Walking around downtown Mancos in 2018 (and that stroll only takes a few minutes), one thing that really impressed me was the Mancos Public Library. It was big, beautiful and inviting. Certainly, it was a sign of a thinking and caring community. Yes, I’m the lucky son of two librarians.

My wife and I were looking for a new place to live after decades in Denver. We wanted to experience the state from a different perspective. And Mancos, at the base of Mesa Verde National Park in far southwest Colorado, checked all the proverbial boxes, particularly with its artsy vibe.

So we moved to Mancos in 2019. Soon, my mantra was “fresh air, no traffic.” But I wondered what would happen to my relationships with writing friends in and around the Front Range, including through Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, Rocky Mountain Mystery Writers of America and other terrific groups. The drive from Denver to Mancos requires a full seven hours, after all. It’s about the same distance as Boston to Philadelphia or Los Angeles to San Francisco.

There were writers here, of course. I knew two of them. One was Chuck Greaves, a fellow writer of crime and literary fiction. And the other was Scott Graham, a fellow writer of crime fiction. We would meet for lunch, swap stories. And I plugged into a circle of local authors that met off and on. Again, more shooting of the proverbial breeze. Then along came the pandemic and those meetings stopped.

In the summer of 2022, I met Mancos-based poet and short-story writer Lisa C. Taylor. Like me, Lisa grew up back east and was a recent arrival to Mancos. She was also a very experienced teacher of fiction and poetry and, also like me, she had many friends in the national and international writing community.

The question quickly surfaced between the two of us. Could we put on a conference for writers? Would writers come to little old Mancos (population 1,200)? Could we attract faculty, too?

So we started planning. We found a location, started roughing out a budget, started reaching out to friends, talked to caterers, recruited volunteers, planned a program, built a website and started putting out the word via social media and with the help of local news media.

The 2023 Mesa Verde Writers Conference was fully subscribed 10 weeks before it happened. The conference took place in mid-July. We brought in Nick Arvin from Denver and Alan McMonagle all the way from Galway, Ireland. For three days we assembled in a renovated barn outside of town and 30 of us spent time thinking and learning about fiction, poetry and the publishing business. We wrote. We shared. And we ate! In fact, we served breakfast, lunch and dinner at the barn—a touch, we believe, that helped build community among us. At the student reading, there were laughs and there were tears. There was vulnerability, emotion, and true art. Everyone was rapt.

Mancos, at the base of Mesa Verde National Park in far southwest Colorado, checked all the proverbial boxes, particularly with its artsy vibe.

We attracted aspiring and experienced writers from around the Four Corners and from the Midwest and East Coast, too. We had young; we had old.

Proof of concept? Check!

The 2024 Mesa Verde Writers Conference sold out even faster. We had many returning attendees from 2023. We brought in Denver-based poet and associate professor Alyse Knorr and Salida-based writer, editor and publishing consultant Anita Mumm as teachers. Again, the conference went by in a blink. More camaraderie, more sharing, more writing, more learning.

So doing it again seemed like a no-brainer and the 2025 conference is set, again, for this coming July.

This year, the conference (July 10 and 11, with an evening kick-off reception on July 9) is moving to the brand new Mancos Commons building downtown. (This is the site of the Mancos Common Press, which has revived many old letterpresses and offers printing and art classes year-round; how appropriate.)

Faculty this year will include Denver-based Angie Hodapp, a writer and longtime Director of Literary Development at Nelson Literary Agency, and January Gill O’Neil, a Massachusetts-based teacher and poet of considerable renown. (Complete bios for Angie and January are on the Mesa Verde Writers Conference website.)

And because events evolve (don’t all events evolve?) there’s new wrinkle this year. After this year’s conference on July 10 and 11, we are preparing the first annual Mesa Verde Literary Festival. This will be a one-day event in downtown Mancos that will be free to the public.

Already nearly 40 authors have signed up to attend the festival to make presentations, hold readings and sit on panels to discuss various themes in their books or to share insights about the publishing business. Downtown restaurants, coffee shops, art galleries, the Mancos Community Center and outdoor patios will serve as the backdrop for readings and talks by poets, memoirists and writers of fiction and non-fiction. We’re organizing two youth workshops, too, and our local bookshop Hand in Hand will handle book sales for our visiting authors. A keynote address is being planned for the evening in the historic Mancos Opera House.

Yes, little old Mancos. In 2024, the conference and festival moved under the umbrella of the Mancos Creative District and we can’t thank them enough for their support.

Interested in the conference? More information here. (There is still room to sign up.) And keep track of festival details, as they come together, here. Questions? mesaverdewriters@gmail.com