2026

April 25

Celebrate 85 years of connecting with CPW

Put on your party dress and celebrate CPW’s 85th anniversary with wine and fancy hors d’oeuvres on Saturday, April 25, at 4:00 p.m. in the community room of the Park Mayfair, 955 Eudora St., Denver.

The happy hour event will also commemorate the successful 2025 NFPW Conference, hosted by CPW, with food from Serendipity Catering and wine from Balistreri Vineyards, organizations that sponsored the conference.

And we will honor our 2026 Communicator of Achievement, Kathleen Spring.

Also on the agenda: CPW historian Lee Anne Peck will present a slide show of the organization’s history over the 85 years, and NFPW Communications Contest winners will be recognized. Expect a few special announcements from CPW leadership as well.

CPW is underwriting much of the cost of the event, so the charge is only $20/person. Register by Friday, April 17, by sending a Zelle payment via your bank to info@coloradopresswomen.org or with a check made out to CPW to treasurer Teresa Ford.

April 24

Watson event highlights sexual assault awareness

“Interrogating Silence: Tennessee Watson on going public as a survivor of abuse” is the topic of a discussion at the Denver Press Club, 1330 Glenarm Place, Denver, on Friday, April 24, at 6:30 p.m., presented by Colorado Press Women and ColoRadio.

A reporter and audio documentarian, Watson will talk about her behind-the-scenes process of reporting “Silent Evidence,” and how journalists can holistically center the stories of survivors when reporting on sexual abuse, with Esther Honig, who is live taping the event for the podcast Colorful Colorado. Honig is co-creator of Colorado and a producer for NPR’s StoryCorps.

The event is in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and the 10th anniversary of Watson’s Peabody-nominated documentary series “Silent Evidence,” produced as a season of the Heart podcast. Watson is managing editor of WyoFile, and was a 2020 Nieman Abrams Fellow for Local Investigative Journalism and Wyoming Public Radio’s education reporter.

In “Silent Evidence,” Watson confronts her childhood sexual abuser, documenting her decades-long journey to going public, and her experience with the criminal justice system, all the while asking larger questions that still feel relevant today: Why do survivors stay silent? Does silence protect survivors, or does it do harm?

Register here. The cost of $5 will help offset Watson’s expenses in traveling to Denver from Laramie, Wyo.

Jan. 27

Documentary examines gutting of local news

Join your journalism colleagues Tuesday, Jan. 27, for a free screening of the documentary “Stripped for Parts” at the Buell Public Media Center.

The film chronicles Alden Global Capital’s takeover of the Denver Post and hundreds of other papers nationwide, which has led to newsroom closures, mass layoffs and the erosion of public-service journalism. The efforts of area journalists to save local journalism through the establishment of The Colorado Sun provides a hopeful counterpoint to the devastation of the hedge fund’s actions.

“What begins as one journalist’s investigation becomes a national confrontation between reporters and ‘vulture capitalist’ ownership — backed by the NewsGuild union and driven by a fight to preserve journalism as a public good,” writes Alyssa Pinkerton, the Sun’s development director, in her invitation to the free event.

The documentary will air at 1 p.m. and again at 5:30 p.m. Each screening will be followed by a discussion of the film, with the afternoon featuring a high-level conversation with community members, students and anyone who cares about the future of local news, while the evening’s expert panel will take a deeper dive into media ownership, power and public trust.

CPW members are encouraged to attend either event, and if they attend the afternoon session they are welcome to join other Press Women for a drink at the Denver Press Club afterward.

Link here for more details and to RSVP for the afternoon event and here to register for the evening event. Popcorn, cookies and beverages will be provided.

The Buell Public Media Center is located at 2101 Arapahoe St., Denver, and is the home office for The Colorado Sun.

2025

Oct 23 CANCELLED

Meet Cynthia Swanson at Denver Press Club happy hour

Cynthia Swanson, award-winning author of “Anyone But Her,” “The Bookseller” and “The Glass Forest,” will speak at the Denver Press Club on Thursday, Oct. 23, for a Colorado Press Women happy hour event, 4:30 – 6:30 p.m.

Swanson writes psychological suspense, often using historical settings. Cynthia’s debut novel, The Bookseller, was a New York Times bestseller, an Indie Next selection, the winner of the 2016 WILLA Literary Award (Historical Fiction), and is slated to be a motion picture produced by Julia Roberts. The Bookseller is translated into 18 languages.

Cynthia’s second novel, The Glass Forest, was a USA Today bestseller, a CAL Award finalist, and is translated into 7 languages. Her third novel, Anyone But Her, won the 2025 Colorado Book Award (Thriller), was a finalist for the 2025 WILLA Literary Award (Mystery/Thriller), and was named 2024 Best Mystery/Thriller by the Indie Author Project.

Cynthia is the editor of the anthology Denver Noir, which received the 2023 Colorado Book Award (Anthology). She lives with her family in Denver. Find Cynthia online at www.cynthiaswansonauthor.com and follow her on Bluesky (cynswanauthor), and Substack (The What If Journal). Copies of Cynthia’s books will be available for sale at the event.

A $10 charge will cover light appetizers, and a cash bar will be available. To RSVP, send a check to Colorado Press Women to treasurer Teresa Ford or pay via Zelle. For Zelle, people need to sign up through their banking institution and send money to info@coloradopresswomen.org. (Zelle charges no fees to either party, and payment will be an instant transfer.)

The Denver Press Club, the nation’s oldest, is located in downtown Denver at 1330 Glenarm Pl. in a historic building.

