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Friday, May 23
 

9:00am MDT

Uncovering the Unspoken: A Generative Memoir Writing Workshop
Friday May 23, 2025 9:00am - 10:00am MDT
In this generative writing workshop, we’ll tap into the transformative power of memoir.
We’ll explore how personal experience, imagination, and desire can shape meaningful narratives, while connecting to the collective moment. Through guided exercises, we’ll reflect on our vulnerabilities, complexities, and intuitions—both personal and shared. Together, we’ll dive into the challenge of expressing what often feels inexpressible. We’ll push boundaries, taking creative risks as we engage with difficult emotions and explore the messy, sometimes uncomfortable truths of our experiences.This workshop will encourage you to confront, tackle, and embrace the full spectrum of your story.
Speakers
avatar for Hillary Leftwich

Hillary Leftwich

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... Read More →
Friday May 23, 2025 9:00am - 10:00am MDT
2 King Room

10:15am MDT

Story Map Workshop Part 1 TICKETED
Friday May 23, 2025 10:15am - 11:15am MDT
Mapping Your Novel
Take your Pantsing and Planning to the next level and become a Mapper instead. In this two-part seminar, writing coaches Doug Kurtz and Dan Manzanares will introduce you to the Story Map, their breakthrough tool that helps novelists of all stripes and skill levels unlock the full potential of their books. Part 1, Orientation, is an introduction to the Story Map and how to use it, followed by an open Q&A session. Part 2, Implementation, is a hands-on workshop in which participants will explore the holistic landscape of Story that underlies craft and begin the Story Mapping process. Novelists in any genre, at any stage of the writing process are welcome.

Speakers
avatar for Dan Manzanares

Dan Manzanares

Dan Manzanares’ passion is helping novelists professionalize their writing process. The Story Map, a holistic storytelling model he co-created in a Costa Rican jungle, transforms writers to authors, people committed to connecting with readers. Working relationally, instead of structurally... Read More →
avatar for Doug Kurtz

Doug Kurtz

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... Read More →
Friday May 23, 2025 10:15am - 11:15am MDT
2 King Room

12:30pm MDT

Story Map Workshop Part 2 TICKETED
Friday May 23, 2025 12:30pm - 1:30pm MDT
Mapping Your Novel
Take your Pantsing and Planning to the next level and become a Mapper instead. In this two-part seminar, writing coaches Doug Kurtz and Dan Manzanares will introduce you to the Story Map, their breakthrough tool that helps novelists of all stripes and skill levels unlock the full potential of their books. Part 1, Orientation, is an introduction to the Story Map and how to use it, followed by an open Q&A session. Part 2, Implementation, is a hands-on workshop in which participants will explore the holistic landscape of Story that underlies craft and begin the Story Mapping process. Novelists in any genre, at any stage of the writing process are welcome.

Speakers
avatar for Dan Manzanares

Dan Manzanares

Dan Manzanares’ passion is helping novelists professionalize their writing process. The Story Map, a holistic storytelling model he co-created in a Costa Rican jungle, transforms writers to authors, people committed to connecting with readers. Working relationally, instead of structurally... Read More →
avatar for Doug Kurtz

Doug Kurtz

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... Read More →
Friday May 23, 2025 12:30pm - 1:30pm MDT
2 King Room

1:45pm MDT

Drafting the Novel with David Wroblewski and Shelley Read TICKETED
Friday May 23, 2025 1:45pm - 2:45pm MDT
Novelists David Wroblewski (Story of Edgar Sawtelle, Familiaris) and Shelley Read (Go As A River) discuss the deep work involved in drafting the novel. From character to plot, these veteran writers peer into the murky depths where fiction comes from.
Speakers
avatar for David Wroblewski

David Wroblewski

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... Read More →
avatar for Shelley Read

Shelley Read

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... Read More →
Friday May 23, 2025 1:45pm - 2:45pm MDT
2 King Room

3:00pm MDT

A Play in Two Hours Part 1 TICKETED
Friday May 23, 2025 3:00pm - 4:00pm MDT
Yes, you can write a complete, short play...in two hours! Acclaimed playwright, actor, and Western Colorado University Theater Director, Steven Cole Hughes guides you in the basics of playwriting, dialogue, history, and writing exercises.

