Aspen Words

WINTER WORDS - Juan Felipe Herrera
2016-01-12 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Denver) | United States
Juan Felipe Herrera is the 21st Poet Laureate of the United States (2015-2016) and is the first Latino to hold the position. From 2012-2014, Herrera served as California State Poet Laureate. Herrera’s many collections of poetry include Notes on the Assemblage; Senegal Taxi; Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems, a recipient of the PEN/Beyond Margins Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross The Border: Undocuments 1971-2007. He is also the author of Crashboomlove: A Novel in Verse, which received the Americas Award. His books of prose for children include: SkateFate, Calling The Doves, which won the Ezra Jack Keats Award; Upside Down Boy, which was adapted into a musical for young audiences in New York City; and Cinnamon Girl: Letters Found Inside a Cereal Box. Herrera is also a performance artist and activist on behalf of migrant and indigenous communities and at-risk youth.
The reading and talk will be followed by a Q+A and book signing. Explore Booksellers will have books for purchase at the event.
Winter Words 2016 Info Purchase Tickets
AW MEMBER PARTY TO FOLLOW THE PAEPCKE EVENT With special guest Juan Felipe Herrera
Sponsored by Aspen Peak magazineIn partnership with English in Action Gonzo Gallery | 7:30pm RSVP to Jamie KravitzBecome a member

WINTER WORDS - Alison Bechdel + Beth Malone
2016-01-27 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Denver) | United States
Cartoonist Alison Bechdel is the creator of the long-running comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For. She has published two graphic memoirs. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic is about her childhood in an artistic family and her relationship with her father, and has been developed into a Broadway musical starring Beth Malone. Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama explores her relationship with her mother through the lens of psychoanalytic theory. She is the recipient of a 2014 MacArthur fellowship.
In conversation with Tony-nominated Fun Home star Beth Malone
Beth Malone starred in the 2015 Tony Award-winning musical Fun Home, based on Alison Bechdel’s best-selling graphic memoir. Raised in Castle Rock, Colorado, Malone spent much of her 20’s in Aspen, where she was a Crystal Palace dinner theater staffer and performed at Theatre Aspen. After leaving Aspen, she completed a graduate degree with the drama department at UC Irvine and settled in Los Angeles. Malone spent much of 2014 at The Denver Center, starring as Molly Brown in the world premiere of a wholly reimagined version of The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Other original Broadway and Off Broadway credits include June Carter Cash in Ring of Fire, Betty Jean in The Marvelous Wonderettes, and Alison in Bingo!. Regional theatre appearances include 9 to 5, The Break Up Notebook, Annie Get Your Gun, Les Miserables, and the world premiere of Sister Act. Malone has been part of Fun Home through most of its formative stages and was nominated for the 2015 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her role as Alison Bechdel.
The reading and talk will be followed by a Q+A and book signing. Explore Booksellers will have books for purchase at the event.
Winter Words 2016 InfoPurchase Tickets

WINTER WORDS - Adam Johnson
2016-02-13 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Denver) | United States
Adam Johnson is the author of the novel The Orphan Master’s Son, and most recently, a collection of short stories titled Fortune Smiles, winner of the 2015 National Book Award for Fiction. The Orphan Master’s Son won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the California Book Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. It was named one of the best books of the year by more than a dozen publications and spent almost a year on the New York Times Bestseller List. Johnson’s other awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers’ Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Stegner Fellowship; he was also a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award. His previous books are Emporium, a short story collection, and the novel Parasites Like Us.
The reading and talk will be followed by a Q+A and book signing. Explore Booksellers will have books for purchase at the event.
Winter Words 2016 InfoPurchase Tickets