June 30

Hot? Head to the hills for CPW event June 30

Summer’s coming, and it’s time to get up to the mountains.  Join CPW on Monday, June 30, for a visit to The Mountain-Ear in Nederland, with lunch following at Kathmandu, a Nepalese restaurant.

We’ll gather at the newspaper office, 98 W First St., at 10:30 a.m., where Managing Editor Barbara Hardt and her newsroom will share with us how they cover the community and how they’ve adapted to the challenging local news environment, which the publication has covered since 1977.

Limited parking is available in front of the newspaper office, so carpooling is encouraged. There is no charge for the event, but each individual will be responsible for her own lunch cost; the buffet is $18.95, and the restaurant offers diners a buy-one, get-one-half-off deal on Mondays.

Please RSVP to info@coloradopresswomen.org by Wednesday, June 25, so we have a count for our hosts and the restaurant.

CPW annual meeting April 19

Surviving the legislature

The dean of the Colorado state capitol press corps has seen a lot in her three decades of reporting on politics. Marianne Goodland will share those insights on surviving the legislature during Colorado Press Women’s annual membership meeting Saturday, April 19, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Highlands United Methodist Church, 3131 Osceola St., Denver.

Presentation of the CPW Communicator of Achievement award and election of officers will follow, along with a catered lunch of paninis and salads from Postino.

Goodland is chief legislative reporter for Colorado Politics, the Denver Gazette and the Colorado Springs Gazette. A political reporter since 1998, she has covered the Colorado General Assembly, state agencies, public policy and elections. Recognized more than 50 times with awards from the Colorado Press Association and the Society of Professional Journalists for her work for the Silver & Gold Record, The Colorado Statesman, the Colorado Independent, and her weekly humor column on the legislature, Capitol M. She also ran a legislative reporting service for as many as seven newspapers in northeastern Colorado.

Goodland was named “Keeper of the Flame,” in 2023, a top award from the regional SPJ recognizing lifetime achievement and for mentoring young journalists. She is also a semi-regular on PBS 12 shows “Colorado Inside Out” and “Devil’s Advocate with Jon Caldara.

Registration with coffee or tea starts at 9:30 a.m.; the program beginning at 10. Following Goodland’s talk will be the presentation of the COA award and a short speech by the honoree. Members will then elect officers for two-year terms. An overview of plans for the NFPW Conference Sept. 11-13 and tour days will also be presented. Lunch will follow at noon.

RSVP by Monday, April 14. The cost is $30 for CPW members and $35 for guests. Send check to Colorado Press Women to treasurer Teresa Ford or pay via Zelle. For Zelle, people need to sign up through their banking institution and send money to info@coloradopresswomen.org. (There are no fees to either party, and payment will be an instant transfer.) For more information about the event, call Ann Lockhart at 303-349-7302.

NOTE:  Park on the street or in the lot across the street at the Garage. Take the Osceola entrance (near the free library) and go up the stairs or via the elevator to the second floor.

Feb. 22

Three publishers discuss obstacles, opportunities

Three dynamic women journalists working tirelessly to serve their communities will be on a Colorado Press Women Zoom panel at 10 a.m., Saturday, Feb. 22, moderated by CPW member Linda Shapley, Director of Editorial and Audience for Colorado Community Media. The panel will discuss the unique obstacles and opportunities of small newspapers.

A Zoom link for the meeting will be sent out separately via CPW’s newsletter.

Shapley will be joined by Erin McIntyre of the Ouray County Plaindealer, Patti Brown of the Estes Valley Voice and Pauline Rivera of La Voz Colorado, who will share their experiences and offer perspectives on the importance of local news, the struggles of maintaining quality reporting and how they are innovating to serve their communities.

Erin McIntyre is the “co-owner, co-publisher and co-pretty much everything” at the Ouray County Plaindealer, a weekly newspaper she and her husband, Mike Wiggins, bought in 2019 after leaving the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. Since then, they’ve done everything from digging up public records to fixing jammed newspaper racks and re-printing the papers after they were stolen by those who wanted to prevent the Plaindealer’s reporting from being read. McIntyre has received awards for investigative reporting, photography, features, news and editorial writing. In 2021, the couple was jointly honored with the SPJ Keeper of the Flame award and the Colorado Press Association’s Rising Star award. In 2024, they were honored with the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition’s Friend of Freedom award. A fierce advocate of transparency, Erin also serves on the board of the CFOIC, representing CPW.

Patti Brown is the editor and publisher of the Estes Valley Voice, an independent, journalist-founded, locally owned digital newsroom in Estes Park. Brown, the former executive editor of the Estes Park Trail-Gazette, launched the Voice in 2024 in response to the drastic cost-cutting she had seen at the newspaper. She has a Master of Science in journalism from the Greenlee School of Journalism University and a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Iowa. She has had a long career in both newspaper writing and in policy writing, and she is passionate about local independent journalism.

Pauline Rivera is owner and publisher of La Voz Colorado, the state’s oldest and largest bilingual newspaper. Rivera, a graduate of Metropolitan State University of Denver, held several “behind the scenes” positions at Denver’s 7 before coming to La Voz in 2004.  She was a columnist, then Lifestyles editor, then general manager before she and her husband purchased La Voz and successfully operated the 50-year-old mainstay. Under her leadership as publisher, La Voz has advanced editorially, expanded statewide and won numerous National Association of Hispanic Publication awards. Pauline was awarded the Trailblazer Award from the Denver Latinas First Foundation for being the first Latina publisher of a Hispanic publication in Denver and was named in 2024 to the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.

2024

CANCELLED: Nov. 16

Mysteries and eco-survival shared by authors

Two mystery writers and a decorated short story author will speak to Colorado Press Women and friends on Saturday, November 16, at the Arvada Public Library, 7525 w. 57th Ave., during the annual CPW Authors’ Lunch.

