With fall come the literary events in Colorado. First out of the chute is the Colorado Book Awards presented by the Colorado Center for the Book on Wednesday, followed by Women Writing the West’s Willa Literary Awards on Thursday, The Post-News Pen & Podium Series kickoff Oct. 24 and the 40th annual Jewish Community Center’s Book Festival in November.
Colorado Book Awards
The Colorado Book Awards will be presented at a gala beginning at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Donald R. Seawell Grand Ballroom of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, 1245 Champa St., Denver. The event will be emceed by Nick Forster, musician and “etown” radio host. Finalists are:
Anthology/Collection
Gwen Meyer Gregory, “The Successful Academic Librarian: Winning Strategies From Library Leaders”; Walter Hecox, F. Patrick Holmes and Bryan Hurlbutt, “The 2005 Colorado College State of the Rockies Report Card”; Andrew Gulliford, “Preserving Western History”; Matthew Davis and Sonya Unrein, “Open Windows”; and Gary Wockner, Gregory McNamee and Sue Ellen Campbell, “Comeback Wolves: Western Writers Welcome the Wolf Home.”
Children’s Literature
Linda Ashman, illustrations by Nadine Bernard Westcott, “To the Beach”; Steve Jenkins, “Prehistoric Actual Size”; and Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel, “The Great Fuzz Frenzy.”
Creative Nonfiction
Steven Church, “The Guinness Book of Me”; Robert King, “Stepping Twice Into the River: Following Dakota Waters”; and J.R. Moehringer, “The Tender Bar.”
Fiction
Nick Arvin, “Articles of War”; Jim Fergus, “The Wild Girl”; Pam Houston, “Sight Hound”; and Laura Pritchett, “Sky Bridge.”
History/Biography
Charles Wilkinson, “Blood Struggle: The Rise of Modern Indian Nations”; Teva Scheer, “Governor Lady: The Life and Times of Nellie Taylor Ross”; and Flint Whitlock, “Given Up for Dead: American GIs in the Nazi Concentration Camp at Berga.”
Nonfiction
Dan Chiras, “Ecokids: Raising Children Who Care for the Earth”; Lisa Diane Foster, “Rocky Mountain National Park: The Complete Hiking Guide”; Janis Lindsey Huggins, “Town of Snowmass Village: Wild at Heart”; and Janice Busco and Rob Proctor, “First Garden: How to Get Started in Southwest Gardening.”
Pictorial
Walter R. Borneman, photos by Ted Caudle, “14,000 Feet: A Celebration of Colorado’s Highest Mountains”; John Fielder and Gillian Klucas, photos by Fielder, “Colorado 1870-2000 II”; Stephen H. Lekson, J. McKim Malville, photos by John Ninnemann, “Canyon Spirits: Beauty and Power in the Ancestral Puebloan World”; and Susan J. Tweit, photos by Jim Steinberg, “Colorado Less Traveled.”
Poetry
Aaron Anstett, “No Accident”; Ida Fasel, “Leafy as a Locust Tree”; Merrill Gilfillan, “Undanceable”; Jane Hilberry, “Body Painting”; David Keplinger, “The Clearing”; and Sheryl Alison Luna, “Pity the Drowned Horses.”
Popular Fiction
Carol Berg, “Daughter of Ancients”; Margaret Coel, “Eye of the Wolf”; and Jeff Shelby, “Killer Swell.”
Young Adult Literature
Julie Anne Peters, “Far From Xanadu”; Denise Vega, “Click Here (To Find Out How I Survived the Seventh Grade)”; and Victoria Hanley, “The Light of the Oracle.”
INFORMATION: Individual tickets, which include dinner, are $65 ($75 at the door). For more information, call 303-894-7951, ext. 10 or go to coloradocenterforthebook.org.
Women Writing the West
Guest speakers at the Women Writing the West event on Thursday will be Denver novelist Sandra Dallas, who also will be given the Willa Award for historical fiction for her novel “New Mercies,” and Texan Paulette Jiles, who won the same award in 2003 for “Enemy Women.”
Other winners of the 2006 Willa Award are Contemporary Fiction, Laura Pritchett, “Sky Bridge”; Original Softcover Fiction, Linda Jacobs, “Summer of Fire”; Children’s/Young Adult Fiction and Nonfiction, Linda Crew, “A Heart for Any Fate: Westward to Oregon – 1845”; Memoir/Essay, Dee Marvine, “The Lady Rode Bucking Horses”; Other Nonfiction, Susanne Bloomfield, editor, “Impertinences, Selected Writings of Elia Peattie “; and Poetry, Jane Elkington Wohl, “Beasts in the Snow.”
INFORMATION: The event will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Tattered Cover Book Store, 16th and Wynkoop streets, in Lower Downtown Denver. For more information: womenwritingthewest.org
Pen & Podium
Garry Trudeau, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist and creator of the “Doonesbury” comic strip, will appear Oct. 24 at the Newman Center on the campus of the University of Denver to kick off the Post-News Pen & Podium Series.
He’ll be followed Nov. 20 by J.R. Moehringer, whose recent memoir, “The Tender Bar,” was named best book of the year by The New York Times, Esquire, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, National Public Radio and other publications.
Amy Tan, author of such best-selling works as “The Joy Luck Club” and “Saving Fish From Drowning,” will appear Feb. 15.
Rounding out the series March 29 will be Azar Nafisi, who is best known for her best-selling “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books.”
INFORMATION: Tickets, priced from $33 to $48, are available from the Newman Center box office at 303-871-7720, Ticketmaster at 303-357-2787 or online at ticketmaster.com. Tickets for a cocktail reception, including an appearance by Trudeau, are also available for $40.
Festival of Jewish Books
Sue Miller, Naomi Rosenblatt, Rebecca Kohn, Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, Robin Chotzinoff, Rich Cohen, Michael Wex, David Margolick, Douglas Century and Jeffrey Goldberg are among the authors appearing at this year’s Leah Cohen Festival of Jewish Books, which runs from Nov. 26 to Dec. 17 at the Mizel Center for Arts and Culture, 350 S. Dahlia St., Denver.
SCHEDULE:
Nov. 26, 10:30 a.m., continental breakfast followed by a discussion with Miller, author of “I’m Tougher Than I Look: The Sue Miller Story.”
Nov. 28, 7 p.m., appearance by Rosenblatt, “After the Apple: Women in the Bible: Timeless Stories of Love, Lust and Longing,” and Kohn, “Seven Days to the Sea: An Epic Novel of the Exodus.”
Nov. 30, 7 p.m., Kushner, “Kabbalah: A Love Story.”
Dec. 4, 7 p.m., Chotzinoff, “Holy Unexpected: My New Life as a Jew.”
Dec. 5, 7 p.m., Cohen, “Sweet and Low.”
Dec. 10, 3 p.m., Wex, “Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All Its Moods.”
Dec. 12, 7 p.m. Margolick and Century, “Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling and a World on the Brink.”
Dec. 17, 3 p.m., Goldberg, “Prisoners: A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide.”
INFORMATION: Single tickets are $10 per event; tickets for all events are $36. Call 303-316-6360 or go to mizelcenter.org.
