Aspen Words

AWN Meeting Thursday February 20
2025-02-20 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Denver) | Bonfire Coffee, 433 Main St., Carbondale, Colorado, 81623
A very special in-person workshop this Thursday, the 20th – What Prose Writers Can Learn From Screen Writers
In this in-person workshop, scriptwriter and novelist Scott Lasser will teach you the four main skills prose writers can learn from scriptwriters: structure, scene writing, concision, and dialogue. He will also share how the game is played in Hollywood. Attached are the support materials for the workshop. From Scott:
“Here’s a 17-page pdf that we’ll use for reference on the 20th. It’s mostly snippets of scripts and outlines that we’ll use to discuss various points and skills. They don’t need to read it ahead of time, BUT…if they take a look at the David Mamet memo (pages 7-11), they’ll likely find it useful.”

Scott Lasser is a scriptwriter, novelist, and journalist. He has written pilots for Sony and Fox, among others. He developed Jackson State for HBO, a project set in the world of amateur baseball and the opioid epidemic. He’s also written for HBO’s True Detective. Lasser’s first novel (Battle Creek/William Morrow) was optioned by Scott Rudin/Paramount; Lasser wrote an adaption of his fourth novel, Say Nice Things About Detroit (Norton), for Warner Brothers and Steve Carell’s Carousel Productions. His journalism has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, and elsewhere.
Connect With Your Writer Muses & Empower Your Writing
Thursday, February 20 at Bonfire Coffee from 6:30-8:30 p.m.
BECOME A MEMBER

Winter Words with Lauren Groff
2025-02-12 18:00 - 19:00 | Paepcke Auditorium, 1000 N 3rd St., Aspen, CO, 81611, United States
Lauren Groff will be in conversation discussing her most recent novel “The Vaster Wilds,” which plunges readers into colonial America’s wilderness through the eyes of a young servant girl fleeing the famine of Jamestown. As she navigates nature’s brutal beauty and the edges of survival, Groff crafts an electrifying exploration of resilience, self-discovery, and the precarious line between civilization and wildness.

Moderated by Mitzi Rapkin

About the Author

Lauren Groff is a three-time National Book Award finalist and The New York Times–bestselling author of the novels “The Monsters of Templeton,” “Arcadia, Fates and Furies, Matrix” and “The Vaster Wilds,” and the celebrated short story collections “Delicate Edible Birds and Florida.” She has won The Story Prize, the ABA Indies’ Choice Award, France’s Grand Prix de l’Héroïne and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize and has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her work regularly appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic and elsewhere. Her work has been translated into thirty-six languages. She lives in Gainesville, Florida.

Winter Words with Kevin Fedarko
2025-02-05 18:00 - 19:00 | TACAW, 400 Robinson St., Basalt, CO, 81621
In-person tickets for this event are SOLD OUT! We are offering a virtual season pass for $35, which provides access to all three Winter Words 2025 livestreams. If you would like to join a waitlist for the in-person event, please register here.
Join bestselling author Kevin Fedarko as he recounts the untamed adventure behind “A Walk in the Park,” narrating his grueling 750-mile trek through the Grand Canyon—an awe-inspiring journey across perilous cliffs, hidden histories, and breathtaking vistas. With humor, humility, and deep reverence, he transports readers to the edge of endurance and into the heart of America’s most majestic landscape. Fedarko is also the author of “The Emerald Mile.”
Moderated by Daniel Shaw

About the Author

Kevin Fedarko is a seasoned author and journalist renowned for his exploration of the American Southwest and his fervent advocacy for environmental conservation. He is the author of “The Emerald Mile,” an epic story of the fastest ride in history through the heart of the Grand Canyon and “A Walk in the Park,” the true story of a spectacular misadventure in the Grand Canyon. He has been a staff writer at Time magazine, where he worked primarily on the foreign affairs desk, and a senior editor at Outside, where he covered outdoor adventure. His writing has appeared in National Geographic, the New York Times and Esquire, among other publications. He and his wife, Annette Avery, owner of Bright Side Bookshop, live in Flagstaff, Arizona, where they spend as much of their free time as possible hiking in the Grand Canyon or in mountains just outside of town.

