2025 Authors + Presenters

Deborah Taffa

Whiskey Tender, by Harper Books

Deborah Taffa’s Whiskey Tender, a National Book Award Finalist 2024, as well as a longlisted title for the 2025 Carnegie Medal for Excellence, was named to the year’s best lists at Time Magazine, Esquire, Publisher’s Weekly, The Atlantic, Audible, Esquire, and other outlets. With awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN America, MacDowell, the Ellen Meloy Foundation, Tin House, and the NY Summer Writers Institute, Deborah received her MFA CW in Iowa City. Her work can be found at PBS, Salon, The LA Review of Books, and outlets. A citizen of the Kwatsaan Nation and Laguna Pueblo, she is the director of the MFA CW program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM.

  • Coming soon!

Ben Goldfarb

Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet and Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter

Ben Goldfarb is an environmental journalist whose work has appeared in National Geographic, the Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, High Country News, and many other publications. He is the author of Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet, named one of the best books of 2023 by the New York Times and winner of the Sierra Club’s Rachel Carson Award and the Banff Book Competition's Grand Prize. His previous book, Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, received the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. He lives in Colorado with his wife, Elise, and his dog, Kit — which is, of course, what you call a baby beaver.

Shelley Read Author of Go as a River.

Shelley Read

Go as a River

Hillary Leftwich is a multi-media writer and the author of Ghosts Are Just Strangers Who Know How to Knock (Agape Editions, 2023), Aura (Future Tense Books, 2022), and Saint Dymphna’s Playbook (forthcoming from Limit Zero, 2025). She teaches creative writing, business writing, and environmental writing and storytelling at several universities, writing organizations, and nonprofits for adults, previously incarcerated and hospitalized youth, and unhoused populations. She centers her writing around themes of class struggle, colonialism, the impact of disease, ritual, and the supernatural. On the outskirts of the writing world, she is a professional Tarot reader and death worker.

Shelley Read’s international bestselling debut novel, Go As A River, is translated into thirty-four languages and appears on bestseller lists worldwide. Winner of the 2024 High Plains Book Award for Fiction and the 2023 Reading the West Award for Best Debut, Go As A River is also a Sunday Times and ABA bestseller, Goodreads Choice Award Finalist, Amazon Editor's Pick Best Debut, Indie Next Pick, and Colorado Public Radio Books We Love selection, among other national and international accolades. The novel is currently in development for film with Mazur Kaplan Productions. Shelley was an award-winning Senior Lecturer at Western Colorado University for nearly three decades where she taught writing, literature, environmental studies, and honors. A long-time Crested Butte local and regular contributor it Crested Butte Magazine and Gunnison Valley Journal, Shelley is also a mom, mountaineer, world traveler, and proud fifth generation Coloradan. More information is at www.shelleyread.com.

Hillary Leftwich's book Aura.

Hillary Leftwich

Ghosts Are Just Strangers Who Know How to Knock (Agape Editions, 2023)

Hillary Leftwich is a multi-media writer and the author of Ghosts Are Just Strangers Who Know How to Knock (Agape Editions, 2023), Aura (Future Tense Books, 2022), and Saint Dymphna’s Playbook (forthcoming from Limit Zero, 2025). She teaches creative writing, business writing, and environmental writing and storytelling at several universities, writing organizations, and nonprofits for adults, previously incarcerated and hospitalized youth, and unhoused populations. She centers her writing around themes of class struggle, colonialism, the impact of disease, ritual, and the supernatural. On the outskirts of the writing world, she is a professional Tarot reader and death worker.

Mapping Your Novel by Doug Kurtz.

Doug Kurtz

Mapping Your Novel

For nearly three decades Doug Kurtz has taught writers in every context from universities and nonprofits to international retreats and his own coaching business. He is the co-creator of the Story Map, a holistic methodology that helps novelists of all stripes and skill levels write deeply impactful books. His clients have signed with literary agents, traditionally and self-published, won awards, topped the Amazon charts, received celebrity accolades, and, most importantly, finished novels they're proud to have written.

Author of the novel Mosquito, Doug has a graduate degree in creative writing from the University of Colorado and has served as core faculty at Lighthouse Writers Workshop. Beyond his professional endeavors, his passion for exploring the Rockies reflects his belief that, with the right map, even the highest peaks are within reach. Doug lives in Boulder with his wife and son and their Bearded Collie, Mudge

Ramona Ausubel's new book The Last Animal.