Doors open at 9:30 a.m. with coffee and snacks; talks begin promptly at 10 a.m. Lunch will be provided by Biscuit and Berries. Cost is $26 for CPW members and $30 for nonmembers. Register and pay by Friday, November 8, by sending a check made out to CPW to Teresa Ford (email her for address) or online via PayPal link below (service fee added).

Books will not be sold at the event because of library restrictions, but attendees are encouraged to buy the books from their favorite local booksellers and bring them to the event to be signed. Boyles’ book can be preordered through Firehouse Books in Fort Collins, and she will bring them, signed, to the event.

Claire Boyles is a writer and former farmer who lives in Loveland. A 2022 Whiting Award winner in fiction, she is the author of “Site Fidelity,” which won the High Plains Book Award for short story collections and was long-listed for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Award, the Colorado Book Award and the Reading the West Award. Her nonfiction has appeared in Sierra Magazine, Virginia Quarterly Review and other journals, and she is also a screenwriter and proud member of the Writer’s Guild of America West. She is a writing instructor and has received support from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Foundation, the Bread Loaf Orion Environmental Writers Workshop and the Community of Writers.

“Site Fidelity,” her debut book, is rooted in the modern American West and follows women and families who feel the instinctual, inexplicable pull of a home they must work to protect from the effects of economic inequity and climate catastrophe. A seventy-four-year-old nun turns to eco-sabotage to stop a fracking project. A woman delivers her own baby in a Nevada ghost town. A young farmer hides her chicken flock from the government during a bird flu epidemic. An ornithologist returns home to care for her rancher father and gets caught up in trying to protect a breeding group of endangered Gunnison sage grouse.

“The austere and graceful stories of Claire Boyles address some of the most urgent issues of our time: climate change, land possession, advances that seem to leave some behind. Her characters are as turbulent and as vulnerable, as full of terror and beauty, as the American West that is their home. A deep anthropologist and a finely restrained rhetorician, Boyles captures the affinities and frictions between those who have been made by that once—and still sometimes—wild place,” summarized the selection committee of the Whiting Award, which annually recognizes “exceptional new writers whose work … has the power to impact literary culture (and beyond)” with a $50,000 cash prize.

Jenny Dandy, author of “The Brownstone on E. 83rd,” is a graduate of Smith College and of Lighthouse Writers Workshop Book Project. Though she has lived and worked from Beijing to Baltimore, from Northampton to Atlanta, it was New York that held onto a piece of her heart. She now lives and writes in the Rocky Mountains where she would never lift a wallet or scam her dinner guests.

She has written all her life but only recently for publication. The inspiration to write is completely ingrained: She writes because she’s a writer. What gets her started on a book, a chapter, a scene is often a piece of dialog. Once in a while an entire scene will come in a dream.

“The Brownstone on E. 83rd,” Dandy’s debut novel, begins when FBI Special Agent Frank Jankowski goes undercover at Isabelle Anderson’s brownstone on E. 83rd. He thinks he’s the one calling the shots, but Isabelle knows she is. As Isabelle’s butler, Ronnie Charles is privy to all her schemes—knowledge that will take her in a direction she never anticipated. “The Brownstone on E. 83rd” is the first in the Houses of Crime series. The second book, “The Penthouse on Park Avenue” releases at the end of April, 2025.

The book “is a twisty, propulsive mystery that moves from ultra-wealthy dinner parties to drug-invested flophouses with surprising agility, and leaves readers wondering which world is more dangerous,” said Tiffany Quay Tyson, a former featured CPW author and author of “The Past Is Never.” “Jankowski and … Charles are complex characters who become ever more compelling as the story unfolds.”

Kate Lansing, author of the Colorado Wine Mystery series, grew up in Evergreen, Colo., where she shared her backyard with elk, black bears, and mountain lions (usually not at the same time). She attended CU Boulder and earned a BS in Applied Mathematics in 2007. It was in the early hours of the morning while working as a statistician that Kate, an avid reader and lifelong-lover of books, started penning her own novel.

Four shelved manuscripts later, in a surprise twist of fate she still can’t quite believe, she was offered a three-book deal with Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Random House, that was later extended to a fourth book. Her debut novel, “Killer Chardonnay,” came out in May 2020 and was followed by the rest of the Colorado Wine Mystery series: “A Pairing to Die For,” “Mulled to Death” and “Till Death Do Us Port.”

She’s a Colorado Authors League Award Winner and Reader’s Choice Author for 5280 Magazine’s Top of the Town, and an essay she wrote about millennial cozy mysteries for CrimeReads received over 20,000 views. Kate currently lives in Broomfield with her husband, daughter and two mischievous kitties.

The cozy mystery series follows Parker Valentine as she opens a winery in her hometown of Boulder, Colo., and begins a relationship with Reid, a local chef. With each novel, she encounters a murder that endangers or implicates either her—a food and wine critic dies shortly after drinking her chardonnay in the first novel—or someone close to her. The young winemaker takes on the investigations herself to find the killers and keep her business open.

BiblioLifestyle blogger Victoria writes that the series is “a must-read for cozy mystery lovers, especially those who enjoy a glass of wine while reading. This series offers a delightful blend of mystery, romance, and small-town charm, making it the perfect pick for fans of lighthearted whodunit. Expect plenty of twists, quirky characters, and unexpected suspects as Parker navigates her life as a new business owner and amateur detective.”

