Last year, the Lighthouse Writers Workshop gala’s honoree was the fearsome Roxane Gay. Arguably gentler but no less dynamic, Cheryl Strayed — author of “Wild” — headlines the Sept. 19 celebration. Lighthouse (where I sometimes teach) has much to celebrate. Summer’s Lit Fest was among the best attended in the organization’s near 20-year history and the second to take place in their sleek home in the York Street Yards complex.
“To many who participate in Denver’s literary scene, I think the result is a feeling of freedom — to take risks in their writing, to embrace their feelings of struggle (Michael Cunningham called it, memorably, that “writerly feeling of ineptitude”), to get it right, Dupree stated. “I’ve seen so many writers find their support teams here, and so many of those teams cross generations, race, gender and walk of life.”
Among the workshops, gatherings and retreats (the Writing in Color Retreat and the Queer Creatives Retreat), the organization offers its lauded Hard Times program, which provides space to writers experiencing — or who have experienced — homelessness, addiction, poverty or other challenges.
Tickets for the gala are selling briskly; tickets for a streaming version of an event featuring Strayed the next night are also available. Lighthouse Writers Workshop. 3844 York Street. lighthousewriters.org.
Margins Book Festival
A keynote to remember: Authors Nate Marshall (center) and K-Ming Chang (left) with One World senior editor Nicole Counts at Margins in 2023. (Provide by the Word: A Storytelling Sanctuary)
Two years ago, the Margins Book Festival featured one of the most inspiring keynotes I’ve seen. It wasn’t so much a speech but more of a conversation between Nicole Counts, senior editor at the Random House imprint “One World,” and two of her writers, Nate Marshall and K-Ming Chang. In addition to sweetly confessional stories from the authors, the event offered a master class in what an insightful, supportive rapport between editor and writer looks — and sounds — like. So, the bar has been raised for next week’s edition of the biannual event.
The Margins Book Festival is the handiwork of the Denver-based literary arts organization Word: A Storytelling Sanctuary, founded in 2016 by Viniyanka Prasad, a criminal defense attorney. The Word places BIPOC writers with publishing professionals so that authors can find a path to sharing the stories that speak to and of them and deepen our broader cultural conversations.
Headlining the upcoming festival are authors R.O. Kwon, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio and Aaliyah Bilal. This year’s installment of the two-day festival will unfurl on the Santa Fe Arts District corridor.
Margins Book Festival, Sept. 21-22 at Su Teatro, Center for Visual Arts and other locations along the Santa Fe Arts District corridor. Admission is free, although passes are encouraged.
Two bookish hubs for the soul
On a recent and hot Sunday afternoon, Petals & Pages was cool, quiet, oasis-like. How apt. After all, this feminist, queer-owned haven in the Santa Fe Arts District sells a selection of smartly curated books, as well as flowers and plants. It also offers respite for the weary writer with its Writers Corner, and workshops galore. In a clever touch, the shop has memberships, which helps keep it chugging but also seeds its community-nurturing atmosphere. Petals & Pages, 956 Santa Fe Drive, Denver. petalsandpagesofdenver.com.
Flowers and book leaves? Who doesn’t appreciate a hybrid? In the Ballpark neighborhood sits the print-and-social-justice go-to, The Shop at MATTER. The creation of printmaker Rick Griffith and his partner Debra Johnson, MATTER is writing the good fight with its savvy collection of books and other printed treasures. Just bought the handsome (and prescient) “W.E.B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America.” Barely resisted “Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror,” edited by “Get Out” auteur Jordan Peele, (because a budget is a budget is a budget).
The bookstore is adjacent to MATTER’s design studio, where graphics and printmaking whiz Griffith plies his craft and teaches others to do the same. The Shop has room for gatherings, screenings, readings and more. This Saturday, it will host the monthly installment of the Silent Book Club. Think of it as a foxy reading room with very cool people who zip in and read in what the founders of the global gathering call “companionable silence.” The Shop at MATTER, 2114 Market St. shopatmatter.com
Reading Den
One of the coolest watering holes in town — pour me another one of those Kinda Tropicals, why don’tcha? — the woman-owned Fort Greene bar on 45th Avenue in Globeville plays host to a reading series that has its own burgeoning identity as wonderfully hip. The brainchild of Adam Vitcavage and Sarah Ann Noe, Reading Den’s next installment (Sept. 25) mixes a potent cocktail of local and visiting writers: Stefanie Kirby, Danny Goodman, O.O. Sangoyomi, Johnny Redway and Isabella Welch. The Reading Den at Fort Greene, 321 E. 45th Ave. fortgreenbar.com
Rocky Mountain Reader
Kathryn Eastburn, founding editor of Rocky Mountain Reader, a new online literary journal. (Provided by Kathryn Eastburn)
Kathryn Eastburn modeled the new literary hub on Chapter 16, an online lit journal created in 2009 by the essayist Margaret Renkl (Reese Witherspoon’s beloved high-school teacher) and supported by Tennessee Humanities. Chapter 16’s tagline — “A Community for Writers, Readers & Passersby” — captures the expansive spirit of building camaraderie between those who write and those who read, and those who are sometimes one in the same.
“I just think what they’re doing makes sense,” said Eastburn, who lives in Colorado Springs. “They provide a hub for the whole state. And, you know, as media has become so fragmented and literary arts coverage is siloed, each organization has its own thing. It seemed like it was a good idea to bring together readers and writers, book lovers, in general, and publishers all together in one place.”
For her own, statewide site, which launched Sept. 1, Eastburn wants “people to know who’s out there and what they’re doing.” And this isn’t just an invitation for city dwellers.
“I want rural readers to know what’s going on, whatever population center is nearest them. There’s fascinating stuff going on all over the state, but people in Greeley don’t know what people in Durango are doing.” rockymountainreader.org
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