Ramona Ausubel

The Last Animal

Ramona Ausubel’s fifth book, The Last Animal was a national bestseller, a Barnes & Noble book of the month and named a best book of 2023 by NPR, Kirkus and the Oprah quarterly. Her previous books are Awayland: stories, Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty, A Guide to Being Born and No One is Here Except All of Us. She is the recipient of the PEN/USA Fiction Award, the Cabell First Novelist Award and has been a finalist for both the California and Colorado Book Awards and the New York Public Library Young Lions Award. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review daily, One Story, Tin House, The Oxford American, Ploughshares and elsewhere. She is a professor at Colorado State University and lives in Boulder with her family.

Kevin Grange

Wild Rescues: A Paramedic's Extreme Adventures in Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Grand Teton

Kevin Grange is a former National Park Ranger and the award-winning author of Wild Rescues: A Paramedic's Extreme Adventures in Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Grand Teton, along with Beneath Blossom Rain: Discovering Bhutan on the Toughest Trek in the World. His newest book, Grizzly Confidential: An Astounding Journey into the Secret Life of North America’s Most Fearsome Predator was published in September 2024 by Harper Horizon. Aside from writing, Kevin works as a firefighter paramedic with Jackson Hole Fire/EMS, lectures frequently at writing and wilderness medical conferences, and enjoys skiing, mountain biking, and trail running with his wife and golden retriever in the Tetons. Visit him at: www.kevingrange.com

  • Coming soon!

Olivia Chadha

Rise of the Red Hand

Olivia Chadha writes science fiction, fantasy, comic books, and literary novels for MG, YA, and adult audiences. She has a Ph.D. in literature and creative writing and her research centers on the history of exile, India’s Partition, precarious borders and boundaries, global folklore and fairy tales, and the relationship between humans, machines and the environment. Her novels include BALANCE OF FRAGILE THINGS, RISE OF THE RED HAND, FALL OF THE IRON GODS. She is a contributor to the anthologies THE GATHERING DARK, MAGIC HAS NO BORDERS, and the STAR WARS anthology, Return of the Jedi: From A Certain Point of View.

David Wroblewski with his book Familiaris.

David Wroblewski

Familiaris

David Wroblewski is the author, most recently, of the novel Familiaris, a 2024 Oprah Book Club pick and follow-up to his internationally bestselling debut, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, also an Oprah Book Club pick, and selected as one of the best books of the year by numerous magazines and Newspapers.

David has been featured in Barnes & Noble's Discover Great New Writers program and is the recipient of a Colorado Book Award, Indie Choice Best Author Discovery award, and the Midwest Bookseller Association's Choice award. He lives in Colorado with the writer Kimberly McClintock and their dogs, Pie and Luci.

Paolo Bacigalupi

Navola

Paolo Bacigalupi is an internationally bestselling author of speculative fiction. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, John W. Campbell and Locus Awards, as well as being a finalist for the National Book Award and a winner of the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature. His latest book is NAVOLA, an epic fantasy set in a world inspired in part by the settings and politics of the Italian Renaissance. He can be found online at windupstories.com.

Our Moon, a book by Rebecca Boyle.

Rebecca Boyle

Our Moon: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are

As a journalist, Rebecca Boyle has reported from particle accelerators, genetic sequencing labs, bat caves, the middle of a lake, 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. Based in Colorado Springs, Colo., Rebecca is a contributing editor at Scientific American, a contributing writer at Quanta Magazine, and a columnist at Atlas Obscura. She is a frequent contributor to the New York Times and The Atlantic, and her work appears in a wide variety of publications for adults and kids. Rebecca’s work has been anthologized multiple times in the Best American Science and Nature Writing series, and she is the recipient of numerous writing awards, and her first book was longlisted for the National Book Award. Rebecca is a former daily newspaper reporter and lifelong Moon enthusiast.

The War Below at Mountain Words Festival

Ernest Scheyder

The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power our Lives

Ernest Scheyder is a journalist for Reuters and author of "The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power our Lives," (One Signal/Simon & Schuster, 2024), which tells the untold story of the people and places at the center of our global energy transition. The book was longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award for Nonfiction and the Financial Times/Schroders Business Book of the Year. It was also named the American Energy Society's 2024 Energy Book of the Year. A native of Maine, Scheyder previously wrote about the U.S. shale oil revolution, politics, and the environment. He is a graduate of the University of Maine and Columbia Journalism School and lives in Houston with his family.