WINTER WORDS - Geraldine Brooks + Tony Horwitz
2016-03-15 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Denver) | United States
Australian-born Geraldine Brooks is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historical novelist. Her most recent book, The Secret Chord, is based on the life of King David, and was published to great critical acclaim in October 2015. Brooks’ first novel, Year of Wonders was an international bestseller and was translated into more than 25 languages. It is in development to become a film starring Andrew Lincoln. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2006 for March, which examines Little Women from a different point of view. Her other novels, Caleb’s Crossing and People of the Book were New York Times bestsellers, and she is the author of three nonfiction works: Nine Parts of Desire, Foreign Correspondence, and The Idea of Home. Earlier in her writing career, Brooks covered crises in the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans for the Wall Street Journal. In 1990, with her husband Tony Horwitz, she won the Overseas Press Club Award for best coverage of the Gulf War.
Tony Horwitz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the author of several bestsellers. He worked for many years as a newspaper reporter, covering wars and conflicts overseas as a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. After returning to the U.S., he won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his stories about working conditions in low-wage America. His books include the national and New York Times bestsellers, Confederates in the Attic, Blue Latitudes, Baghdad Without a Map, and A Voyage Long and Strange. His latest book, Midnight Rising, was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2011; one of the year’s ten best books by Library Journal; and won the 2012 William Henry Seward Award for Excellence in Civil War Biography. In 1990, with his wife Geraldine Brooks, he won the Overseas Press Club Award for best coverage of the Gulf War. Horwitz has also been a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and a visiting scholar at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.
The reading and talk will be followed by a Q+A and book signing. Explore Booksellers will have books for purchase at the event.
Winter Words 2016 InfoPurchase Tickets

WINTER WORDS - Sandra Cisneros
2016-04-05 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Denver) | United States
Sandra Cisneros’ works include two highly acclaimed novels, a short story collection, two poetry collections, and an adult picture book. The first female Mexican-American writer to be published by a mainstream publisher, Cisneros’ debut novel The House on Mango Street won the American Book Award, has sold more than six million copies, and is considered a literary classic. Her most recent book is A House of My Own—a richly illustrated compilation of true stories that span three decades of her life. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, the Lannan Literary Award, the Thomas Wolfe Prize, and a MacArthur Fellowship. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages. Cisneros is the founder of the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral and Macondo Foundations, which serve creative writers. She lives in Mexico.
Winter Words 2016 InfoPurchase Tickets
AW MEMBER PARTY TO FOLLOW THE PAEPCKE EVENTWith special guest Sandra CisnerosRSVP to Jamie KravitzBecome a member

WINTER WORDS - Azar Nafisi
2017-01-17 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Denver) | United States
Azar Nafisi is the author of the national bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, a harrowing portrait of the Islamic revolution in Iran and how it affected one university professor and her students. The book was a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Memoir and was named one of the “100 Best Books of the Decade” by The Times (London). It has spent over 117 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and has been translated in 32 languages. Nafisi’s most recent book, The Republic of Imagination: America in Three Books, discusses the vital role of fiction in the United States today. Azar Nafisi is currently a Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, DC, where she was a professor of aesthetics, culture, and literature, and taught courses on the relation between culture and politics, as well as was Director of The Dialogue Project & Cultural Conversations. She has lectured and written extensively in English and Persian on the political implications of literature and culture, as well as the human rights of Iranian women and girls.
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WINTER WORDS - Kevin Fedarko + Pete McBride
2017-02-07 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Denver) | United States
This event is now sold out. Limited tickets may be available at the door on a first-come, first-served basis.
This conversation will focus on the role that storytelling can play in protecting the Grand Canyon, the crown jewel of America’s national parks system.
Kevin Fedarko has written for Esquire, National Geographic, the New York Times, and other publications. He studied at Columbia University and Oxford before joining the staff at Time, where he served on the foreign affairs desk, then later worked as a senior editor at Outside. His first book, The Emerald Mile, which was a New York Times bestseller, won the National Outdoor Book Award and the Reading the West Award, and was a finalist for both the PEN Literary Sports Writing Award and the Banff Mountain Book Award. Fedarko lives and works in Flagstaff.
Native Coloradan Pete McBride is a self-taught, award-winning photographer, writer, and filmmaker. He has traveled on assignment to over 75 countries for the National Geographic Society, Smithsonian, The Nature Conservancy, Microsoft, Outside, Esquire, and many others. After a decade working abroad and completing a Knight Fellowship for journalism at Stanford University, McBride began documenting the Colorado River, culminating in a book and three award-winning short documentaries. His work as a photographer, writer, and filmmaker has garnered awards from the Banff Mountain Film Festival and the North American Society of Journalists, and he was named a “Freshwater Hero” by the National Geographic Society. For his latest project, he hiked over 700 miles along the Grand Canyon’s interior rim, documenting the development challenges threatening the National Park. The story will be published on various platforms through National Geographic and PBS in 2016/17.
WW INFO
A membership reception will follow this event. All Aspen Words members will receive an invitation by email. If you would like to RSVP, or did not receive your invitation, please contact aspenwords@aspeninstitute.org or call 970-925-3122.