Sept. 28

Fish celebrates retirement with a talk about her lifetime of politics and technology

Join Colorado Press Women Sept. 28 when Sandra Fish talks about “Thoughts on Retiring: Looking back on 42 years of political and technological change.”  While the nation knows Sandra Fish as the reporter escorted out of the Colorado GOP state assembly, those in Metro Denver journalism circles have known “Fish” (as she’s usually called) as a “data journalist” since the term was invented.

Just a few days ago, Fish won the Colorado Press Association’s First Amendment Award, which honors a journalist for championing the freedom of information.

On July 30, 2024, Fish wrote a piece called “Farewell, Sun readers!” published by the Colorado Sun, where she’d worked for the past nearly six years. While her letter listed a string of unexpected  events in this year’s election season – Boebert’s district switch, Lamborn’s retirement, Buck quitting, Biden opting out of reelection and her infamous escort by that Sheriff’s deputy  – her retirement was also unexpected by readers.

Fish describes herself as a “recently kinda retired journalist who has worked in Iowa, Florida, New Mexico and mostly Colorado.” She’s written for Roll Call, AOL’s former Politics Daily, the Boulder Daily Camera and most recently The Colorado Sun. She’s also freelanced for KUNC and CPR and was a journalism instructor at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

The meeting is scheduled for 10:15 a.m. at the Park Hill Library, 4705 Montview Blvd., Denver. When you arrive to register, enjoy your coffee or tea with a small pastry from Zaidy’s Deli and Bakery called Rugelah with fillings such as chocolate, apricot or cinnamon.

(Final Update)

Aug. 24

Estes Park event’s history reenactor & photos to be joined by tales from evacuation of Lyons

Colorado Press Women’s summer getaway featuring a variety of historical perspectives on Estes Park and Rocky Mountain Park is still planned for 10 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 24, at the Estes Park Museum, 200 4th St. Estes Park, 80517, since the wildfire threat has diminished. At the time of this website posting, Highways 34, 36 and 7 are open, and crews continue to work on cleaning up and investigating the Alexander Mountain Fire and the Stone Canyon Fire.

At the height of the threat, longtime CPW member Kathleen Spring, publisher-editor of the Lyons Recorder, could see smoke from both fires from her home, and sprang into action to produce a special edition with information on how to survive a fire, what do do in the aftermath and stories of the survivors.

Spring will share a firsthand account of her efforts during her presentation “Looking at wildfire through the eyes of a local newspaper editor.” This recent program addition will include some of her compelling visuals and is planned right before lunch, giving her an opportunity to visit with her CPW friends about the challenges she and her readers have faced.

Our first speaker will be Bobbie Heisterkamp, who will begin a 60-minute PowerPoint presentation at about 10:15 a.m. It will feature her historic postcard collection of the lost lodges that were destroyed and removed from 1931-1976 in Rocky Mountain National Park when the National Park Service mandated that the park be returned to its natural state.

She has collected 24,000 postcards of the Rocky Mountain National Park area dating to an era when “penny postcards” were cheaper to send than a letter. A full description of Heisterkamp’s historic collection was contained in CPW’s July newsletter and can also be found in an archived copy of that story on this website.

Estes Park Museum Director Derek Fortini will start his presentation about 11:30 a.m., covering the museum’s many online resources that can benefit journalists.

He will demonstrate how to find information on the museum’s holdings and photographs, an oral history collection featuring interviews with notable Estes Park residents, digitized copies of the Estes Park Trail-Gazette and Town of Estes Park public records.

Fortini will also describe the successful book publishing endeavors of the Estes Park Museum Friends & Foundation, Inc., which has numerous titles to its credit. The most recent is “Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park Then & Now, Revised Edition.” The book contains nearly 500 photographs of historical sites as they appeared in the past and look now.

Fortini was a photographer for the book, along with Mic Clinger. The text was written by James H. Pickering. A museum volunteer will sell copies of the book, which retail for $59.95 ($65.17 with tax). Cash, check or credit card will be accepted.

Kathleen Spring, a long-time, award-winning CPW member, was added as speaker because of her unique role in the most recent disaster history of the area. “In July, the Stone Canyon Fire caused the second evacuation this decade of parts of Lyons, Colorado, due to a nearby wildfire,” she says. The town also experienced an evacuation during the flood of 2013, she noted.

Spring will speak about the articles she puts together for stressful, life-threatening situations in her weekly newspaper. First, she provides daily information on surviving the threat. Next she focuses on what to do in the aftermath, then she shares stories of the survivors. The compelling writing and photography can be found on her newspaper’s website, the Lyons Recorder.

CPW members will then take a break to buy books and have lunch, which will be catered by Poppy’s Pizza & Grill. Our custom menu will include pasta and fruit salads, and an assortment of sandwiches and wraps, followed by dessert. Iced tea and lemonade will be provided. Those with food allergies are asked to email event organizer Lori Rapp at lorirapp@comcast.net Put “CPW food allergy” in the subject line and specify your allergy.

Our final presentation by Teri Johnson will begin about 1:45 p.m. Johnson, an educator and history storyteller, will portray Flora Stanley, wife of F.O. Stanley, who was an inventor of the Stanley Steamer and an Estes Park innovator, whose many credits include the Stanley Hotel.

Johnson reports that Flora not only drove a Stanley Steamer, she could also make repairs on the automobile. Among the Estes Park Museum’s permanent displays is a 1909 Model EX Stanley Steamer Runabout.

After Johnson’s presentation winds up at about 2:45 p.m., CPW members will have an opportunity to tour the museum’s displays. A museum staff member will be available to provide guidance inside the gallery, then direct members to the back door that provides access to the outside attractions.

Step outside the main gallery to discover the 1908 Cobb-Macdonald cabin, a small two-room structure with a kitchen and sleeping area.