Thank you to our venue partner

Winter Words with Ayad Akhtar
2025-01-29 18:00 - 19:00 | Paepcke Auditorium, 1000 N 3rd St., Aspen, CO, 81611, United States
Step into a thrilling exploration of AI, art, and the human psyche with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar as he unveils his new play, McNeal. This event will feature Akhtar discussing his most recent broadway debut and an actor delivering a live reading from the play, offering a glimpse into the story of Jacob McNeal—a novelist at odds with his own AI obsession— as he grapples with the limits of creativity and the haunting possibilities of artificial intelligence.
Moderated by Maurice (Mo) LaMee

About the Author
Akhtar is a novelist and playwright. His work has been published and performed in over two dozen languages. He is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Edith Wharton Citation of Merit for Fiction and an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Akhtar is the author of “Homeland Elegies” (Little, Brown & Co.), which The Washington Post called “a tour de force” and The New York Times called “a beautiful novel…that had echoes of “The Great Gatsby” and that circles, with pointed intellect, the possibilities and limitations of American life.” His first novel, “American Dervish” (Little, Brown & Co.), was published in over 20 languages. As a playwright, he has written “Junk” (Lincoln Center, Broadway; Kennedy Prize for American Drama, Tony nomination); “Disgraced” (Lincoln Center, Broadway; Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Tony nomination); “The Who & The What” (Lincoln Center); and “The Invisible Hand” (NYTW; Obie Award, Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Award, Olivier and Evening Standard nominations). Among other honors, Akhtar is the recipient of the Steinberg Playwrighting Award, the Nestroy Award, the Erwin Piscator Award, as well as fellowships from the American Academy in Rome, MacDowell, the Sundance Institute and Yaddo, where he serves as a Board Director. In 2021, Akhtar was named the New York State Author, succeeding Colson Whitehead, by the New York State Writers Institute.

AWN Meeting Thursday January 16
2025-01-16 18:30 - 20:00 | Bonfire Coffee, 433 Main St., Carbondale, Colorado, 81623
Connect With Your Writer Muses & Empower Your Writing
Thursday, January 16 at Bonfire Coffee from 6:30-8:30 p.m.
In this in-person workshop, Jessica Barnum will share insights from her recently published book, Dear Writer Muses, I Am Here. You’ll discuss the “seek and receive” concepts of the writer mindset, consider the various types of Writer Muses, engage in a mindfulness activity to connect with Writer Muses, and practice the personification letter-writing strategy for empowering you and your writing. Bring a journal!
BECOME A MEMBER

AWN: Holiday Party
2024-12-19 18:30 - 20:30 | Bonfire Coffee, 433 Main St., Carbondale, Colorado, 81623
Thursday, December 19 at Bonfire Coffee Company (433 Main Street, Carbondale, CO 81623) 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.
Join us for a festive and fun gathering. Choose a beloved book from your shelf to share with other members, or support a local business by visiting White River Books in Carbondale, Bookbinders in Basalt, or Explore Booksellers in Aspen to purchase one. Dedicate the book with your most valuable piece of writing advice, and wrap it up to share at the exchange. Refreshments provided.

AWN: Fairytales with Kim Bussing | Third Thursday in November
2024-11-21 18:30 - 20:30
Thursday, November 21 at Bonfire Coffee Company (433 Main Street, Carbondale, CO 81623) 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.
Kim Bussing will ask AWN members to look at the psychology and craft of fairy tales to sharpen your manuscript, weave magic into both the fantastic and the mundane, and overcome roadblocks for captivating stories.
CRAFT TALK DESCRIPTION
Fairy tales are the most honest forms of storytelling. Through magic and metaphor, they confront what is otherwise unspeakable. Many of the stories we tell are built off the bones of fairy tales, from how we imagine characters, create intrigue, conjure settings, and confront what haunts us. Whether you’re writing memoir or science fiction, a children’s novel or a sweeping multigenerational drama, the tenets of fairy tales are integral to our approach to stories. This class will look at the psychology and craft of fairy tales to sharpen your manuscript, weave magic into both the fantastic and the mundane, and overcome roadblocks for captivating stories. It will both teach elements of craft while providing opportunities to generate new work in your prose genre of choice.