WINTER WORDS - Yaa Gyasi in conversation with Farah Griffin
2017-02-28 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Denver) | United States
Yaa Gyasi was born in Ghana and raised in Huntsville, Alabama. Her debut novel, Homegoing, was published in 2016 and was called “an inspiration” by Ta-Nehisi Coates. It was nominated for the Andrew Carnegie Medal and is a finalist for The Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. Gyasi was recently named one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35,” which recognizes debut fiction writers whose work promises to leave a lasting impression on the literary landscape. She holds a BA in English from Stanford University and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she held a Dean’s Graduate Research Fellowship. She lives in Berkeley, California.
Gyasi will be interviewed by Farah Griffin, an author and professor of English, Comparative Literature, and African American Studies at Columbia University. Their discussion will focus on Homegoing, its significance in today’s cultural and political landscape, as well as the story behind the debut novelist’s breakout success.
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WINTER WORDS - Adam Gopnik
2017-03-21 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Denver) | United States
Adam Gopnik has been writing for the New Yorker since 1986. During his tenure at the magazine, he has contributed fiction, humor, book reviews, profiles, and reporting from abroad. He was the magazine’s Art Critic from 1987-1995, and the Paris Correspondent from 1995-2000. From 2000-2005, he wrote a journal about New York life, and since then has been working as a miscellaneous essayist. His books, ranging from essay collections about Paris and food to children’s novels, include Paris to the Moon, The King in the Window, Through the Children’s Gate: A Home in New York, Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life, The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food, and Winter: Five Windows on the Season. Gopnik has won the National Magazine Award for Essays and for Criticism three times, and the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting. In 2013, he was awarded the medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. Gopnik lives in New York.

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WINTER WORDS - Stephanie Danler + Anna Noyes + Molly Prentiss
2017-04-04 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Denver) | United States
Presenting bestselling and award-winning debut authors and alumni of the Aspen Summer Words conference.

Stephanie Danler is the author of the New York Times-bestselling novel Sweetbitter. After receiving her MFA in Fiction from The New School in 2014, she attended the Novel Editing Workshop at Aspen Summer Words, where she revised an early draft of her novel. A coming-of-age tale, Sweetbitter follows a small-town girl as she begins her adult life in the underworld of an upscale Manhattan restaurant. Danler’s work has also appeared in Vogue, Travel + Leisure, Lit Hub and The Paris Review Daily. She lives in Los Angeles.
Anna Noyes is a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her fiction has appeared in VICE, A Public Space, and Guernica, amongst others. She has received the Aspen Words Emerging Writer Fellowship, the James Merrill House Fellowship, and the Lighthouse Works Fellowship, and has served as writer-in-residence at the Polli Talu Arts Center in Estonia. She was awarded the 2016 Lotos Foundation Prize, and Goodnight, Beautiful Women received the 2013 Henfield Prize for Fiction. She was raised in Downeast Maine and now lives in Brooklyn.
Molly Prentiss grew up in Santa Cruz, California. She has been a Writer in Residence at The Blue Mountain Center, Vermont Studio Center, and at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and received the Emerging Writer Fellowship from Aspen Words in 2014. Her first novel, Tuesday Nights in 1980, was published in 2016 and was long listed for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the California College of the Arts, and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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Aspen High School Only - Heather Hansman in the Schools
2022-02-23 09:15 - 10:15 (America/Denver) | United States
“Powder Days” author Heather Hansman will visit Aspen High School to discuss her book and career as a ski journalist and environmental writer. This event is for AHS students and faculty; not open to the general public.
Schools interested in learning about Aspen Words’ Writers in the Schools programming should reach out to Madeline Liption (Madeline.lipton@aspeninstitute.org).

