitch Latino Award for Emerging Filmmakers with my web series, Welcome to the Northside, a comedic take on gentrification and Latino displacement in North Denver.
Anne Hillerman
Anne Hillerman is the author of best-selling mystery novels and an executive producer of the Dark Winds television series on AMC.
Anne moved to the Southwest with her parents as a toddler, and has happily lived in Santa Fe and Tucson ever since. The eldest of author Tony Hillerman’s six children, she began her career as a newspaper reporter, editor and columnist and then began to write non-fiction books. One of these books, Tony Hillerman’s Landscape, on the Road with Chee and Leaphorn, unexpectedly became her bridge to the rewarding world of writing detective fiction.
After her father’s death, Anne continued the Jim Chee/Joe Leaphorn mystery series with her debut novel, Spider Woman’s Daughter. The book elevated a minor character, Officer Bernadette Manuelito, to the role of major crime solver. It won the Spur Award from Western Writers of America as the best first mystery. Tony’s fans liked the book, too, and Anne received multibook contract for the renamed Leaphorn, Chee and Manuelito series. Anne also has been honored with several New Mexico/Arizona book awards, the Frank Waters Awards, The Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award, The Rounders Award, and many others.
Justin Farrell
Justin Farrell is Professor of Sociology at Yale University, in the School of the Environment.
Farrell researches how different human societies understand the natural world. He focuses on the causes and consequences of climate change, social class, morality, and epistemology. His studies blend large-scale computational methods with local qualitative fieldwork.
His books and articles have won national awards and regularly appear in major media. He frequently presents findings to policymakers, including the U.S. Senate, the White House, the Vatican, and the United Nations. His research has been published by Science, Princeton University Press, the American Sociological Review, PNAS, Nature Climate Change, Social Problems, among others, and funded by the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation.
Justin is a proud first-generation college graduate and Wyoming native. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. He splits time between rural Wyoming, Denver, and New Haven.
Julian Rubinstein
Julian Rubinstein is a journalist, author and documentary filmmaker. His most recent nonfiction book and documentary, THE HOLLY, was reported over eight years in a gentrifying community in Denver, where a misunderstood gang shooting case becomes a window into the political machinations of urban development, policing and the city’s gang activity. The film premiered on Starz and Apple Plus in 2023 and was selected by the International Documentary Association to play in its FallDocs series for Oscar longlisted films. The book was a New York Times “Editors’ Choice” and winner of the 2022 High Plains Book Award and Colorado Book Award. His first book, Ballad of the Whiskey Robber, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a finalist for the Edgar Allan Poe Award. He is Visiting Filmmaker at Western Colorado University.
Leath Tonino
Leath Tonino is the author of two essay collections about the outdoors, most recently The West Will Swallow You. A freelance writer, his work appears in Orion, The Sun, High Country News, Adventure Journal, and elsewhere.
Wendy Videlock
Award winning essayist and poet Wendy Videlock lives on the edge of a canyon in Palisade, where the peaches grow in abundance and the vineyards stretch across the valley. Her syndicated newspaper column appears across the four-corner states. Wendy hosts a literary radio show and advocates for the arts in schools and public spaces. Her essays and poems appear most notably in The New York Times, Poetry Magazine, Hudson Review, O Magazine, Best American Poetry and Rattle. Her books of poems and essays are available wherever books are sold. Wendy believes that the arts and humanities might just be the answer to all that ails us. She currently serves as poet laureate of Western Colorado.
Claire Boyles
Claire Boyles (she/her) is a writer, mom, and former farmer who lives and writes in Colorado. A 2022 Whiting Award winner in fiction, she is the author of Site Fidelity, which won the 2022 High Plains Book Award for Short Stories. Site Fidelity was also longlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Award and the Reading the West Award and was a finalist for both the Colorado Book Award and the WILLA Literary Award in Multiform Fiction. Her writing has appeared in VQR, Kenyon Review, Boulevard, and Masters Review, among others. She is a Peter Taylor Fellow for the Kenyon Review Writing Workshops and has received support from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Foundation, the Bread Loaf Orion Environmental Writers Workshop, and the Community of Writers. She teaches in Eastern Oregon University’s MFA in Creative and Environmental Writing and in Western Colorado University’s MFA in Nature Writing .
Scott Graham
Scott Graham is the critically acclaimed author of the National Park Mystery Series, published by Torrey House Press. Canyonlands Carnage, book seven in the series, was a finalist for the 2022 Colorado Book Award. Death Valley Duel, book nine in the series, will be released June 4.
Scott’s mysteries explore environmental and social-justice issues in national parks across the West through the lens of archaeologist Chuck Bender and his ever-endangered family. Bestselling author William Kent Krueger called Scott’s debut mystery, Canyon Sacrifice, “engrossing…a topnotch read.” Nina de Gramont, author of the bestselling The Christie Affair, calls Death Valley Duel, which features a deadly ultra trail-running race across the Mojave Desert, “a taut, smart, and propulsive thriller.”
Scott is an avid outdoorsman who enjoys whitewater rafting, mountaineering, and backpacking. He lives with his wife, an emergency physician, in Durango, Colorado. In addition to his mysteries, Scott is the author of five nonfiction books, including Extreme Kids, winner of the National Outdoor Book Award.
Amy Ellwein
A geologist, science educator, and entrepreneur, Amy has been a university professor, a US Geological Survey geologist, founded and run a Lidar services company, as well as and a teacher professional development group, and served the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory as Director of Science Education and Communications. Currently, she runs Paradox Geologic, is a Research Professor at Western Colorado University, and guides tours with various local groups including JJ’s Jeeps. Her first book for laymen comes from her desire to share her geologic knowledge with all students of the natural world.
Paige Vega
Paige Vega is the Climate Editor at Vox.com where she steers the team's coverage of the climate crisis and the environment, biodiversity and science. She writes at the intersection of climate, nature and communities and is fascinated by notions of coexistence. Prior to joining Vox, Paige spent nearly a decade as a writer and editor at High Country News magazine, a publication that covers the Western United States. In addition to HCN, her work has been featured in The Atlantic, Mother Jones and The Guardian, among others, and has been recognized by The Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology. She also currently serves as a mentor for the Society of Environmental Journalists and The Uproot Project, a network for environmental journalists of color, and a student-led publication in southwestern Colorado, where she lives, skis and gardens at 6,512 feet.