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR
Kim Bussing is an author of fairy tales for children and adults. Her first series, The Princess Swap, is forthcoming from Penguin Random House beginning in 2025. Her short fiction has won several grants and awards, and she’s helped tell stories for brands including Hilton, Marriott, Audi, and more. She holds an MFA from the University of Arizona, where she taught creative writing and was co-editor of Sonora Review. She regularly speaks on the power of storytelling, leads creative workshops, and coaches writers and entrepreneurs.
Email Mallory Kaufman for more information on becoming a member.

AWN: 45 Ways to Turn up the Tension with April Henry | Third Thursday October
2024-10-17 18:30 - 20:30
Thursday, October 17 at Bonfire Coffee (433 Main St Carbondale), 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Join AWN for 45 Ways to Turn up the Tension: no matter what genre you’re writing, these 45 powerful and proven techniques will make readers feel like the pages are flying by.
Taught by April Henry, the New York Times bestselling author of 29 mysteries and thrillers for teens and adults.
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR:

Edgar-award winning and New York Times-bestselling author April Henry knows how to kill you in a two-dozen different ways. She makes up for a peaceful childhood in an intact home by killing off fictional characters. There was one detour on April’s path to destruction: when she was 12 she sent a short story about a six-foot tall frog who loved peanut butter to noted children’s author Roald Dahl. He liked it so much he showed it to his editor, who asked if she could publish it in Puffin Post, an international children’s magazine. By the time April was in her 30s, she had started writing about hit men, kidnappers, and drug dealers. She has published 29 mysteries and thrillers for teens and adults, with more to come. She is known for meticulously researching her novels to get the details right.
Email Mallory Kaufman for more information on becoming a member.

AN EVENING WITH MARY LOUISE KELLY MODERATED BY BREEZE RICHARDSON
2024-10-09 18:00 - 19:00 | TACAW, 400 Robinson St., Basalt, CO, 81621
Join us for a conversation with 2024 Aspen Words Literary Prize ceremony moderator, novelist and host of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” Mary Louise Kelly.
Moderator: Aspen Public Radio’s Executive Director, Breeze Richardson.
This event is free and open to all, registration is requested.
The event is currently at capacity,
if you are interested in attending plan to arrive when the doors open at 5:30 p.m.
DOORS: Open at 5:30 p.m.
EVENT: Conversation 6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
SEATING: General admission and available on a first come, first served basis.
Come early and purchase a drink at the TACAW bar.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mary Louise Kelly is a host of “All Things Considered,” NPR’s award-winning afternoon newsmagazine. Previously, she spent a decade as national security correspondent for NPR News, and she’s kept that focus in her role as anchor. That’s meant taking “All Things Considered” to Russia, North Korea, Iran and beyond.
She’s published two novels, “Anonymous Sources” and “The Bullet,” as well as the New York Times bestselling memoir, “It. Goes. So. Fast. The Year of No Do-Overs.” Her writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, among other publications, and she serves as a contributing writer at The Atlantic.
ABOUT THE MODERATOR
Breeze Richardson joined the Aspen Public Radio team in June 2021. Highly-respected in public media for her strategic planning and communications background, she has a passion for telling stories and producing community-focused programming.
Since arriving in the Roaring Fork Valley, Breeze has been on stage exploring disability and inclusion with 1A’s Jenn White, discussing the importance of local journalism for Aspen Institute’s Society of Fellows, and in conversation with Tockukwu Okafor, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, and 2023 Aspen Words Literary Prize winner Jamil Jan Kochaifor Aspen Words. In February 2023, she took the stage at the Wheeler Opera House with NPR’s Ailsa Chang to lead a conversation about making big career changes, representation in media, and the impact of investigative journalism.
Breeze currently serves as President of the Rocky Mountain Community Radio coalition, and is an elected member of the Western States Public Radio Board of Directors. In 2024, she completed the Public Media Diversity Leaders Initiative (PMDLI) hosted by the Riley Institute at Furman University, and is a proud alumni of the Aspen Institute Hurst Leaders Forum.