Winter Words with Ann Patchett and Elizabeth McCracken – Paepcke Auditorium & Livestreamed
2024-01-11 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Denver) | Paepcke Auditorium, 1000 N 3rd St., Aspen, CO, 81611, United States
Buy Winter Words Tickets + Passes

IN-PERSON SEASON PASS: $80
Attend three in-person events at Paepcke Auditorium in Aspen and one in-person event at TACAW in Basalt

VIRTUAL SEASON PASS: $40
Join all four Winter Words events via livestream

INDIVIDUAL EVENT TICKETS: $30
Join any of the four events in-person

MORE WAYS TO PURCHASE TICKETS: Visit Explore Booksellers (221 E. Main St., Aspen), 11 a.m.- 6 p.m., Monday-Sunday, or stop by the Aspen Words lunchtime box office in the Red Brick Center for the Arts (110 E. Hallam St., Aspen), on Wednesdays from 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

The 2024 Winter Words season debuts with acclaimed, award-winning author Ann Patchett and her longtime literary friend, Elizabeth McCracken in conversation. Patchett returns to the Aspen Words stage and will discuss her latest work, “Tom Lake,” a “Reese’s Book Club” selection. The novel is a meditation on young love, married love, and the lives parents have led before children. McCracken is the author of eight books including her most recent novel, “The Hero of This Book.”
Patchett and McCracken are two highly accomplished authors; don’t miss their discussion about their work and lives and the intersection of how family dynamics and other intimate relationships serve as their inspiration.
Event location: Paepcke Auditorium in Aspen (1000 N 3rd St). Parking is limited.
Doors: 5:30 p.m. | Talk: 6:00-7:00 p.m. | Book signing to follow. Explore Booksellers will be selling books.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Ann Patchett is the author of nine novels, “The Patron Saint of Liars,” “Taft,” “The Magician’s Assistant,” “Bel Canto,” “Run, State of Wonder,” “Commonwealth,” “The Dutch House” and “Tom Lake.” She was the editor of “Best American Short Stories, 2006,” and has written four books of nonfiction–“Truth & Beauty,” about her friendship with the writer Lucy Grealy, “What Now?” an expansion of her graduation address at Sarah Lawrence College, “This is the Story of a Happy Marriage,” a collection of essays examining the theme of commitment and “These Precious Days,” essays on home, family, friendship and writing. In 2019, she published her first children’s book, “Lambslide,” illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser, followed by “Escape Goat” in 2020.
A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Patchett has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including a National Humanities Medal, England’s Women’s Prize, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Book Sense Book of the Year, a Guggenheim Fellowship, The Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize, The Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the American Bookseller’s Association’s Most Engaging Author Award and the Women’s National Book Association’s Award. Her novel, “The Dutch House,” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her books have been both New York Times Notable Books and New York Times bestsellers. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages.
In November 2011, she opened Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee, with her business partner Karen Hayes. She has since become a spokesperson for independent booksellers, championing books and bookstores on NPR, The Colbert Report (including the series finale), Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday, The Martha Stewart Show and The CBS Early Show, among many others. Along with James Patterson, she was the honorary chair of World Book Night. In 2012, she was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Elizabeth McCracken is the author of eight books: “Here’s Your Hat What’s Your Hurry,” “The Giant’s House,” “Niagara Falls All Over Again,” “An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination,” “Thunderstruck & Other Stories,” “Bowlaway,” “The Souvenir Museum” and “The Hero of This Book.” She’s received grants and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Liguria Study Center, the American Academy in Berlin, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. “Thunderstruck & Other Stories” won the 2015 Story Prize. Her work has been published in The Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, The O. Henry Prize, The New York Times Magazine, and many other places.

Thanks to our partners at Explore Booksellers and Bookbinders Basalt,
Aspen Words members receive 20% off Winter Words book titles.