Also outside the main gallery is the Historic Boyd Building, which served as the first administration headquarters for Rocky Mountain National Park from 1917-1923. The building was preserved and relocated to the museum grounds and now serves as home for temporary exhibits.

The exhibits will be open until 4 p.m., when the museum closes.

Cost of the CPW event is $35 for members and $40 for guests, a price that includes the private meeting room and catered lunch. (Yes, Estes is pricey in the summer.) Registration can be made online using the link below to pay via PayPal, Venmo or credit card (a fee is added) or by mailing a check to Teresa Ford (email her for address). Deadline for reservations is noon, Tuesday, Aug. 20, when the order will be given to the caterer. The event organizer would love to know how many intrepid travelers to expect much sooner than that, of course!

Aug. 24

Head to Estes Park for history reenactor, photos

Colorado Press Women members and guests will hear presentations by Bobbie Heisterkamp, prolific and renowned collector of historic postcards, and Teri Johnson, an educator and history storyteller who will portray Flora Stanley, wife of F.O. Stanley, Steamer inventor, when we meet Saturday, Aug. 24, at the Estes Park Museum, 200 4th St., Estes Park.

The museum opens at 10 a.m., and the program will start around 10:15 a.m. The speakers will conclude before 3 p.m. — in time to allow everyone a chance to tour the museum before it closes at 4 p.m. Cost is $35 for members and $40 for guests, a fee that includes a catered lunch, the private meeting room at the museum with PowerPoint audiovisual capability and two large screens, table setup, commercial kitchen and janitorial services.

The program is being facilitated by Museum Director Derek Fortini, who leads a staff dedicated to preserving the area’s rich heritage for visitors, researchers, and journalists. He will give a presentation on accessing the museum’s invaluable resources.

The museum has searchable copies of the Estes Park Trail-Gazette from 1912 to 1993, nearly 200 oral histories of area residents that have been recorded since the 1970s and cares for about 30,000 objects, including historic photos, textiles, artwork, postcards, textiles, furniture, tools and a real Stanley Steamer.

But it’s the postcards that have captivated Bobbie Heisterkamp.

“Now in 2024 I have assembled 24,000 postcards of the Rocky Mountain National Park area. My late husband, David, and I started going to collectible shows together in 1993 after the last of our five children went off to college,” explained Heisterkamp, who was inspired by historical postcard collections from Yellowstone National Park.

“I have a searchable database of every single postcard in the collection and print it once a year as a reference when I buy new postcards. It has taken me 31 years to assemble the collection so far. Many authors know about this resource and ask me for images when they write historical books,” she said.

Hundreds of thousands of postcards were sent by Americans in the early 1900s as a form of mass communication because “postcards cost one cent to mail and letters cost two cents,” Heisterkamp said. “As people began to travel more by train or in their own vehicles, it was much cheaper and quicker to dash off a few lines on a postcard to send back home than to write a long letter.”

Heisterkamp was especially captivated by postcards featuring the “lost lodges” that were destroyed and removed from 1931-1976 when Rocky Mountain National Park was created and the National Park Service mandated that the park be returned to its natural state.

In 1962, the National Park Service razed Stead’s Ranch, an 1876 homestead and guest ranch in Rocky Mountain National Park. Concerned citizens organized to preserve artifacts from the ranch, and then extended their vision to the Estes Valley, creating the foundation for the Estes Park Museum.

Operating as a municipal museum since 1992, the original non-profit re-established itself to become the Estes Park Museum Friends & Foundation, Inc. to support the mission of the museum. One of the latest fund-raising efforts is the new book “Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park: Then & Now, Revised Edition.” Fortini was one of the photographers for the book, which features nearly 500 photographs of historic landmarks from Estes Park and RMNP as they appeared in the past and appear now. Copies of the book will be available for sale at the event.

Heisterkamp, a member of the Estes Park Museum Friends & Foundation, will entertain CPW members with a PowerPoint presentation of postcards featuring the lost lodges.

“Now that my collection consists of over 200 albums, I am happy to say the new Collections and Research Facility can easily accommodate it and make it easily accessible. The collection will go to the Estes Park Museum in my will.”

Like Heisterkamp, Teri Johnson loves history but specializes in another approach in sharing it — the reenactment of historic characters. “Flora Stanley was not the typical woman of her era. She worked alongside her husband, F.O., in many of his endeavors, as well as ventured into many of her own.

“She not only learned how to drive the Stanley Steamer but was able to repair it too. In Estes Park she became a wonderful member of the community and did much to enhance the lives of others. Through my portrayal of her, I hope to give listeners a glimpse into her life and the life of her husband, as well as the history of beautiful Estes Park,” Johnson said.

“As a native of Colorado, I have always enjoyed our history. I was able to teach local history to third graders for many years as an elementary school teacher,” she added.

“I teach a fun summer program at a one-room schoolhouse for the Loveland Museum and have for almost forty years,” she said. Her other museum work includes serving as director of the McCarty-Fickle Home in Berthoud, working in an archive room for the Stanley Hotel and serving as curator of the Timberlane Farm Museum in Loveland.

Registrations for the Aug. 24th program and lunch can be made online using the link below to pay via Pay Pal, Venmo or credit card (a small fee is added) or by mailing a check to Teresa Ford (email her for address) by Friday, Aug. 16. By holding the event at the Museum, 200 4^th St., with its free parking, attendees will avoid the traffic and congestion of downtown Estes and the RMNP entrances.

Check the CPW website for additional program updates in early August.

