The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
The Crested Butte Center for the Arts presents the sixth annual Mountain Words Festival that will start in just a few days. Held over Memorial Day weekend, May 22-25, Mountain Words returns with award winning local, regional and national authors. This year’s festival has something for everyone with more than 20 free events, 50 presenters, workshops for all writers, environmental panels and author talks. This year’s festival will also include events at the Gunnison Library branch.
Shelley Read, beloved local author of the internationally celebrated novel, Go as a River, will be at the center of workshops for fiction writers thinking about everything from starting with the first word to the challenges of publishing. Shelley will be in a conversation titled, “Drafting the Novel” with two-time Oprah Book Club author, David Wroblewski, known for his now classic Story of Edgar Sawtelle and its sequel, Familiaris. For writers of poetry, memoir and fiction, Mountain Words has created tracks of educational opportunities for all writers to focus on craft.
Poets will love working with University of Colorado creative writing professor Rajiv Mohabir in his environmental poetry workshop. Other poetry offerings include Western creative writing professor, CMarie Fuhrman and her session on elemental landscapes. Award winning Colorado poets Erica Reid and Teow Lim Goh will discuss their new books Ghost Man on Second and Bitter Creek. Both poets offer readers their perspectives on how they use craft to shape intimate trauma and historical narrative.
Writers looking to tell personal stories will take much away from sessions with 2024 Nonfiction National Book Award finalist Deborah Jackson Taffa. Beginning with a panel on Saturday, May 24 on Creating Narrative Around the Personal, a conversation with Chris La Tray and Hillary Leftwich, these writers will explore the avenues of creation for memoir. On Sunday, May 25, Taffa will lead a workshop on The Act of Self Confrontation for writers looking to delve even deeper into what makes memoir compelling.
Workshops are an integral part of the festival as it was originally conceived for writers, by writers. Organizer Arvin Ram has primarily been a fiction writer and founder Brooke Macmillan, who now stewards the Crested Butte Magazine, a nonfiction writer.
In addition to programming at the Center for the Arts, Mountain Words is proud to co-host events with the Gunnison County Library at its Gunnison Branch. Events begin May 22 at 6 p.m. with community read, The Bullet Swallower, a historical novel by Elizabeth James Gonzalez. Free copies will be available at the library. On May 23 at 6 p.m., Kevin Grange will have a presentation on bears for his book, Grizzly Confidential: An Astounding Journey into the Secret Life of North America’s Most Fearsome Predator. On May 24 at 6 p.m., Colorado author and 2024 National Book Award longlister Rebecca Boyle will talk about her book, Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are. Last and certainly not least, legendary outdoor author Michael Engelhard will discuss his 2024 National Outdoor Book Award winning book, Arctic Traverse: A Thousand-Mile Summer of Trekking the Brooks Range at 1 p.m. on May 25. All events at the Gunnison Library are free and open to the public.
Access to the festival is central to its mission and to ensure inclusion for all, the weekend will feature free community events, along with student and senior reduced pricing for workshops.
For a full schedule, free tickets, passes, information, student/senior pricing and more, please visit mtnwords.org or contact [email protected]