Thank you to our season presenting sponsors
Diane & William Hunckler
Beth & Josh Mondry
Helen & Wally Obermeyer

Thanks also to our local partners:

Winter Words with Sasha DiGiulian – Paepcke Auditorium & Livestreamed
2024-02-06 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Denver) | Paepcke Auditorium, 1000 N 3rd St., Aspen, CO, 81611, United States
Buy Winter Words Tickets + Passes

IN-PERSON SEASON PASS: $80
Attend three in-person events at Paepcke Auditorium in Aspen and one in-person event at TACAW in Basalt

VIRTUAL SEASON PASS: $40
Join all four Winter Words events via livestream

INDIVIDUAL EVENT TICKETS: $30
Join any of the four events in-person

MORE WAYS TO PURCHASE TICKETS: Visit Explore Booksellers (221 E. Main St., Aspen), 11 a.m.- 6 p.m., Monday-Sunday, or stop by the Aspen Words lunchtime box office in the Red Brick Center for the Arts (110 E. Hallam St., Aspen), on Wednesdays from 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

World-champion climber Sasha Digiulian joins Aspen Words to present excerpts from her memoir, “Take the Lead: Hanging On, Letting Go, and Conquering Life’s Hardest Climbs,” her first book on the subjects of navigating a male-dominated sport, dealing with body dysmorphia in the age of social media, and channeling a competitive spirit into entrepreneurship. If you love Tommy Caldwell’s “Push,” this evening of literature, the examination of risk-taking, and stimulating conversation is not to be missed.
Moderator: Caroline Tory, Aspen Words managing director
Event location: Paepcke Auditorium in Aspen (1000 N 3rd St). Parking is limited.
Doors: 5:30 p.m. | Talk: 6:00-7:00 p.m. | Book-signing to follow. Explore Booksellers will be selling books.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sasha DiGiulian is a world champion climber and three-time U.S. national champion. At thirty years old, she’s traveled to over fifty countries and accomplished over thirty first female ascents. In 2016, she graduated from Columbia University with a focus on journalism and business and in 2022 became the founder and CEO of SEND Bars, a superfood nutrition bar company. In addition to being featured in dozens of magazines and new media pieces, she wrote for many publications including Outside magazine, National Geographic, Rock and Ice, Self, Seventeen and Crave. Sasha is an outspoken environmental activist and a global athlete ambassador for Right to Play, Protect Our Winters and Up2Us Sports. She served on the board of the Women’s Sports Foundation for six years and travels globally for expeditions, speaking engagements, sporting events and commercial work.

Thanks to our partners at Explore Booksellers and Bookbinders Basalt,
Aspen Words members receive 20% off Winter Words book titles.

Thank you to our season presenting sponsors
Diane & William Hunckler
Beth & Josh Mondry
Helen & Wally Obermeyer

Thanks also to our local partners:

Winter Words with Safiya Sinclair – TACAW in Basalt & Livestreamed
2024-02-29 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Denver) | TACAW, 400 Robinson St., Basalt, CO, 81621
Buy Winter Words Tickets + Passes

IN-PERSON SEASON PASS: $80
Attend three in-person events at Paepcke Auditorium in Aspen and one in-person event at TACAW in Basalt

VIRTUAL SEASON PASS: $40
Join all four Winter Words events via livestream

INDIVIDUAL EVENT TICKETS: $30
Join any of the four events in-person

MORE WAYS TO PURCHASE TICKETS: Visit Explore Booksellers (221 E. Main St., Aspen), 11 a.m.- 6 p.m., Monday-Sunday, or stop by the Aspen Words lunchtime box office in the Red Brick Center for the Arts (110 E. Hallam St., Aspen), on Wednesdays from 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