April 27 combines branding workshop with annual meeting

Colorado Press Women will look to the organization’s future and honor its best during the CPW Annual Meeting, Saturday, April 27, at Lighthouse Writers Workshop, 3844 York Street, Denver.

Doors open at 9:30 a.m., with the event beginning at 10 a.m. with a hands-on lesson in branding led by Kim Adams, the executive communications manager for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. During lunch, we will honor our 2024 Communicator of Achievement, Sharon Almirall, and CPW winners of the NFPW At-Large Communications Contest.

The cost for the event is $24, which covers lunch and facility fees. A free Zoom option for the branding exercise will be available to members outside the Denver metro area. Please RSVP and pay by Friday, April 19, to Teresa Ford or via PayPal using the button below.

Kim Adams

Adams has used successfully the interactive, consensus-based exercise to help teams across NREL refresh their brands or develop brands from scratch. The exercise is “simple, fun, and it gets results pretty fast!” she says.

Adams has worked at the NREL for nearly 25 years and has provided executive communications support to two directors and started and managed the NREL magazine Continuum. She helped stand up the diversity, equity and inclusion programming and activities that now span nine employee resource groups (ERGs)—including co-founding the newest, Global ERG. For the last 10 years, as NREL’s brand manager, she has led branding efforts at the corporate and program levels, including program rebranding, logo development and brand awareness activities.

Joining us for this activity will be Fran Milner, a professional graphic designer who will take what she hears and integrate our words, thoughts, ideas, and emotions into the visual elements of our brand story and a graphic theme for the 2025 NFPW Conference, which will be held in Golden, Sept. 11-13, 2025. Karen and Gay Porter DeNileon are co-chairs of the national event.

“It’s so important for each of your voices to be represented and reflected in our evolving brand as we plan for the conference and envision the future of our organization,” Petersen said. “Please join us in laying the foundation for a compelling brand narrative and marketing campaign that will generate excitement about the 2025 conference and the future of CPW.”

Lighthouse Writers Workshop provides artistic education, support and community for writers and readers in the Rocky Mountain Region and beyond. The new LWW facility on York Street opened in June 2023, on the eve of the annual Lit Fest, a celebration of writers and readers, an extravaganza of weeklong and weekend advanced workshops, craft seminars, readings, salons, business panels, agent meetings, and parties. In 2024, Lit Fest takes place June 7–14, and registration is now open.

For anyone who wishes to make a full day of it, Colorado Press Women is encouraged by the Denver Press Club to buy a table at their annual Damon Runyon Award, honoring Ann Curry, a former NBC Network news anchor and national and international correspondent, the evening of April 27 at Curtis Hotel. Tickets are $200 for nonmembers or $187.50 if we put together a table of eight. Contact Ann Lockhart if you’re interested.

(While a PayPal login is required to open this button, once open, credit cards can be used.)

March 16: AI in the newsroom—use or abuse?

Interested in how artificial intelligence is used—or not used—in a newsroom? What AI tools are already used? Hear Corey Hutchins report on his findings on these issues on Saturday, March 16,  via Zoom.

Hosted by Colorado Press Women, this free event celebrates Sunshine Week, March 10-16, 2024, a week to focus on public records and open government and, this year, how AI affects freedom of information, in particular.

Hutchins is co-director of the Colorado College Journalism Institute, and he has researched how several Colorado newsrooms use AI tools. He writes the weekly e-newsletter “Inside the News in Colorado,” which is underwritten by the Colorado Media Project.

At Colorado College, Hutchins teaches Writing the News, Inbox Journalism: Writing for Newsletters, The Future and Sustainability of Local News, as well as Introduction to Journalism, and more. He was named Educator of the Year by the Colorado Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists in 2023. For nearly a decade he wrote about the local news industry for Columbia Journalism Review, and in another life he covered politics in South Carolina where he was twice named journalist of the year by the state press association. He recently wrote the chapter on media for the once-a-decade book “American Decades.”

This event has been changed to Zoom-only due to travel concerns for attendees and speaker. The link has been sent to everyone who responded to the E-vite. The program begins at 10 a.m. The event is free and open to all interested parties.

Questions and requests for a Zoom link can be directed to Sandy Nance. Problems with connecting? Text Sandy at 303-918-7626.

2023

Authors’ Lunch Nov. 11

Four writers, three books featured

CPW’s most popular event, the annual Authors’ Lunch, will be Saturday, Nov. 11, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. at the Louisville Recreation & Senior Center, 900 Via Appia Way, Louisville.

Speakers include Jacqueline St. Joan, author of “Shawl of Midnight,” a companion to her book “My Sisters Made of Light,” which she spoke about at a previous author’s lunch; Barbara Nickless, whose “Dark of Night” is a Colorado Authors’ League winner; and co-authors J.v.L. Bell and Jan Gunia, who will present their book of essays, “Women of the Colorado Gold Rush Era.”

Jacqueline St. Joan writes fiction, nonfiction, scholarly articles, and poetry. She has won many writing awards and, like her previous novel, “My Sisters Made a Light” (a finalist for the Colorado Book Award in Literary Fiction), “The Shawl of Midnight” is set in Pakistan.

St. Joan’s work has been published in numerous periodicals including Ms., F magazine, Denver Post, Chrysalis Reader, Bloomsbury Review, Harvard Women’s Law Journal, The Denver Quarterly, Valley Voices, and The Missouri Review, and the “Northern Colorado Writers Anthology.” She has a law degree from the University of Denver and a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Colorado, and she served as a Denver County Judge for ten years.

