Mar. 13, 2025
April 17, 2025 | 6 p.m.
Winter Lecture: Fountain Creek (Big Lessons from a Little River) (Colorado Springs)
Event by the Historic Preservation Alliance of Colorado Springs.
Please join us for the third of the Historic Preservation Alliance’s 2025 Winter Lecture Series! Author Jim O’Donnell will discuss his book, “Fountain Creek: Big Lessons from a Little River,” and its important lessons for today’s concerns about growth and the environment.
Doors open at 6:00pm. HPA Members can attend for free; guests are $10 per person.
Address
First Lutheran Church, 1515 N. Cascade Ave.
Click here to view this address on a Google Map
April 17, 2025 | 7 p.m.
Bold Women. Change History. Camille T. Dungy. (Denver)
Special reading and author talk featuring Camille T. Dungy, author of Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden.
Presented by History Colorado Center.
$15 members; $18 non-members.
Address
History Colorado Center, 1200 N. Broadway, Denver
Click here to view this address on a Google Map
Learn More
April 18, 2025 | 5-7 p.m.
Open Mic and Happy Hour by Denver Women’s Press Club (Denver)
The Denver Woman’s Press Club has enhanced its offerings for journalists, fiction and non-fiction writers, playwrights, poets, PR professionals and friends. It now hosts open mics once a month for anyone interested in exploring their writing interests. The Open Mic and Happy Hour enables you strut your stuff!
Next one is Friday, April 18, 5 to 7 p.m. in a safe place, regardless of your level of experience. Participants and readers, all of whom should be 18 years old or older, are expected to be mutually respectful. Doors open at 5 p.m. Up to 12 writers will have five minutes to present. No RSVPs Just show up. While this is a free event with light refreshments, donations are gladly accepted. (The DWPC does not discriminate against any person or organization.)
Address
Denver Woman’s Press Club
1325 Logan St., Denver, CO 80203
Click here to view this address on a Google Map
April 19, 2025 | 10 a.m.
Verses That Move: Exploring Slam Poetry (Denver)
Workshop for ages 7-15. Through guided writing prompts and performance tips, you’ll craft meaningful poems and learn to deliver them with confidence. Workshop 10 a.m. – 1 p.m., showcase 1-2 p.m. Registration and parental permission required.
Address
The Bookies Bookstore, 2085 S. Holly St., Denver
Click here to view this address on a Google Map
Learn More
April 26, 2025 | 2 p.m.
Romantasy Panel (Denver)
Hosted by the Spicy Librarian, featuring authors Ivy Asher, Raven Kennedy, and EJ Mellow.
$50 includes signed book by your choice of one of the three authors.
Address
Dry Clean Only, 3358 York St., Denver
Click here to view this address on a Google Map
Learn More
May 1, 2025 | varies
Young Writers Summer Camp (Denver)
Lighthouse Writers offers a wide array of full and half-day summer camps from June through August for young writers ages eight to 18. Whether they’ve got a few novels under their belt, are new but curious about poems, or are a reluctant writer, our camps offer a fun, creative, and challenging way for young people to explore and express who they are, build new friendships, and create truly beautiful works of art. Summer camps are offered in person at our Denver location at 3844 York Street and virtually, Monday through Friday, throughout the summer.
Camps range from our core offerings for writers hoping to explore all kinds of writing, including The Wild World of Writing for ages 8-10, Creative Writing Exploration for ages 11-13, and Creative Writing Cornerstones for ages 14-18, to camps focusing on Poetry and Visual Art, Screenwriting, D&D, Science Fiction and Fantasy, and more!
For complete list, click here.
Address
3844 York Street, Denver
Click here to view this address on a Google Map
Learn More
May 4, 2025 |
Pikes Peak Writers Conference (Colorado Springs)
Pikes Peak Writers Conference is a 3-day fiction-writing conference for writers of all levels, indie and traditionally published, featuring a variety of craft and business workshops, acquiring editors/agents and well-known authors across a variety of genres. Theme: The Future Is Now, examining the present and future of publishing, and how to move your career forward.
Friday, May 2, 8 a.m. – Sunday, May 4, 2 p.m.at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Colorado Springs.
Keynote speakers are: Avery Flynn, John Gilstrap, David Slayton.
Registration Cost: $527 until March 31 (10% off for members with coupon); $549 Apr 1 – Apr 25 (10% off for members with coupon)
More information including keynote speakers and featured authors at PPWC2025.
Address
1775 E Cheyenne Mountain Blvd, Colorado Springs, CO 80906
Click here to view this address on a Google Map
Learn More
May 7, 2025 | 6:30 p.m.
Robin Walter on Tour for “Little Mercy” (Ft. Collins, Boulder, Denver)
Colorado poet Robin Walter’s debut book of poems, Little Mercy, was selected for the prestigious 2024 Academy of American Poets’ First Book Award.
Read our interview with the author and review here.
April 12, 7 p.m., with Dan Beachy-Quick at the Center for Creativity in Ft. Collins,
April 29, 6:30 p.m., with Ramona Ausubel at Boulder Bookstore, 1107 Pearl St., Boulder.
May 7, 7 p.m., with Rebecca Spiegel at Tattered Cover Bookstore, 2526 E. Colfax Ave., Denver.
Address
Varies
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Briefly Noted
The Beckwith Dynasty: A Ranching Empire in Colorado’s Wet Mountain Valley
Courtney Miller
Filter Press
130 pages
Once one of the largest cattle ranches in southern Colorado, Beckwith Ranch rises to its former glory in the concisely and neatly written, The Beckwith Dynasty: A Ranching Empire in Colorado’s Wet Mountain Valley by Courtney Miller. The author explores the history of a successful shipbuilding family who traveled west in 1869, and would eventually create through hard work, luck and a handful of shenanigans, an incredibly successful agricultural operation. Miller guides the reader through the origins of the ranch with stories of true cowboys and the Old West.
Beginning with a meager 160 acres, the family created a vast holding of land and livestock that would eventually become a thriving and majestic showplace of 8,800 acres with a very distinctive mansion of white clapboard and red roof. The fortunes of the Beckwith empire grew even more with the discovery of gold and silver in the nearby mountains. The mansion continued to expand as well, becoming a rambling complex with all the latest Victorian fineries accumulated from travels afar. Sophisticated and worldly travelers were entertained with unparalleled grandeur in the hinterlands of Colorado’s Wet Mountains.
As with any great western story about perseverance and triumph, the tale of the downfall of the family and the mansion is equally fascinating. Death, disease and estranged family relations all contributed to the passing of the heyday of the grand place.
Located on Hwy 69 near Westcliffe, Colorado, the site and venue is now listed on National Register of Historic Places. The obvious sincere and deep appreciation the author has for the ranch shines through in his writing. He packs a lot of Wet Mountain Valley history in this small volume with fine research and striking details. This book is a nice resource for any Colorado history buff. — Jeffery Payne