What is it like to leave everything you know behind? Join Aspen Words at TACAW for Winter Words with memoirist and award-winning poet Safiya Sinclair, as she discusses her new book, “How to Say Babylon.” This Read with Jenna TODAY show book club pick examines the author’s rigid Rastafarian upbringing and her efforts to break free from the patriarchal structure which defined her youth.
Moderator: Mitzi Rapkin, host of First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing
Event location: TACAW 400 Robinson Street Basalt, CO 81621. Parking is limited.
Doors: 5:30 p.m. | Talk: 6:00-7:00 p.m. | Book-signing to follow. Explore Booksellers will be selling books.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Safiya Sinclair was born and raised in Montego Bay, Jamaica. She is the author of the memoir “How to Say Babylon,” forthcoming from Simon & Schuster in October 2023. She is also the author of the poetry collection “Cannibal,” winner of a Whiting Writers’ Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Metcalf Award, the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Poetry, the Phillis Wheatley Book Award and the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry. “Cannibal” was selected as one of the American Library Association’s Notable Books of the Year and was a finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award and the Seamus Heaney First Book Award in the UK and was longlisted for the PEN Open Book Award and the Dylan Thomas Prize.
Sinclair’s other honors include a Pushcart Prize, fellowships from the Poetry Foundation, Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Elizabeth George Foundation, MacDowell, Yaddo, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, The Nation, Poetry, Kenyon Review, the Oxford American and elsewhere.

Thanks to our partners at Explore Booksellers and Bookbinders Basalt,
Aspen Words members receive 20% off Winter Words book titles.

Thank you to our season presenting sponsors
Diane & William Hunckler
Beth & Josh Mondry
Helen & Wally Obermeyer

Thanks also to our local partners:

Winter Words with Abraham Verghese – Paepcke Auditorium & Livestreamed
2024-03-14 18:00 - 19:00 UTC | Paepcke Auditorium, 1000 N 3rd St., Aspen, CO, 81611, United States
Buy Winter Words Tickets + Passes

IN-PERSON SEASON PASS: $80
Attend three in-person events at Paepcke Auditorium in Aspen and one in-person event at TACAW in Basalt

VIRTUAL SEASON PASS: $40
Join all four Winter Words events via livestream

INDIVIDUAL EVENT TICKETS: $30
Join any of the four events in-person

MORE WAYS TO PURCHASE TICKETS: Visit Explore Booksellers (221 E. Main St., Aspen), 11 a.m.- 6 p.m., Monday-Sunday, or stop by the Aspen Words lunchtime box office in the Red Brick Center for the Arts (110 E. Hallam St., Aspen), on Wednesdays from 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

