WESTERN BOOK ROUNDUP

‘Edgar Sawtelle’ Has Aspen Homecoming

By David Frey, 6-23-09

This is what author Luis Alberto Urrea has to say about the role played by a sense of place in his books, which tend to hopscotch back and forth across the U.S.-Mexico border.

“I firmly believe there is no ‘them.’ There is only ‘us.’ I also believe that place is not out there. It’s right here.”

Urrea was speaking on Monday at the Aspen Writers’ Foundation’s Aspen Summer Words literary festival. He is among a group of writers from around the planet gathered for the festival, with a theme this year of “World of Words.”

Among the others: Ishmael Beah, of Sierra Leone, author of the bestselling A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, and Colum McCann, who launches his newest novel, Let the Great World Spin today at the festival. (It’s Amazon’s book of the month for June.)

Monday’s events also included the 18th annual Colorado Book Awards. It should come as no surprise that David Wroblewski won the award for fiction for his breakaway success, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.

“There’s a connection between Edgar’s story and the Aspen Summer Words program,” Wroblewski says. It was the last place Wroblewski workshopped the novel, back in 2005.

Other Colorado Book Award winners are:

BIOGRAPHY: Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America, by Walter R. Borneman
CHILDREN’S LITERATURE: M is for Mischief, An A to Z of Naughty Children, by Linda Ashman, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter
CREATIVE NONFICTION: Trespass: Living at the Edge of the Promised Land, by Amy Irvine
GENERAL NONFICTION: Storey’s Illustrated Breed Guide to Sheep, Goats, Cattle and Pigs, by Carol Ekarius
GENRE FICTION: Breath and Bone, by Carol Berg
HEALTH AND WELL-BEING: Unexpected Intimacy: Everyday Connections that Nourish the Soul, by Sarah Gabriel
HISTORY: Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War, by Thomas G. Andrews
JUVENILE LITERATURE: The Totally Made-Up Civil War Diary of Amdana MacLeish, by Claudia Mills
PICTORIAL: Colorado Scenic Byways, Taking the Other Road, by Jim Steinberg and Susan J. Tweit
POETRY: A Murmuration of Starlings, by Jake Adam York
YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE: Fact of Life #31, by Denise Vega

And one more quote from the literary festival:
“I’m generally very suspicious of nonfiction because I think there’s a desire to self-protect. I find fiction truer.”
- Chimamanda Adichie, award-winning Nigerian author, whose book The Thing Around Your Neck debuts this month.

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.