Winter Words

Winter Words with Kevin Fedarko
STREAMING:
Wednesday, February 5 | 6-7 p.m. MT

About the Event

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. Fedarkso is also the author of “The Emerald Mile.

Moderated by Daniel Shaw

About the Author

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.

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It takes a crew of people to ensure that each Winter Words livestream runs smoothly. Your support enables us to continue to bring quality programming to audiences in the Roaring Fork Valley and beyond! Thank you!

Rewatch past events

Winter Words with Ayad Akhtar

About the Event

Step into a thrilling exploration of AI, art, and the human psyche with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar as he unveils his 2024 play, McNeal. This event features Akhtar discussing his 2024 broadway debut and actor William H. Macy 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.

Support Aspen Words

It takes a crew of people to ensure that each Winter Words livestream runs smoothly. Your support enables us to continue to bring quality programming to audiences in the Roaring Fork Valley and beyond! Thank you!

Winter Words with Lauren Groff
STREAMING:
Wednesday, February 12 | 6-7 p.m. MT

About the Event

Lauren Groff in conversation discussing her 2024 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

Groff is a three-time National Book Award finalist and The New York Times–bestselling author of the novels The Monsters of Templeton, ArcadiaFates 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 YorkerThe Atlantic and elsewhere. Her work has been translated into thirty-six languages. She lives in Gainesville, Florida.

Support Aspen Words

It takes a crew of people to ensure that each Winter Words livestream runs smoothly. Your support enables us to continue to bring quality programming to audiences in the Roaring Fork Valley and beyond! Thank you!

Winter Words 2025 Sponsors

SEASON PRESENTING SPONSORS

 

 

MICHAEL AND LISA CADER

BETH AND JOSH MONDRY

HELEN AND WALLY OBERMEYER