2024 Fall Writing Workshop with Mary Robinette Kowal (Two Workshops in One)
2024-10-06 09:00 - 16:00
Sunday, October 6th, 9am to 4pm (with a 1-hour lunch break). Mary Robinette Kowal will be teaching two of her most popular topics:
Hiding Exposition in Plain Sight
In this workshop, we learn how to give our readers all the information they need to know about the setting we created, without drowning them in information. Together we learn the art of subtly expositing without showing our authorial hand.
Endings: How to Wrap Things Up
Very often, writers get to the two-thirds mark in a work and bog down, sometimes abandoning it to move on to something shinier. Why does this happen? It’s a place at which we move from raising questions for the reader to needing to answer them. This change in mode requires a different set of tools than the beginning of a story, while needing to appear part of a seamless whole. In this workshop, we’ll look at how to wrap up loose ends, decide which things we can leave dangling, and what elements make a strong closing sentence.
General Admission: $95 | AWN Member: $35

Learn more about the Aspen Writers Network (AWN)
and become a member today!
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR
Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of The Spare Man,The Glamourist Histories series, Ghost Talkers, and the Lady Astronaut Universe. She is part of the award-winning podcast Writing Excuses and has received the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, four Hugo awards, the Nebula and Locus awards. Her stories appear in Asimov’s, Uncanny, and several Year’s Best anthologies. Mary Robinette, a professional puppeteer, also performs as a voice actor (SAG/AFTRA), recording fiction for authors including Seanan McGuire, Cory Doctorow, and John Scalzi. She lives in Nashville with her husband Rob and over a dozen manual typewriters. Visit maryrobinettekowal.com.

AWN: Member Reading with Feedback
2024-09-19 18:30 - 20:30 | Bonfire Coffee, 433 Main St., Carbondale, Colorado, 81623
Thursday, September 19 at Bonfire Coffee (433 Main St Carbondale), 6:30-8:30 p.m.
This month’s meeting is one of the more important ones in our schedule. It provides the opportunity for you to support your fellow writers and/or be supported. We will be having member readings with optional feedback. Refreshments provided.
Reading Rules:
Readings are 4 minutes max (yes, we enforce this). Please practice and time yourself.
Constructive feedback (1 minute max) per reviewer = what you liked best + one area you suggest the writer take another look at.
Email Mallory Kaufman for more information on becoming a member.

2024 Community Read Beyond the Book: Hamlet Movie Weekend
2024-09-14 08:00 - 17:00, 2024-09-13 08:00 - 2024-09-14 17:00 | Pitkin County Library, 120 N. Mill St., Aspen, CO, 81611, United States
Aspen Words in partnership with the Pitkin County Library Cinema presents a “Hamlet” movie weekend.
Join us in the Pitkin County Library Dunaway Community Meeting Room on Friday and Saturday, September 13 & 14 to watch back-t0-back silver screen renditions of “Hamlet” 1996 and 1948.
Exact times and registration details to come.
All Community Read Events are free and open to all.

AWN: Self Publishing Panel
2024-08-15 08:00 - 17:00

AYC: The Wordplay & Expression Summer Camp
2024-07-22 10:00 - 2024-07-25 14:30
The Wordplay & Expression Summer Camp
Open to incoming 6th-9th graders
July 22-25
10 am- 2:30 pm
Join Aspen Words and Jess Barnum at Aspen Youth Center Monday, July 22 – Thursday, July 25 for a Wordplay & Expression Summer Camp. This workshop will provide a place for you to focus on everything wordplay, writing, voice, creativity, and expression. You’ll self-discover, empower, and manifest your own creativity, confidence, intuition, success, and other magical magic that pops up for you along the way. You’ll engage in a variety of activities such as wordplay writing, reading for inspiration, and stage performances. There will be time to learn and create together as a group, and there will be time to independently create and showcase what you self-design. This camp is a place for you to be the inspiration that you are! Plan to pack a water bottle, snacks, SPF, a long sleeve top layer, a hat, sunglasses, a journal, and a laptop (optional). Registration is required!
Price: $100 – Scholarships available *Registration is limited*
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

AWN: Summer Soiree
2024-07-18 18:30 - 20:30 | Village Smithy, 26 S 3rd St., Carbondale, CO, 81623, United States
AWN members join us for the Summer Soiree! Enjoy heavy appetizers, AWN’s new signature “Working Title” cocktail, a magic show by Doc Eason and an open mic.

