telluride Literary Arts FEst

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Talking Gourds partners with Between the Covers Bookstore, the Ah Haa School for the Arts, Wilkinson Library, the Literary Burlesque, and Telluride Arts to produce LitFest each year. Talking Gourds hosts a featured guest poet and an open reading gourds circle, the Fischer Prize awards ceremony, and every other year the selection of the Western Slope Poet Laureate. 

2018 Schedule of Events

​May 18-20, 2018
5th Annual Telluride Literary Arts Festival
 
FRIDAY  •  May 18
 
7:30 pm / Spotlight featuring Diné poet Esther Belin and Colorado Mesa University poet John Nizalowski / Open mic to follow /@Ah Haa School for the Arts
 
Late night / Poets Night Out / The Liberty Bar
 
SATURDAY  •  May 19
 
9:30 am / Poets Walk up Bear Creek with Art Goodtimes / Meet @ High Alpine Coffee Bar behind Between the Covers Bookstore / weather dependent
 
10:30 am-Noon / Poets Lecture / “Belle Turnbull and the Poets of Early Colorado” with Dr. David J. Rothman / @ Wilkinson Library Magazine Room.
Belle Turnbull (1881-1970) was the first strong poet to live in and write about the mountains and high mining towns of the Colorado Rockies. Well-known during her life but long out of print, Turnbull’s lyrics of sublime alpine wilderness and her narratives about the harsh and dangerous world of hard-rock mining offer us a profoundly original vision of the American west that transcends the region. Join current Western Slope Poet Laureate David J. Rothman, co-editor of Belle Turnbull: On the Life & Work of an American Master, who will set Belle’s extraordinary story in the matrix of Colorado poetry in English from the European invasion until Turnbull appears.
 
 
12-4 pm / LitFest Kids Day @ Wilkinson Public Library / Handmade Books for Kids! Make a book to write your own story, use as a journal, or give as a gift!
 
2 pm / Fischer Prize ceremony with readings by winning poets / @ Telluride Arts. New this year, the presentation of the $500 Cantor Award for best Colorado poem. Esther Belin will join Art Goodtimes and Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer in handing out awards – with readings by winning poets in attendance.
 
7 pm / Literary Burlesque: “Uncorseted: Not What It Seams” / @ Black Box Theatre / $20 / Featuring 7 regional women and the Telluride Dance Collective
 
SUNDAY  •  May 20
 
10-11:30 am / Poets Workshop / “A Certain Slant of Light: The Poetry of the Postcard” with Peter Anderson / @ County Meeting Room, Second Floor, Miramonte Building
         Writing a postcard is an invitation to pay attention, to distill a scene into a few choice details, to convey a distinct moment of our being, and to acknowledge—wish you were here—the life of a friend. Its finite rectangular space encourages informality and spontaneity as well as precision and compression. In our time together, we will look at ways that other poets and writers have embraced the postcard as a literary form.  And then we will accept the invitation ourselves, writing post/poem cards from home places, dreamscapes, and triggering towns somewhere out on the road.
 
Noon / Gourds Circle / sharing of poems and stories / bring pillow / @ Ah Haa School for the Arts
 
6 pm / Talk with author Craig Childs / @ Wilkinson Public Library / Featuring his NEW book “Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America”
 
 
ALL LitFest events are FREE with the exception of Literary Burlesque / Burlesque Tickets went on sale May 1 at Between the Covers Bookstore / $20
 
Collaborators include Between the Covers Bookstore, Telluride Institute, Talking Gourds, Wilkinson Public Library, Ah Haa School for the Arts, Telluride Arts District, Liberty Bar, Black Box Theatre, and Literary Burlesque
The Fourth Annual Telluride Literary Arts Festival
May 19th - 21st, 2017
The Third Annual Telluride Literary Arts Festival
May 20 - 22, 2016
Telluride, Colorado
Press Release
Schedule
Passes
Venues
Bios
Lodging
TLAF is a collaboration among the Telluride Institute’s Talking Gourds program, the Wilkinson Library, 
Between the Covers Bookstore, Ah Haa School for the Arts, and Arroyo’s Telluride.

Talking Gourds is indebted to grants from TI boardmember Audrey Marnoy, San Miguel County Poet Laureate Peter Waldor, 
and Commissioner Elaine Fischer for seeding this year’s poetry programs.

For more info, call Art at 970-729-0220 or visit <talkinggourds.weebly.com>
2015 Literary Arts Fest Archive
2014 Literary Arts Fest Archive
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