Bestselling author of “Cutting for Stone,” Abraham Verghese wraps up the 2024 Winter Words season, presenting his latest work, “The Covenant of Water,” also a New York Times bestseller, as well as an Oprah’s Book Club selection and the subject of a six-part podcast series hosted by Oprah Winfrey. This mystical work of fiction follows three generations of a family which experiences mysterious tragedy on the South Indian coast. Verghese will talk about his inspiration for the novel and how his deep and knowledgeable background in the medical field influences his work.
Moderator: Elisabeth Egan, author and a New York Times books editor
Event location: Paepcke Auditorium in Aspen (1000 N 3rd St). Parking is limited.
Doors: 5:30 p.m. | Talk: 6:00-7:00 p.m. | Book-signing to follow. Explore Booksellers will be selling books.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Abraham Verghese, MD, MACP, is Professor and Linda R. Meier and Joan F. Lane Provostial Professor and Vice Chair for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the School of Medicine at Stanford University. He is also a bestselling author of “Cutting for Stone,” and the recently released “The Covenant of Water” as well as a physician with a reputation for his focus on healing in an era where technology often overwhelms the human side of medicine. He received the Heinz Award in 2014 and was awarded the National Humanities Medal, presented by President Barack Obama, in 2015.
Born in Addis Ababa in 1955, the second of three sons of Indian parents recruited by Emperor Haile Selassie to teach in Ethiopia, he grew up near the capital and began his medical training there. When the emperor was deposed, Verghese briefly joined his parents in the United States, working as an orderly, or nursing assistant, in a series of hospitals and nursing homes before completing his medical education in India at Madras Medical College. His experiences of civil unrest and his time as a hospital orderly were to leave a significant mark on his life and work.
After graduation, he left India for a medical residency in the United States and, like many other foreign medical graduates, he found only the less popular hospitals and communities open to him, an experience he described in a 1997 New Yorker article, “The Cowpath to America.”
Abraham Verghese’s early years as an orderly, his care of terminal AIDS patients and the insights he gained from the deep relationships he formed and the suffering he witnessed were transformative. Though he wrote a seminal scientific paper, he felt the sometimes cold and unimaginative language of science could not begin to capture the nature of the experience for patients and families, nor did it convey his own feelings as he witnessed their journeys. These were the cumulative experiences around which his first book, “My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story,” is centered.
As his interest in writing grew, he took time off from medicine to study at the Iowa Writers Workshop, where he earned an MFA in 1991. Since then, his work has appeared in the New Yorker, Texas Monthly, Atlantic, The New York Times, The New York Times magazine, Granta, Forbes and The Wall Street Journal, among others.
After leaving Iowa, Verghese became professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Texas Tech Health Sciences Center in El Paso, Texas, where he lived for the next 11 years. In El Paso, he finished his first book, chosen as one of the Best Books of the Year by TIME and later filmed for Showtime as “My Own Country,” directed by Mira Nair and starring Naveen Andrews. His second bestselling book, “The Tennis Partner: A Story of Friendship and Loss,” explored his friend and frequent tennis partner’s losing struggle with addiction. “The Tennis Partner” was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
In his writing and work, Abraham Verghese continues to emphasize the importance of bedside medicine and physical examination in an era of advanced medical technology. He contends that the patient in the bed often gets less attention than the patient data in the computer. His December 2008 article in the New England Journal of Medicine, “Culture Shock: Patient as Icon, Icon as Patient,” clearly lays out his viewpoint.
In speaking about his novel, “Cutting for Stone,” he also addressed the issue: “I wanted the reader to see how entering medicine was a passionate quest, a romantic pursuit, a spiritual calling, a privileged yet hazardous undertaking. It’s a view of medicine I don’t think too many young people see in the West because, frankly, in the sterile hallways of modern medical-industrial complexes, where physicians and nurses are hunkered down behind computer monitors and patients are whisked off here and there for all manner of tests, that side of medicine gets lost.”
Today, as a popular invited speaker, Verghese has more forums beyond his writing in which to share his views on patient care. He speaks widely on the subject, as well as giving talks and readings from his books. At the Stanford School of Medicine, he has led the effort to establish the Stanford 25, where residents and students are taught techniques and skills to recognize the basic phenotypic expressions of disease that manifest as abnormal physical signs.

Thanks to our partners at Explore Booksellers and Bookbinders Basalt,
Aspen Words members receive 20% off Winter Words book titles.

Thank you to our season presenting sponsors
Diane & William Hunckler
Beth & Josh Mondry
Helen & Wally Obermeyer

Thanks also to our local partners:

Launching the Line Up and Tickets for the Winter Words Speaker Series 2026
2025-12-02 10:00 - 19:00 (America/Denver)
On December 2, Aspen Words will release the official Winter Words 2026 lineup and tickets for the Winter Words Speaker Series. Tickets will be available to purchase online starting December 2.
Join us in person at the Red Brick on December 4 from 5–7 p.m. to purchase tickets.
Save the Dates!

Wednesday, January 28 | Paepcke Auditorium | 6–7 p.m.

Wednesday, February 4 | Paepcke Auditorium | 6–7 p.m.

Wednesday, February 11 | TACAW | 6–7 p.m.

The Winter Words 2026 speaker series brings celebrated writers to Aspen for moderated discussions about their work, creative process, and the stories that shape our world.
Aspen Words looks forward to sharing this memorable literary experience with you!

Winter Words Speaker Series Tickets for Sale In-Person
2025-12-04 17:00 - 19:00 (America/Denver)
On December 4, Aspen Words will be selling tickets for the Winter Words Speaker Series in person at the Red Brick Center for the Arts from 5–7 p.m.
Red Brick Center for the Arts110 E Hallam StreetAspen, CO 81611Tickets will be available at the Aspen Words office, Suite #109.
Tickets will also be available to purchase online starting December 2.
Save the Dates!

Wednesday, January 28 | Paepcke Auditorium | 6–7 p.m.

Wednesday, February 4 | Paepcke Auditorium | 6–7 p.m.

Wednesday, February 11 | TACAW | 6–7 p.m.