2024 Community Read Book Pick-Up
2024-07-17 12:00 - 18:00 | Pitkin County Library, 120 N. Mill St., Aspen, CO, 81611, United States
Aspen Words and Pitkin County Library are thrilled to present the 2024 Community Read, which celebrates literature, unites readers around a work of fiction and ignites meaningful conversation on the vital social issues explored in the novel, Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad, winner of the 2024 Aspen Words Literary Prize.
Join us at Pitkin County Library’s front lawn to pick-up your free copy of the award-winning novel on Wednesday, July 17 between 12-1 p.m. and 4-6 p.m.

Drawing to a Close: Sustaining Inspiration Beyond the Conference
2024-06-27 16:15 - 17:30
Thursday, June 27 4:15-5:30 p.m.
Drawing to a Close: Sustaining Inspiration Beyond the Conference
Speakers: Mahogany Browne, Jim Shepard, Karen Shepard, Angie Kim
Moderator: Adrienne Brodeur
https://support.aspeninstitute.org/event/2024-summer-words-public-panels/e585336

Craft Talk: The Plot Thickens: Creating Narratives that Hook Readers
2024-06-27 15:00 - 16:00
Thursday, June 27 3:00-4:00 p.m.
Craft Talk: The Plot Thickens: Creating Narratives that Hook Readers
Speakers: Kelly Fremon Craig, Angie Kim
https://support.aspeninstitute.org/event/2024-summer-words-public-panels/e585336

Craft Talk: Conversation in Motion: Dialogue & Gesture in Character Development
2024-06-26 04:10 - 16:40
Wednesday, June 26, 4:10-4:40 p.m.
Craft Talk: Conversation in Motion: Dialogue & Gesture in Character Development
Speaker: Peter Orner
https://support.aspeninstitute.org/event/2024-summer-words-public-panels/e585336

Craft Talk: From Life to Page: Harnessing Experience to Inform Your Writing (no matter the genre)
2024-06-26 03:30 - 16:00
Wednesday, June 26, 3:30-4:00 p.m.
Craft Talk: From Life to Page: Harnessing Experience to Inform Your Writing (no matter the genre)
Speaker: Martha McPhee
https://support.aspeninstitute.org/event/2024-summer-words-public-panels/e585336

How Stories Stand: Crafting Narrative Architecture through Structure, POV, and Time
2024-06-25 03:30 - 16:30
Tuesday, June 25, 3:30-4:30 p.m.
Speakers: Karen Lord, Will Schwalbe, Jim Shepard
Moderator: Regina Brooks
https://support.aspeninstitute.org/event/2024-summer-words-public-panels/e585336

Publishing Pathways: Understanding the Industry
2024-06-24 13:30 - 14:30
Publishing Pathways: Understanding the Industry
Monday, June 24, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Speakers: Sophie Cudd, Dawn Davis, Aram Fox, Mollie Glick
Moderator: Lisa Sharkey
Purchase your $30 pass to all 6 events:
https://support.aspeninstitute.org/event/2024-summer-words-public-panels/e585336

Summer Words
2024-06-23 - 2024-06-28
Join us for our annual Summer Words Writers Conference in Snowmass, CO.

AWN: Writing Prompts
2024-06-20 18:30 - 20:30

Book Ball
2024-06-20 18:00 - 22:00
Aspen Words’ 2024 Book Ball promises to be a real page turner! Join author and keynote speaker Michael Lewis for an unforgettable experience with fellow literature lovers while enjoying cocktails and dinner at the historic Hotel Jerome. Book Ball raises critical funds to support Aspen Words programs including writers in the schools, scholarships for aspiring writers and community talks with Pulitzer Prize-winning authors.

