“We wouldn’t have writers if we didn’t have readers,” says Russ Taylor, one of the directors, with wife and writer Lisa, and Mark Stevens, of the Mancos Creative District’s 3rd annual Mesa Verde Writers Conference, kicking off Wednesday, July 9 through the 11th.
We say the same to you, Journal readers and letter writers, and go a step further. We wouldn’t have a newspaper without readers’ engagement. And that is exactly what Saturday’s July 12 companion and inaugural Mesa Verde Literary Festival (Journal, Jul 3), a signature event of MCD, aims to do: bring writers and readers together to talk to and learn from each other.
Although the writers' conference – designed for published and aspiring writers – is full, the Journal’s editorial board strongly supports opportunities to read, write, engage, learn, and grow. We encourage public participation in the festival, especially from area youths aged 13–18, for whom a special combination of free art and writing workshops is being held upstairs at the Mancos Opera House.
The free festival will be cradled by the Town of Mancos’ library, book shop, restaurants, coffee shops, art galleries, patios and other business where over 40 authors will read from their work and present on writing nonfiction and fiction (historical, crime, dystopian, romance and young adult), memoir, poetry, publishing, and more.
In her 2023 essay, “Great books will always be their own best defense,” written in support of Banned Book Week (The New York Times, Oct. 2, 2023), that focuses on the freedom to read and the dangers of censorship, the opinion writer Margaret Ranki wrote, “The relationship between writer and reader is a unique form of intimacy. Every reader brings to the reading a self that is marked by time and place, a self that can never be replicated, not even on a second reading.”
Writing is also a creative medium that, to paraphrase author Alexander McCall Smith, binds us to one another, the past to the present, people to animals, and people to the land.
As with many writers that come to the craft with another profession, McCall is professor emeritus of medical law at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He was born in Zimbabwe and was a law professor at the University of Botswana. He, too, is an example of Ranki’s words, “a self that is marked by time and place.”
Good thing. Writers with vast experiences – through their vocations and avocations, travel in real time and in reading – are best able to create a sense of place for readers, immersing them in and making a story’s setting, and the characters experiences and emotions all feel real, to create a connection with the narrative.
Colorado and the West have so many great sense of place writers. One that is widely known to many, and one of 50 featured writers at the literary festival, is Pam Houston, who with Dine’ writer Byron Aspaas and Tim Weed, will be delivering the keynote talks to conclude the day.
Why the conference and festival? Lisa and Russ spoke to the robust representation of the visual arts in the region and not as much for the literary arts. “There are a lot of secret writers in the region,” she said, “several dozen of whom gather the third Wednesday evening of every month at ZU Gallery in Cortez for a writers meetup organized by Four Corners Writers, a local nonprofit formed to “identify, develop and promote literary voices in the American Southwest.”
Whether a reader, published or aspiring writer, join in the camaraderie and alchemy of readers and writers gathering together on Saturday. More information is at mesaverdewritersconference.org/#/.
