Happy Colorado Sunday, friends. I hope you are all enjoying the long weekend, perhaps by lying back in a lawn chair to read.
Given the volume of reading I do all day, every day, I suppose I could be excused from reading for pleasure. But my heart won’t let me give up the joy of discovery I feel when I crack open a book from the ever-changing stack on my bedside table. Give me prize-winning contemporary fiction, natural histories, classics I should have read in high school. Give me all the books.
I also like a good recommendation, subtle or direct. Case in point, 100% in response to a book shelved at my local bookstore with its cover facing out, I have committed to purchase “Harriet Tubman: Live In Concert” on my next visit. My to-buy list may get a little longer after reading this week’s cover story, curated by Kevin Simpson. The Summer Book Guide is packed with more overt suggestions in genres old and new. I hope you find a few new books to add to your stack, too.
Dana Coffield
Editor
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The Cover Story
Who did we turn to for summer reading suggestions? Colorado authors, of course.
(Illustration by Kevin Jeffers, The Colorado Sun/Canva)When The Colorado Sun began spotlighting Colorado-connected authors six and a half years ago, I had no idea of the breadth and depth of the state’s literary community. Since we launched our weekly SunLit feature, we’ve published nearly 350 book excerpts and about an equal number of author interviews. But that’s just part of the story.
Colorado authors have helped The Sun field panels for our annual Colorado SunFest event. A Colorado author inspired an amazing reader-driven writing project during the pandemic called “Write On, Colorado.” In the days before COVID, Colorado authors showed up for Sun book club events. Colorado authors encouraged us to join the fun of their “6-word mystery” contest that we’ve opened up to Sun readers. Yet another relationship with a Colorado author led us to sponsor the annual SunLit writing residency on the Eastern Plains — and still more of the state’s authors, through their MFA programs, have helped us select promising young writers to fill those slots.
All of which brings me to this: When we wanted to compile lists of worthy titles for our readers (we do this twice a year, at the winter holidays and start of summer), who could we depend on to share their expertise with our readers? Colorado authors, of course. Today in The Sun, you’ll find the recommendations of 10 authors, suggesting titles from their chosen genres in our Summer Book Guide. They’ll be posted all year long, as are some past editions of these reading lists, for you to consider as you search for your next great read.
We’re thankful for such a helpful and generous literary community out there. Read On, Colorado.
READ THIS WEEK’S COLORADO SUNDAY FEATURE
Kevin Simpson | Writer
The Colorado Lens
Sometimes we show up looking for one thing and find something completely different. Editor David Krause went to Great Stand Dunes National Park hoping to see Medano Creek flowing fast and cool with runoff from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. What he found was the seasonal creek flowing at about a third of its normal rate, which means time is running out to splash in water at the foot of the tallest sand dunes in North America. (Check the creek levels here.)
This year, the low snowpack in the Upper Rio Grand Basin means Medano Creek has already peaked and is running at about 6 cubic feet per second, as seen May 18. On average it runs at 20 cfs this time of year, but peaked at 14 cfs on May 14. (David Krause, The Colorado Sun) An amateur photographer walks through Medano Creek as it flows into the national park in southern Colorado. Snow on the 13,345-foot Mount Herard, seen in the background, feeds the creek, which usually flows from late April into June each year. (David Krause, The Colorado Sun) Wet sand marks where Medano Creek’s peak flow occurred just four days before. (David Krause, The Colorado Sun) Visitors cross Medano Creek near the main visitor parking lot to enter the dunes. This time of year typically draws thousands of visitors to see and play in the creek. Flows likely will remain low into June when the creek dries up. (David Krause, The Colorado Sun) A couple walk along the creek after riding a snowboard on the dunes. Visitors can bring or rent boards year-round to surf the sand. (David Krause, The Colorado Sun)Eric Lubbers | CTO & Newsletter Wrangler
Flavor of the Week
What’s new at Red Rocks this summer and what will never, ever change
(Peter Moore, Special to The Colorado Sun)It ain’t summer unless you buy tickets for a show at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Or climb Longs Peak. Same degree of difficulty, actually.
Don’t get me wrong. I love going to concerts at Red Rocks! I love it so much, I even have a secret parking strategy. And no, I’m not telling you what it is. Who needs the competition? But I am willing to share some basic intel about how to navigate the second most attended concert venue in the U.S. (Screw you, Madison Square Garden! And the Knicks, too!)
Clearly, Red Rocks is a world-beater. It’s just the concertgoers who have challenges.
