Ink and Vein

I went to the Mountain Words Festival in Crested Butte for 2024, and I’m so filled with words, with ideas, with the desire for collaboration, with the desire to create.

The festival is organized by Townie Books, and sponsored by businesses and organizations in Crested Butte. You can learn more about the festival at the website: https://mtnwords.org/

I went to the festival feeling defeated, demoralized, isolated… You can read my post here for details.

What with the disappointing experiences in my community, some interpersonal conflict, and the bleakness of the world as a whole, my desire has really been to retreat into a hole and never emerge, or to dissolve into mist in the forest, or maybe to fling myself into the ocean and turn to foam, à la The Little Mermaid (Hans Christian Anderson’s version, not Disney’s.)

I’m being a little dramatic just to emphasize that I felt pretty defeated, and the idea of a weekend of networking and peopling just wasn’t that appealing.

Still, 5pm on Friday found me in my friend’s car, headed up to Gunnison to our hostel.

As is often the case when I’m deep in hard feelings, and my response is to isolate, the opposite is what I need to pull myself out of the murk.

I found myself in rooms full of people who love books, who love words, and who are dedicated to exploring and discussing the difficult questions that so many avoid.

I found myself talking about my little corner of the world, the Narrow Gauge Book Cooperative, and, in a moment that made my sore heart soar, an indie bookstore owner said, “You all are doing the WORK!” I could have cried at that praise for my little store. (It’s not “my” store; I’m not an owner. It feels like mine, though, because it’s a space where I know I’m safe and loved.)

I found myself listening to a murder mystery writer (Scott Graham) and a journalist (Zak Podmore) talking about the Grand Canyon and water in the American West.

I listened, mesmerized, to Suzi Q. Smith reading from her upcoming memoir, and Karen Auvinen talk about the ways she brought her experiences of mountain living to life for her readers. I listened to Rebecca Boyle, Sarah Scoles, and Laura Krantz nerding out about the moon, space, and alien life, respectively. Michelle Nijhuis and Paolo Bacigalupi talked about the failures and successes of their writing lives, and the support they offered each other along the way. Paolo said, “You are not in competition with other writers. You are fellow travelers in competition with publishers, agents, but not with other writers.” And Michelle added, “Solidarity with writers against the gatekeepers. Distrust authority, always.”

I listened to Steven Dunn read from his co-authored book, Tannery Bay, and talked with a woman who runs an author reading series in Denver, and who is querying her novel.

On almost every panel I attended, collaboration was a theme, either direct or indirect. I felt uplifted by this, by the relationships formed between writers of completely different genres, by the support they offered each other, by their open admiration for each other’s work, and their warmth towards their audiences.

The collaborative mood, the sense of community, was healing for my isolated spirit.

There were moments of disappointment in the missing subjects: the land conservation panels did not address Land Back or really discuss indigenous populations and their relationship to “public” lands. The poet who received a lifetime achievement award was pompous and, frankly, I wasn’t that impressed by his poetry. The big name writer was stuck in romanticizing the United States in ways that caused him to misrepresent parts of our history.

But Chris La Tray, when he read his powerful words, spoke for the people of Gaza, spoke against the genocide happening there, and spoke with unflinching honesty and power, both in his poetry and in his words between the poems, about the destructive reality of colonialism and empire.

Suzi Q. Smith, in her workshop titled “Sit. Feast on Your Life: Writing Ourselves Love Poems” asked us to imagine the future we build, the liberation we craft, the freedom we find, and then write the story of how we got there. She asked us to write words of admiration to ourselves as children. She asked us to write an invitation to celebrate a moment when we were not celebrated, when we needed to be celebrated. She asked us to write words of love to ourselves, and to share those words, and they became words of love to each other, invitations and offerings of love for each other.

I left her workshop nourished.

I left the weekend inspired.

I came home ready to continue existing.