The Winter Words 2026 speaker series brings celebrated writers to Aspen for moderated discussions about their work, creative process, and the stories that shape our world.
Aspen Words looks forward to sharing this memorable literary experience with you!

Winter Words with Susan Orlean
2026-01-28 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Denver) | Paepcke Auditorium, 1000 N 3rd St., Aspen, CO, 81611, United States
Bestselling author and beloved New Yorker writer Susan Orlean will discuss “Joyride,” a magic carpet ride through her life and career. The book is also a time machine to a bygone era of journalism, from Orlean’s bright start in the golden age of alt-weeklies to her career-making days working alongside icons such as Tina Brown, David Remnick, Anna Wintour and other forces who shaped the media industry as we know it today. “Joyride” is a must-read for anyone who hungers to start, build and sustain a creative life. Orlean inspires us to seek out daily inspiration and rediscover the marvels that surround us.
Moderated by Christine Benedetti
About the Author

Susan Orlean is the New York Times bestselling author of “Joyride,” “The Library Book,” “Rin Tin Tin,” “Saturday Night,” “The Orchid Thief,” which was made into the Academy Award–winning film “Adaptation,” and other books. She has been called “a national treasure” by TheWashington Post and “a latter-day Tocqueville” by The New York Times. Her deeply moving explorations of American stories both familiar and obscure have earned her a reputation as one of America’s most distinctive journalistic voices. A staff writer for The New Yorker for over 30 years and a former contributing editor at Rolling Stone and Vogue, she has been praised as “an exceptional essayist” (Publishers Weekly) and a writerwho “approaches her subjects with intense curiosity and fairness” (Bookmarks).

Winter Words with Lily King
2026-02-04 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Denver) | Paepcke Auditorium, 1000 N 3rd St., Aspen, CO, 81611, United States
Join acclaimed author Lily King (“Writers & Lovers,” “Euphoria”) as she discusses her latest novel, “Heart the Lover,” an instant New York Times bestseller. Written with the superb wit and emotional sensitivity fans of King have come to adore, “Heart the Lover” is a deeply moving story that celebrates love, friendship and the transformative nature of forgiveness. The novel is King at her very best, affirming her as an astute chronicler of the human experience and one of the finest novelists at work today.
Moderated by Mitzi Rapkin
About the Author

Lily King is the award-winning author of six novels, including most recently, “Heart the Lover.” She has also published a collection of short stories, “Five Tuesdays in Winter.” Her 2020 novel, “Writers & Lovers,” won the New England Society Book Awards and was a New York Times Notable Book and chosen as a top-10 best book of 2020 by The Washington Post, NPR, People Magazine and The Los Angeles Times. Her 2014 novel, “Euphoria,” won the Kirkus Award, the New England Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Award. “Euphoria” was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2014 by The New York Times Book Review. It was included in TIME’s Top 10 Fiction Books of 2014, as well as on Amazon, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly and Salon’s Best Books of 2014.

Winter Words with Tara Roberts
2026-02-11 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Denver) | TACAW, 400 Robinson St., Basalt, CO, 81621
Adventurer and storyteller Tara Roberts will discuss her searing memoir, “Written in the Waters,” which recounts her epic journey to trace the global slave trade across the Atlantic Ocean. Roberts, a National Geographic Explorer in Residence, spent years diving with and telling stories about a group of Black scuba divers searching for slave shipwrecks around the world. For fans of Cheryl Strayed’s “Wild” and Jesmyn Ward’s “Men We Reaped,” Roberts’ memoir is a powerful blend of personal and cultural history.

About the Author

Tara Roberts follows, dives with and tells stories about Black scuba divers as they search for and help document slave shipwrecks around the world. Her journey was turned into an award-winning National Geographic-produced podcast called “Into the Depths.” Tara became the first Black female explorer ever to be featured on the cover of the magazine and was named the Rolex National Geographic Explorer of the Year. Currently, Tara is an Explorer in Residence at Nat Geo. She is the author of “Written in the Waters: A Memoir of History, Home and Belonging.” Tara is also a former magazine editor and indie publisher, a nonprofit communications director and editor of several nonfiction books for girls. She calls Atlanta home but loves to hit the road. Her motto is: have suitcase, will travel.