BOOK BALL
Thursday, June 20, 2024
5:30-9:30 p.m. MT
ASPEN WORDS ANNUAL BENEFIT DINNER
Featuring
Michael Lewis
Thursday, June 20, 2024
Hotel Jerome Grand Ballroom
Leadership award to be presented to Tom Bernard.
Thank you to our host committee!
Lisanne and Jim Rogers
Andrea and Chris Bryan
Erin Lentz
Ellie Knaus and Adam Sztykiel
Sue and Ron Hopkinson
Suzanne Bober and Steve Kahn
TICKETS ON SALE IN APRIL 2024
Sign up for our newsletter to get a notification when tickets go on sale

AWN: Summer soiree and open mic at the Village Smithy Restaurant
2024-06-18 18:30 - 20:30
Details to come!

AWN: State of the Publishing Industry
2024-05-16 18:30 - 20:30
Kevin Larimer, Editor in Chief of Poets & Writers magazine, will be in-person at this meeting to discuss the state of the publishing industry in 2024. He is also the coauthor of The Poets & Writers Complete Guide to Being a Writer: Everything You Need to Know About Craft, Inspiration, Agents, Editors, Publishing, and the Business of Building a Sustainable Writing Career (Avid Reader Press, 2020). He has given presentations and appeared on a number of panels on publishing at events such as the Library of Congress National Book Festival, the Sozopol Fiction Seminars, the Anguilla Lit Fest, the Slice Literary Writer’s Conference, the Iceland Writers Retreat, the Kauai Writers Conference, the Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference, Poets Forum, the Bronx Book Fair, and the Writer’s Hotel.

Aspen Words Literary Prize Ceremony
2024-04-25 18:30 - 20:30
A conversation with the prize finalists and announcement of the 2024 winner.
Details:
Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016
Program: 6:30-7:30 p.m. ET
& Livestreamed!
FREE Registration:
https://support.aspeninstitute.org/event/2024-aspen-words-literary-prize-ceremony/e568007/register/new/select-tickets
Finalists:

Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly popular, highly controversial, profit-raising program in America’s increasingly dominant private prison industry. It’s the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom. In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games, but CAPE’s corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar’s path have devastating consequences.  Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system’s unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism and mass incarceration and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means.
Pantheon – Random House
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is the New York Times-bestselling author of  Friday Black. His work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Esquire, The Paris Review and elsewhere. He was a National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” honoree, the winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the Saroyan Prize, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Award for Best First Book, along with many other honors. Raised in Spring Valley, New York, he now lives in the Bronx.

In Temple Folk, Black Muslims contemplate the convictions of their race, religion, economics, politics and sexuality in America. The 10 stories in this collection contribute to the bounty of diverse narratives about Black life by intimately portraying the experiences of a community that resists the mainstream culture to which they are expected to accept and aspire to while functioning within the country in which they are born. With an unflinching eye for the contradictions between what these characters profess to believe and what they do, Temple Folk accomplishes the rare feat of presenting moral failures with compassion, nuance and humor to remind us that while perfection is what many of us strive for, it’s the errors that make us human.
Simon & Schuster
Aaliyah Bilal was born and raised in Prince George’s County, Maryland. She has degrees from Oberlin College and the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies. She’s published stories and essays with The Michigan Quarterly Review and The Rumpus. Temple Folk is her first short story collection.

What does it mean to really see the world around you—to bear witness? And what does it cost us, both to see and not to see? In these ten stories, each set in the changing landscapes of contemporary New York City, a range of characters—from children to grandmothers to ghosts—live through the responsibility of perceiving and the moral challenge of speaking up or taking action. Though they strive to connect with, stand up for, care for and remember one another, they often fall short and the structures they build around these ambitions and failures shape their futures as well as the legacies and prospects of their communities and their city. In its portraits of families and friendships lost and found, the paradox of intimacy, the long shadow of grief and the meaning of home, Witness enacts its own testimony. Here is a world where fortunes can be made and stolen in just a few generations, where strangers might sometimes show kindness while those we trust—doctors, employers, siblings—too often turn away, where joy comes in snatches: flowers on a windowsill, dancing in the street, glimpsing your purpose, change on the horizon.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux – Macmillan
Jamel Brinkley is the author of A Lucky Man: Stories, which won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence and was a finalist for the National Book Award, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, the Story Prize, the John Leonard Prize, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. He has also been awarded an O. Henry Prize, the Rome Prize, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, and a Lannan Foundation Fellowship. His work has appeared in The Paris Review, A Public Space, Ploughshares and The Best American Short Stories. He was raised in the Bronx and in Brooklyn, New York, and currently teaches at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

