Hi there. This is reader Maureen Hearty from Joes, in Colorado’s northeastern plains, for the HPPR radio readers book club summer reading list.
I’m the director for the non-profit Prairie Sea Projects and we are hosting the Alma Creative Residencies this summer at our garden and event space, Prairie Futures. The focus of this year’s creatives are writers, and we have some great authors coming out for some plains landscape inspiration. Each writer will share the work they write while here for publication in our local weekly newspaper, the Yuma Pioneer. I want to share a quick ‘byte’ about each writer coming out.
First we’ve got Teague Von Bohlen, an associate professor of fiction at the University of Colorado Denver, whose first novel, The Pull of the Earth, won the Colorado Book Award.
Anita Mumm is coming next. Our Colorado Sun newspaper writer in residence. Anita is a student in Western Colorado Universities Master of Fine Arts program in nature writing, as well as a developmental editor, ghost writer and publishing consultant. Anita has two non-fiction philanthropic themed books she has worked on: Letter to Doris, and The Unexpected Gift.
Next we’ve got has competed at the national level in poetry slam and continues to produce and perform original works.
Following Andrea is Claire Boyles, a 2022 Whiting Award winner in fiction. She is the author of Site Fidelity, which won the 2022 High Plains Book Award for short stories.
And of course, we mustn’t forget our year round writer in residence, who lives in Joes…award winning novelist Gregory Hill, who recently released his fourth novel, Sister Liberty. After his first 3 books: The Stratford County novels that all take place in NE Colorado: East of Denver, The Lonesome Trials of Johnny Riles and Zebra Skin Shirt.
If you’d like to learn more about our program, our any of our writers, please email me at hello@prairieseaprojects.org. Thanks for listening to the HPPR Radio Readers book club summer reading list and don’t put that book down!
PRAIRIE SEA PROJECTS
The Prairie Sea Projects is an art initiative that builds across disciplines and imagines new space for rural communities to thrive. We’ve just opened a new art installation called Prairie Futures. Located on the Benton Family Homestead, west of Grassroots Community Center, between the liquor store and the old church, Prairie Futures is a public artwork and agriculture landscape installation which aims to cultivate cross-disciplinary approaches to climate compassion through art practices and social connections in the Colorado High Plains.
Follow us on the Prairie Futures Facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/people/
Prairie-Futures/100092423855810/) and the Prairie Sea projects Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prairieseaprojects/ and website: www.prairieseaprojects.org to find out when our writers are leading free community workshops.