SEE RED ROCKS AMPHITHEATRE THROUGH PETER’S EYES
Peter Moore | Illustrator
SunLit: Sneak Peek
“The Cure for Women”: A precocious girl is drawn toward medicine
“She realized that the cells that formed a woman’s body were no different than a man’s. Superficial boundaries such as those subjecting women to cloistered lives dissolved in her mind. They meant nothing. Science was freedom. She was reborn a scientist.”
— From “The Cure for Women”
EXCERPT: Inspired by a great-grandmother who served as a midwife, author Lydia Reeder delved into the lives of pioneering women doctors in “The Cure for Woman.” Focusing on Mary Putnam Jacobi, her book — a finalist for the Colorado Book Award in History — examines the headwinds women faced with regard to pursuing a career in medicine and the pseudoscience behind women’s health that the early female practitioners debunked.
READ THE SUNLIT EXCERPT
THE SUNLIT INTERVIEW: Reeder explains how the women’s suffrage movement found common cause with the earliest women who pursued medicine against prevailing societal conventions, and how their close adherence to science, rather than just clinical observation, changed the approach to health care throughout America. She also explains how a young Mary Putnam found her calling.
SunLit: Place the excerpt you selected in context. How does it fit into the book as a whole and why did you select it?
Reeder: The excerpt I chose is one of my favorite passages. It tells the story of Jacobi’s coming-of-age through her scientific awakening. … At age 17, she looked through a powerful microscope for the first time and discovered the breathtaking beauty of hundreds of interlinked human cells. This experience provided the inspiration she had been seeking.
READ THE INTERVIEW WITH LYDIA REEDER
LISTEN TO A SUN-UP PODCAST WITH THE AUTHOR
Kevin Simpson | Writer
Sunday Reading List
A curated list of what you may have missed from The Colorado Sun this week.
Nordic combined ski racer Annika Malacinski is working to excel in her sport and to persuade the International Olympic Committee to allow women to compete in the 2030 Winter Games. (Matt Stensland, Special to The Colorado Sun)? Nordic combined has been an Olympic event since 1924, but women still aren’t allowed to participate in the sport that combines ski jumping and cross-country skiing. Betsy Welch caught up with Annika Malacinski, the 24-year-old phenom from Steamboat Springs who is trying to break through the last Olympic gender barrier.
? Cryptocurrency ATMs target the “unbanked” in Colorado. So do scammers. Aisha Kehoe Down looked at the maps and talked to investigators who say the anonymity prized by those who use cryptocurrency makes it easier to cheat vulnerable people out of large sums of money. She also did a little primer about how to avoid taking bait delivered by email or text message.
? For a while it looked like all that was left to close a deal for prized water rights linked to Xcel Energy’s Shoshone Power Plant in Glenwood Canyon was raising the money. But Shannon Mullane reports that big Front Range utility providers are having second thoughts about the Colorado River Water Conservation District having more control of water used by millions of households, farms and industrial users on the eastern half of the state.
? In other water news, the forecast is grim for boating this season as streamflows dip well below normal, Jerd Smith learned. And up on the Yampa River, fishing has been suspended below Stagecoach Reservoir because the ho-hum snowpack melted fast and earlier than usual.
? Any artist who sells at farmers markets and craft fairs will tell you sales tax licenses for dozens of jurisdictions is an irritating business hurdle. Colorado will remove a similar barrier for food-truck operators with a new law that requires your friendly mobile vendor to get just one food-safety license to operate statewide, CPR’s Andy Kenney reports for the Colorado Capitol News Alliance.
? Despite what tourism marketing materials would have you believe, Colorado is old — with the median age approaching 40. In our latest installment in our Aging in Colorado series, Tamara Chuang looks at the stats and explains how after being one of the youngest states for decades, Colorado’s population is going gray faster than all but two others.
? It’s not enough to just have air service to and from your medium-sized city. It’s got to be reliable, too. That’s what Pueblo hopes it has in a deal with Denver Air Connection, which is flying jets between the southern Colorado city and Denver International Airport. Sue McMillin also found out the city is worried federal budget cuts will slice into Essential Air Service, which foots part of the bill at Pueblo Memorial Airport and two other Colorado airfields.
? Yes, in fact, there was a kangaroo on the lam in Durango last week.
Dana Coffield | Editor
Thanks for spending time with us on this beautiful weekend. We hope you’ll be back again next Colorado Sunday.
— Dana & the whole staff of The Sun
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