“Shawl of Midnight” takes place 18 years after “My Sisters Made of Light” and continues the story of Ujala, who is now living in India, and introduces her niece, Nafeesa, the teenage daughter of her martyred sister, Meena. Nafeesa goes to India to live with another sister, Faisah, and together they take a harrowing journey to rescue Ujala from her abusive husband. In her review of the book, Sandra Dallas writes the book “is a tale of family strength in an era of domestic terrorism. … St. Joan’s research is prodigious, especially her knowledge of women’s conditions in Pakistan, where a hint of impropriety can bring beatings, torture and even death. She writes knowingly about the strength of women living today under medieval laws and the networks they form to help each other. … ‘Shawl of Midnight’ (“if you give a woman a shawl, she is forever your sister”) is a graceful account of the sisterhood that allows oppressed women to survive.”

Barbara Nickless is the Wall Street Journal and #1 Amazon Charts bestselling author of the multi-award-winning Sydney Parnell crime novels. Her new series features forensic semiotician Dr. Evan Wilding—a man whose gift for interpreting the words and symbols left behind by killers has led him to consult on some of the world’s grisliest cases. Winner of the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence and the Golden Quill Award, Nickless has been nominated for the Colorado Book Award five times and has won three. She lives in Colorado at the foot of the Rocky Mountains where she loves to hike, cave, snowshoe, and drink single malt Scotch. Her most recent travels—while conducting research for a novel—involved taking cover from rocket fire and being grilled at military checkpoints.

“Dark of Night,” a novel about a sacred lost treasure and poisonous retribution, is the second in the Dr. Wilding series. When esteemed historian Elizabeth Lawrence is found in her car, killed by a cobra’s bite, only Dr. Wilding, a brilliant professor of semiotics, can see the signs around her strange death. As he helps homicide detective Addie Bisset decipher the scene, the puzzles left behind offer him a chilling passage into the mind of a killer.

The investigation merges with that of an Israeli agent, who claims Elizabeth was close to acquiring an invaluable artifact. She was also drawing the attention of unsavory treasure hunters, forgers, and thieves. Was someone desperate to expose the truth of Elizabeth’s astonishing discovery? The deeper Evan and Addie delve into the case, the darker it gets. A murderer’s archaic crimes are just the beginning. In a race where there can be only one winner, the final victim might be Evan.

Author J.v.L. Bell has a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Colorado State University and a Master of Science degree from Colorado School of Mines. She worked as a mechanical engineer for her entire career, including being an adjunct professor at Colorado School of Mines, but in 2015, she left engineering and sold her first Colorado historical mystery, ‘The Lucky Hat Mine.” In 2018, she published her first non-fiction book, a children’s biography about Elizabeth Byers. Her second Colorado historical mystery was published in 2019 and her third in 2021.” “The Lucky Hat Mine” and “Murder at Buckskin Joe,” are Will Rogers award winners.

Jan Gunia has a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder and is a member of Kappa Tau Alpha, the national honor society for journalism and mass communication. Her passion for nineteenth century Colorado women’s history began in elementary school and continues to this day. Her extensive research of Colorado pioneers has taken her beyond Colorado to Maine and Kansas, where she visited Augusta Tabor’s former home and the Tabor land, respectively. While in those states, as well as in Colorado, she has conducted research at state archives, museums, local historical societies, and libraries.

“Women of the Colorado Gold Rush Era” explores the lives of ten unforgettable women who called Colorado home during the turbulent years of the Pikes Peak Gold Rush. These unsung heroines whose perseverance, hard work, and wisdom helped lay the foundation for the state of Colorado include Amache Prowers, a successful Cheyenne businesswoman who negotiated life between two cultures; Mary Cozens, an early settler in Central City who later helped establish and run a ranch and stage stop in the Fraser Valley; Clara Brown, a former enslaved woman who became one of Colorado’s most beloved pioneers; and Albina Washburn, a radical reformer and suffragist who spent her life working for political, economic, and social change.

Cost for the talk and lunch is $27 for members and $30 for nonmembers. Reservations and payment can be made by PayPal online at the link below or by sending a check to CPW Treasurer Teresa Ford (email her for the address). Please RSVP by Friday, Nov. 3.

Oct. 7 – Banned Books Week

What the media needs to know

about the effort to ban books

In recognition of Banned Books Week, Colorado Press Women will host the event “Book banning and information suppression: What the media needs to know,” the morning of Saturday, Oct. 7, at the Columbine Library in Littleton. Panelists include Alison McCombe of Jefferson County Public Library, State Sen. Lisa Cutter and attorney Rachael Johnson.

McCombe, collection service supervisor at JCPL, will open the program with an overview on the status of book banning, which will include American Library Association statements on the Freedom to Read and the Library Bill of Rights. Mccombe will also discuss JCPL’s mission and vision, including its criteria for the selection of materials for minors.

Cutter will speak about the bill she is working on for the next session to help address the repression of a minority viewpoint in libraries and bookstores around the state.  Cutter was elected to the Senate in 2022 after serving in the Colorado House of Representatives, representing Jefferson County. She serves as a member of the Transportation & Energy Committee as well as the Health & Human Services Committee and is co-founder and co-chair of the Colorado Democratic Women’s Caucus.

She was born in Colorado and has a deep knowledge of the state. Jefferson County is her longtime home where she raised her family, started a business and began her career as an elected official. Since winning public office, she has worked to ensure every Jeffco family has the support and resources they need to thrive.

Johnson, local legal initiative attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, will talk about the case in Crested Butte that involves a request from the Crested Butte News for the name(s) of people who requested books be pulled from the local library and information suppression and its effect on the media. Johnson has a decade of experience working in both the legal and media fields and directed the federal communications team’s review of documents sought through Freedom of Information Act requests at the Natural Resources Defense Council. She served as a senior writer and creative communications advisor to the U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and has worked as a reporter, editor and producer.