After years away from her family’s homeland, and healing from an affair with an established director, stage actress Sonia Nasir returns to Palestine to visit her older sister Haneen. Though the siblings grew up spending summers at their family home in Haifa, Sonia hasn’t been since the second intifada and the deaths of her grandparents. While Haneen stayed and made a life commuting to Tel Aviv to teach at the university, Sonia remained in London to focus on her burgeoning acting career and now dissolute marriage. On her return, she finds her relationship to Palestine is fragile, both bone-deep and new.
Once at Haneen’s, Sonia meets the charismatic and candid Mariam, a local director, and finds herself roped into a production of Hamlet in the West Bank. Soon, Sonia is rehearsing Gertude’s lines in Classical Arabic and spending more time in Ramallah than in Haifa with a dedicated group of men from all over historic Palestine who, in spite of competing egos and priorities, each want to bring Shakespeare to that side of the wall. As opening night draws closer it becomes clear just how many invasive and violent obstacles stand before a troupe of Palestinian actors. Amidst it all, the life Sonia once knew starts to give way to the daunting, exhilarating possibility of finding a new self in her ancestral home.
A stunning rendering of present-day Palestine, Enter Ghost is a story of diaspora, displacement, and the connection to be found in family and shared resistance. Timely, thoughtful, and passionate, Isabella Hammad’s highly anticipated second novel is an exquisite feat, an unforgettable story of artistry under occupation.
Grove Press – Grove Atlantic
Isabella Hammad is the author of The Parisian and Enter Ghost. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, The Nation, Granta, Conjunctions, and elsewhere. She was awarded the Plimpton Prize, an O. Henry Award, the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Palestine Book Award and a Betty Trask Award, and her work has been supported by the Lannan Foundation and Columbia University’s Institute for Ideas and Imagination.

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe. As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community—heaven and earth—that sustain us.
Riverhead Books – Penguin Random House
James McBride is the author of the New York Times–bestselling Oprah’s Book Club selection Deacon King Kong, the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, the American classic The Color of Water, the novels Song Yet Sung and Miracle at St. Anna, the story collection Five-Carat Soul, and Kill ’Em and Leave, a biography of James Brown. The recipient of a National Humanities Medal and an accomplished musician, McBride is also a distinguished writer in residence at New York University.

Moderator:
Mary Louise Kelly is a host of “All Things Considered,” NPR’s award-winning afternoon newsmagazine. Previously, she spent a decade as national security correspondent for NPR News, and she’s kept that focus in her role as anchor. That’s meant taking “All Things Considered” to Russia, North Korea, Iran and beyond.
She’s published two novels, “Anonymous Sources” and “The Bullet,” as well as the New York Times bestselling memoir, “It. Goes. So. Fast. The Year of No Do-Overs.” Her writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, among other publications, and she serves as a contributing writer at The Atlantic.

AWLP Ceremony Watch Party: Pitkin County Library
2024-04-25 16:00 - 18:00
Please RSVP here!
Pitkin County Library is delighted to once again host a free livestream viewing party of the Aspen Words Literary Prize Awards Ceremony taking place at the Morgan Library in New York City on Thursday, April 25th. The event will be held in the Library’s Dunaway Community Room and doors will open at 4:00pm, with the livestream beginning at 4:30pm.
The finalists for the $35,000 Aspen Words Literary Prize, which honors a work of fiction that illuminates vital contemporary issues, are:
“Chain-Gang All-Stars” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
“Temple Folk” by Aaliyah Bilal
“Witness” by Jamel Brinkley
“Enter Ghost” by Isabella Hammad
“The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store” by James McBride

Attendees at the Library’s viewing party will be able to delight in the evening’s most exciting aspects in real-time: a conversation with the finalist authors led by Mary Louise Kelly co-host of NPR’s award-winning show All Things Considered, and the live announcement of the $35,000 prize winner.
Refreshments will be served and prizes will be awarded for those who correctly guess the winning book.