Steven Cole Hughes is an award-winning playwright and Associate Professor of Theatre
at Western Colorado University. His full-length plays include: Indiana, The Bad Man
(2011 Denver Post Ovation Award for Special Achievement), Billy Hell (2008 Ovation
Award for Best New Work), Slabtown, cowboyily, and Battleground State. His plays for
young audiences are: The Presidents!, The Wright Stuff, and The Geography of
Adventure. His plays have been produced at the Bloomington Playwrights Project, the
Coterie Theatre, Creede Repertory Theatre, Curious Theatre Company and the Denver
Center for the Performing Arts. His short play A Brief History of Banned Books was
published in 2024 in an anthology called We Can See into Another Place: Mile High
Writers on Social Justice. He has a BA in theatre from Indiana University and an MFA
from the National Theatre Conservatory.
Speakers
avatar for Steven Cole Hughes

Steven Cole Hughes

Steven Cole Hughes is an award-winning playwright and Associate Professor of Theatre at Western Colorado University. His full-length plays include: Indiana, The Bad Man (2011 Denver Post Ovation Award for Special Achievement), Billy Hell (2008 Ovation Award for Best New Work), Slabtown... Read More →
Friday May 23, 2025 3:00pm - 4:00pm MDT
2 King Room

4:15pm MDT

A Play in Two Hours Part 2 TICKETED
Friday May 23, 2025 4:15pm - 5:15pm MDT
Speakers
avatar for Steven Cole Hughes

Steven Cole Hughes

Steven Cole Hughes is an award-winning playwright and Associate Professor of Theatre at Western Colorado University. His full-length plays include: Indiana, The Bad Man (2011 Denver Post Ovation Award for Special Achievement), Billy Hell (2008 Ovation Award for Best New Work), Slabtown... Read More →
Friday May 23, 2025 4:15pm - 5:15pm MDT
2 King Room

5:30pm MDT

Wild Dark: A Multimedia Presentation with Craig Childs TICKETED
Friday May 23, 2025 5:30pm - 6:30pm MDT
Beloved Colorado author Craig Childs (House of Rain, Animal Dialogues, Tracing Time, Secret Knowledge of Water, Atlas of a Lost World) returns to Crested Butte with his newest book, The Wild Dark: Finding the Night Sky in the Age of Light. A reading from Craig is a not-to-miss occasion. Blending sound and visual elements Childs takes the audience with him to desert landscapes and wilderness landscapes seen by few.

A night sky is not an absence of light; it is the presence of the universe. In The Wild Dark, master storyteller Craig Childs embarks on a quest to bike from the blinding lights of the Las Vegas Strip to one of the darkest spots in North America. Childs is a fearless explorer of both the natural world and the human imagination, making him the perfect guide to help us rediscover the heavens and to ask: “What does it do to us to not see the night sky?” In a book that is at once an adventure story, a field guide, and a celebration of wonder, Childs invites us to look up and to look inward, eyes wide and sparkling with stars.
Speakers
avatar for Craig Childs

Craig Childs

An Arizona native, Craig Childs has lived within the bounds of the Gunnison River and the nearby Dolores for thirty-five years. He has published more than a dozen books of adventure, wilderness, and science and is a contributing editor at Adventure Journal Quarterly. His writing has... Read More →
Friday May 23, 2025 5:30pm - 6:30pm MDT
1 Steddy Theater

6:00pm MDT

Grizzly Confidential: An Astounding Journey into the Secret Life of North America’s Most Fearsome Predator @Gunnison Library
Friday May 23, 2025 6:00pm - 7:00pm MDT
Join Kevin Grange at the Gunnison Branch Library for this engaging presentation on Grizzlies! In Grizzly Confidential, author Kevin Grange—former paramedic and park ranger at Yellowstone and Grand Teton—comes face-to-face with North America’s most fearsome predator, Ursus Arctos.

His quest takes him from his home in the Tetons to an eerie, mist-shrouded island of gigantic bruins; from the Bear Center at Washington State University—where scientists believe the secrets of hibernation might help treat diabetes, heart disease, and obesity in humans—to the dark underbelly of for-profit wildlife parks, illegal animal trade and black markets hawking bear bile.

Along the way, he meets fascinating biologists and activists and discovers that everything he knew about grizzlies was wrong. Ultimately, his odyssey leads him to find answers on a remote corner of the Alaskan Peninsula where, for the last fifty years, humans have coexisted peacefully alongside the largest gathering of brown bears on the planet.
Grizzly Confidential is about bears but also the inspiring people who look after them. This is a fast-paced, gripping story that educates, entertains, and gives a sneak peek into the secret life of a well-known species. Part science, part travelogue, and a passionate plea for bear conservation, Grizzly Confidential is a lively account for anyone who loves the outdoors and learning about the natural world.


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
Speakers
avatar for Kevin Grange

Kevin Grange

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... Read More →
Friday May 23, 2025 6:00pm - 7:00pm MDT
6 Gunnison County Public Library
 
Mountain Words Festival
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