Laura Pritchett
Writing the West
Benefiting the Library Endowment for Liberal Arts
Author Laura Pritchett -- who grew up on a ranch in northern Colorado -- will discuss her relationship to the lands of this region, and the influence place has had on her published work. She´ll also be talking about the significance of place in other books set in this region.
Pritchett is the author of a novel, Sky Bridge (2005), which was included in the "Best 10 books of the year" list compiled by School Library Journal, and a collection of short stories, Hell´s Bottom, Colorado (2001), which won the Milkweed National Fiction Prize and the PEN USA Award for Fiction. Pritchett´s work has also appeared in numerous magazines, including The Sun, Orion, High Country News, Colorado Review, 5280, and the book Comeback Wolves: Western Writers Welcome the Wolf Home. Her work often focuses on land use issues and ranch preservation in the West.
Pritchett is co-editor and contributor to two forthcoming books: The Space of Hope: Ranching in the Radical Center (with Rick Knight and Jeff Lee) and The River Says Your Name: Colorado Writers Speak for the Endangered Cache la Poudre River (with Gary Wockner). Both will be published in the Fall of 2006 by Johnson Press.
Pritchett received her B.A. and M.A. in English at Colorado State University and her Ph.D. in Contemporary American Literature/Creative Writing at Purdue University. She now lives in Colorado, near the small cattle ranch where she was raised.
Recommended Reading:
- Sky Bridge by Laura Pritchett
- Hell´s Bottom, Colorado by Laura Pritchett
- The Space of Hope: Ranching in the Radical Center (with Rick Knight and Jeff Lee)
- The River Says Your Name: Colorado Writers Speak for the Endangered Cache la Poudre River
- Works by Annie Proulx, James Galvin, Terry Tempest Williams, and Rick Bass.