Rajiv Mohabir, author of Whale Aria

Rajiv Mohabir

Whale Aria

Poet, memoirist, and translator, Rajiv Mohabir is the author of five books of poetry that have been awarded gold in Forward Indies and Eric Hoffer Medal Provocateur. His other honors include being finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/America Open Book Award, the Lambda Literary Award, the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction, and both second place and finalist for the Guyana Prize for Literature. His translations have won the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the American Academy of Poets. Currently he teaches poetry at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Leah Sottile's book Blazing Eye Sees All.

Leah Sottile

Blazing Eye Sees All

Leah Sottile is the author of two books: Blazing Eye Sees All and When the Moon Turns to Blood. Her journalism has been published by The Washington Post, The New York Times Magazine, Playboy, Rolling Stone, Outside, the BBC, The Atlantic and High Country News, where she is a correspondent. She is the host of the podcasts Hush, Burn Wild, Two Minutes Past Nine and the National Magazine Award-nominated series Bundyville. She lives in Oregon.

Elizabeth Gonzalez James

The Bullet Swallower

Elizabeth Gonzalez James is a screenwriter and bestselling author of the novels, The Bullet Swallower and Mona at Sea, as well as the chapbook, Five Conversations About Peter Sellers. The Bullet Swallower was named a best book of 2024 by NPR, Esquire, and elsewhere, was a Book of the Month Club pick, and was featured on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” as one of their spring book club picks. Elizabeth was featured on the MSNBC documentary “My Generation” representing the Millennials. She has taught fiction writing at Grub Street, Pioneer Valley Writers Workshop, Story Studio, and elsewhere. Originally from South Texas, Elizabeth now lives with her family in Massachusetts.

Laura Kratz, Author of The Search for Sasquatch

Laura Krantz

The Search for Sasquatch

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, Is There Anybody Out There?, and Do You Believe In Magic?.

In addition to Wild Thing, her recent work includes reporting, editing and production work on Master Plan (The Lever), 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.

Teow Lim Goh, author of Bitter Creek.

Teow Lim Goh

Bitter Creek

Teow Lim Goh is the author of three poetry collections, Islanders (2016), Faraway Places (2021), and Bitter Creek (2025). Her essay collection Western Journeys (2022) was a finalist for the 2023 Colorado Book Awards in Creative Nonfiction. Her writing has been featured in The Georgia Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Los Angeles Review of Books, High Country News, and The New Yorker.

Will Cockrell

Everest, Inc.

Will Cockrell has spent more than twenty years as a senior editor, writer, and consultant for national magazines including Men’s Journal, Outside, Men’s Fitness, and GQ. His work has been acclaimed by the American Society of Magazine Editors and the Professional Publishers Association (UK). A former outdoor guide, Cockrell has covered Everest throughout his career and has visited Everest base camp in Nepal. He lives with his family in Los Angeles.

Michael Engelhard, Author of Arctic Traverse

Michael Engelhard

Arctic Traverse

Trained as an anthropologist with a degree from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Michael Engelhard worked for twenty-five years as a wilderness guide and outdoor instructor in Alaska and on the Colorado Plateau. The editor of four anthologies and author of Ice Bear, a cultural history of the polar bear, he has won three Alaska Press Club Awards, and a Rasmuson Individual Artist Award. Recent books include the National Outdoor Book Award-winning memoir Arctic Traverse as well as What the River Knows: Essays from the Heart of Alaska, and the Grand Canyon essay collection No Walk in the Park. His writing has also appeared in publications like Outside, Sierra, Backpacker, National Parks, Audubon, Utne Reader, and Times Literary Supplement, with more than a hundred articles in Alaska magazine. Engelhard currently lives in Moab again, working on a book about Nome, where he also has been a resident.

Erica Reid author of Ghost man on second

Erica Reid

Ghost Man on Second

Erica Reid is the author of Ghost Man on Second, winner of the Donald Justice Poetry Prize (Autumn House Press, 2024). Erica’s poems appear in Rattle, Cherry Tree, Colorado Review, and more. Erica is a 2025 Fellow at the Vermont Center for the Creative Arts and teaches in Western Colorado University’s MFA program. ericareidpoet.com

Join us for the sixth annual Mountain Words Festival

*

Join us for the sixth annual Mountain Words Festival *