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Western Book Roundup

Signs of Spring: Regional Writers on Book Tours

By Jenny Shank, 3-23-11

Cara Lopez Lee.

The beginnings of a spring thaw must have mobilized the region’s writers, because most of what I have to report today has to do with regional book tours:

• Denver author Cara Lopez Lee will visit Fact & Fiction in Missoula at 7 p.m. tonight to discuss her memoir They Only Eat Their Husbands: A Memoir of Alaskan Love, World Travel, and the Power of Running Away (Ghost Road Press, $19.95). The publisher describes the book in this way:

“At twenty-six, after a lover threatens to kill her, Cara runs away to Alaska. In the Last Frontier she lands in a love triangle with two alcoholics: Sean the martial artist and Chance the paraglider pilot. Nine years later, sick of love, she runs again, to backpack around the world alone. They Only Eat Their Husbands is a memoir of her yearlong trek, against a backdrop of reflections on her life and loves in Alaska.”

Lopez Lee is on what her website describes as a ”book tour adventure,” with an upcoming stop in Seattle and several in Alaska, including her Alaska Book Release party at The Woodshed in Anchorage (March 26, 7 p.m.). In April, she’ll head to New Mexico to conduct Girls Trek Too Workshops at the REIs in Albuquerque (April 13) and Santa Fe (April 14).

• Get your tickets now for the annual Evil Companions Literary Award on April 14 at the Oxford Hotel in Denver. This year’s recipient is the accomplished, Denver-raised Ted Conover, whose works of narrative journalism include Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America’s Hoboes, Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing, which won the NBCC Award, and his most recent book, The Routes of Man: How Roads Are Changing the World and the Way We Live Today. In a recent Denver Post column, David Milofsky, one of the founders of Denver’s oldest literary award, explains how the prize with the funny name came about. Milofsky reports there have been some quibbles over the years about whether the winners have been “Western” enough, and notes that founder Dana Crawford has said, “Only Jim Harrison was truly evil.” By all accounts, Ted Conover is not at all evil but a completely worthy recipient for this mid-career achievement award. Tickets are available from the Denver Public Library Friends Foundation ($60-$150). The event kicks off at 6 p.m. (As of Monday, there were only 50 tickets left, so act fast.)

• This year’s Montana Book Award winner Ruth McLaughlin has several readings scheduled to discuss her memoir Bound Like Grass next week, with stops in Bozeman at the Country Bookshelf (March 29, 7 p.m.), Hamilton at Chapter One Bookstore (March 30, 7 p.m.) and Missoula at Fact and Fiction (March 31, 7 p.m.).

• The King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City will host Tim Sullivan for a discussion of his book No Communication with the Sea: Searching for an Urban Future in the Great Basin, which we excerpted a few weeks ago. Catch him at The King’s English on March 31 at 7 p.m.

• The Printed Page Bookshop in Denver will celebrate National Library Week from April 11 through 16 by giving a free book to anyone who brings their library card to the store. (Via Shelf Awareness.)

• Chérie Newman was kind enough to interview me about The Ringer for her fine radio program, The Write Question. The show will air on Montana Public Radio on March 24 at 7:30 p.m., or you can find it online.

Please follow me on Twitter and with any regional books news or events.

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