Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and the author of ten books, including A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

International bestselling novelist whose debut book, Go as a River, is being translated into over thirty languages and has been optioned for film by Mazur Kaplan

Métis Storyteller and Montana Poet Laureate.
Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians

Author of American Zion & True West, Gaines Quammen collects stories to make sense of a place defined by colonization, extraction, rebellion, myth, beauty, and land.

Award-winning editor of Outside and the author of the bestselling histories Hellhound on his Trial, Blood and Thunder and Ghost Soldiers.

Michelle Nijhuis is a science writer in Washington State and the author of Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction.

Literary director at the Library of Congress, Smith oversees the Library’s ambassadorships, which include the United States Poet Laureate and curation of the annual National Book Festival.

Award-winning artist, organizer, educator and author of poetry collections Poems for the End of the World, A Gospel of Bones, and Thirteen Descansos

Internationally bestselling author of speculative fiction and winner of the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, and Michael L. Printz Awards, and was a National Book Award finalist.

Author and journalist whose eighteen books include Breathless (2022), The Tangled Tree (2018), Spillover (2012), The Song of the Dodo (1996) and, most recently, The Heartbeat of the Wild (2023).

Author of five literary novels and one book of nonfiction. Her work is rooted in the American West.

A 2022 Whiting Award winner in fiction, Claire 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.

Fedarko’s writing has appeared in National Geographic, The New York Times, and Esquire. Fedarko is the author of The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon, a New York Times bestseller that won the National Outdoor Book Award and the Reading the West Award.

Award-winning journalist covering the cosmos, with a focus on astronomy, space exploration, and history. New book Our Moon; How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are

2021 Whiting Award winner and author of the novels Potted Meat, and Water & Power

Award-winning author of the novel To Die Beautiful, and three previous books of nonfiction. Buzzy has a PhD in History from UC Berkeley and is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.

Author of five collections of poetry and one novel. His book Colcha won an American Book Award and the Colorado Book Award.

Award-winning MG, YA, and adult novelist. Chadha has a PhD in literature and creative writing, and focuses on the history of exile, global folklore, and the relationship between humans, machines and the environment.

Senior host of Colorado Matters, the flagship daily interview program from Colorado Public Radio 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.

Colorado-based science journalist, a contributing editor at Popular Science and senior contributor at Undark, and author of Making Contact (2017) and They Are Already Here (2020),

Writer, producer, and podcast host, Dave has written about movies and pop culture for The New York Times, The Guardian, Forbes.com, TVGuide.com, VanityFair.com, Thrillist.com, Polygon.com, and Geek.com. He co-authored the nonfiction book, MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios released November 2023.

Professor of Sociology at Yale University, in the School of the Environment, Farrell researches how different human societies understand the natural world. 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.

Journalist, editor and producer, in both radio and print, Laura is 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?.

Award-winning writer, educator, speaker, and the author of the memoir Rough Beauty: Forty Seasons of Mountain Living.
Her work has appeared in The New York Times, LitHub, Real Simple, Westword, and The Rumpus.

Best-selling author Anne Hillerman continues the Navajo detective stories her father Tony Hillerman made popular. Her debut novel, Spider Woman’s Daughter, received both the Spur and New Mexico-Arizona Book Award as best book of the year, and added a woman crime solver to the series’ male cast.

Executive Editor of High Country News, Gretchen holds a B.S. in journalism and master’s in professional communications and has worked in public relations, multimedia and journalism before landing at the magazine.

Latinx writer, director, and filmmaker. Currently working on a short story collection, Norteñas, a collection of speculative fiction short stories centered in the Northside, a Mexican and Mexican- Americans in Denver.

Journalist, author, and documentary filmmaker, Julian’s 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 political machinations.

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. ion goes here

Shannan Steele has been performing on Colorado stages for 30 years. She was most recently seen at The Arvada Center in Noises Off as Belinda Blair. Favorite productions include Into The Woods, Mamma Mia, The 1940’s Radio Hour, and Chicago as Roxie Hart.

Jordan Leigh is best known in Colorado for his record run in the original production of I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change (1731 Performances!) at the Denver Center For The Performing Arts. Other Denver Center performances include co-starring in First Date, Forbidden Broadway, The 12, Five Course Love, and White Christmas.

Author of two essay collections about the outdoors, most recently The West Will Swallow You, Leath is a freelance writer whose work appears in Orion, The Sun, High Country News, Adventure Journal, and elsewhere.

Award-winning author and journalist, Zak has spent more than a decade writing about water and conservation issues in the western United States, including his first book, Confluence: Navigating the Personal & Political on Rivers of the New West (Torrey House Press).

Hughes is a playwright, actor, director and currently Associate Professor and Director of Theatre at Western Colorado University. He is also the faculty mentor for playwriting at Regis University’s Mile-High MFA. His full-length plays include: Singletrack! the musical, Indiana, The Presidents!, Slabtown, Billy Hell, The Bad Man, cowboyily, Behold! The Fig Leaf Apron, Dogs by Seven and Poor Devils.

Heather Hughes is an actor, director and teaching artist with numerous national theatre credits. Heather’s voice can be heard on numerous radio ads and her face can be seen on numerous commercials. As a Teaching Artist, Heather has worked with The New Victory Theatre, Lincoln Center, Disney, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering in NYC, and ongoingly with The Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

Critically acclaimed author of the National Park Mystery Series, published by Torrey House Press, Graham’s latest book Canyonlands Carnage, was a finalist for the 2022 Colorado Book Award. Death Valley Duel, book nine in the series, will be released June 4.

Aerospace Engineer with a multidisciplinary background in satellite operations, mission design, human factors, and trajectory analysis. Projects include reusable space transportation systems, lunar and interplanetary cubesat missions and human space flight systems.

Sinjin is the Communications Director in the Southwest Region with American Rivers, a national river conservation non-profit, and is responsible for all communications and outreach efforts across the southwest, but most heavily Colorado River issues.

Conservation Biologist, David Inouye has been doing research in the mountains and meadows surrounding Gothic for 53 years. His primary area of study is flowers and insects, and the data he has collected is being used to study the impact of climate change.

Art Goodtimes is an American poet, farmer, and politician. Retired in 2016 after five terms as Colorado’s only Green Party county commissioner, Art Goodtimes has won numerous awards for his political activism and poetry.

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.

Award-winning poet, David has published many volumes of prose and six volumes of poetry, including My Brother’s Keeper and The Elephant’s Chiropractor, both of which were Finalists for the Colorado Book Award.

Geologist, science educator, and entrepreneur, Amy has been a university professor, a US Geological Survey geologist, and served the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory as Director of Science Education and Communications.

Ashley Salehi is a Fort Collins actress, dancer, singer, teacher, and improv comedian and tours with The Comedy Brewers and The Story Bakers.

Baskin is a Math major at Western Colorado University and CU has been featured in two productions with Western Theatre Company.

Shelbi is an actor and Communication Arts major with an emphasis in film studies at Western Colorado University.