Before and during law school, she was a producer at the Starz channel in Englewood, Colo. She received her law degree from University of Denver Sturm College of Law, her master’s from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and bachelor’s in journalism from Hampton University.

“Book banning and information suppression” will be from 10-11:30 a.m., Saturday, Oct. 7, in the large meeting room at Columbine Library, 7706 W. Bowles Ave., Littleton (Clement Park). Registration begins at 9:30 a.m. with coffee and pastries. The event is free, but for logistical reasons, guests should notify Gay Porter DeNileon if they plan to attend.

Attendance in person is preferred, but a Zoom option will be available. Those who cannot attend in person and can participate via Zoom, be sure to register at info@coloradopresswomen.org to receive the Zoom link prior to the meeting.

Aug. 9-11

Come to Crested Butte with CPW for history, science and fun

Crested Butte, the Wildflower Capital of the West, is this summer’s destination for the CPW getaway, Aug. 9-11.

CPW members and guests will be treated to a tour of the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, a welcome reception, a discussion with two of the town’s most established and noted journalists and more.

Cost is $75/person, which includes the reception, arranged tours and two lunches. Reserve by July 19 by sending a check to CPW Treasurer Teresa Ford (email her for address) or pay via PayPal or credit card using the button below.

A limited number of rooms are available at the Old Town Inn at a special rate of $164/night; reservations for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights must be made by July 19 to guarantee the rate and the room (unless the block is filled). Call the hotel directly at (888) 349-6184 and ask for the CPW room rate to reserve.

An eco-friendly hotel, the Old Town Inn is owned by one of our speakers on Friday, Sandy Fails, and her husband, Michael Garren, and managed by their son Chris Garren.

Wednesday evening, we’ll gather at 4:30 in the gardens of the Crested Butte Museum, for beverages and hors d’oeuvres and to meet our special guests, Fails and Sandra Cortner.

Thursday morning, we’ll head out to Gothic for a tour of the town of Gothic and RMBL. The tour of the 95-year-old facility includes the research and science laboratories, mining history, science education, wildflowers and Q&A. RMBL is home to one of the largest annual migrations of field biologists, providing logistical support for scientists and students, including access to living quarters, research laboratories, and protected research sites, according to its website. “As scientists address ever more sophisticated questions about a dynamic world, RMBL is a vital resource for discovering nature’s fundamental ecological and evolutionary processes,” the site states.

A box lunch in the mountains will follow the tour.

On Friday, we’ll learn more about the history of the town and its publications with Fails and Cortner, both two long-time residents.

Fails is editor of Crested Butte Magazine, a richly illustrated and cleverly written bi-annual publication, and author of three local books, including “Crested Butte: The Edge of Paradise” and “Where the Road Ends.” She honed her reporting skills as former owner/writer/editor of the Crested Butte Chronicle, and she writes fiction as well.

Photographer and historian Cortner moved to the mountains as a teenager in the 1970s and never left. She started and owned the newspaper Crested Butte Pilot—which later merged with the Fails’-owned paper to become the Chronicle-Pilot, and she has worked at numerous other media outlets in the community, including the eponymous magazine and photographed almost everyone and every event. She is the author/photographer of two books, “Crested Butte…Through My Lens” and “Crested Butte…Love at First Sight.”

Other optional activities are in the planning stages, including a wildflower hike and group dinner. More details will be supplied soon, but don’t wait to make plans, as lodging is limited.

Note: CPW events are open to all members of the National Federation of Press Women at the member rate.

For questions, or if you prefer to send a check by mail, contact CPW Treasurer Teresa Ford for more details: tfordco@gmail.com.  (If you wish to pay by credit card and don’t have an active PayPal account, you’ll be asked for your email before the “Pay with Debit or Credit Card” link shows up.)

Annual Meeting May 6

Panel covers water, drought and climate change

How do journalists cover western water: drought, the shrinking Colorado River and climate change? A panel including a daily reporter, a public radio reporter and a water journalist will discuss the region’s water woes Saturday, May 6, at Colorado Press Women’s annual meeting at Colorado State University’s new Hydro Building at the National Western Center, 4777 National Western Drive, Denver (northeast of I-70 and Washington St).

Deadline for registering is Monday, May 1.

Doors open at 10 a.m. in the Willow Creek Classroom, with time for coffee and socializing. The panel starts at 10:30 a.m. and features Alex Hager, Jerd Smith and Conrad Swanson, moderated by Boulder freelance health and science writer and CPW member Kate Ruder. A box lunch and a brief business meeting will follow with announcements of the CPW Communicator of Achievement and election of officers.

A tour of the three new CSU science-based Spur Campus buildings will follow at 1 p.m.; the buildings house education, research and demonstrations connected to food, water and human and animal health.

Swanson covers Colorado’s environment and politics for The Denver Post’s political team. An Iowa native, he joined the paper in November 2019 after stints at the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Lawrence Journal World in Kansas and the Sioux City Journal in Iowa. He graduated from the University of Iowa with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a focus in economics.

He is a member of the Investigative Reporters and Editors organization and was awarded a 2019 fellowship for the National Press Foundation’s Spotlight on Statehouse and Local Reporting. He also won awards for sustained coverage in Colorado and political and investigative coverage in Kansas.

Hager is KUNC’s reporter covering the Colorado River Basin. He spent two years at Aspen Public Radio, mainly reporting on the resort economy, the environment and the COVID-19 pandemic. Before that, he covered the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery for KDLG in Dillingham, Alaska.

He has a journalism degree from Elon University, where he spent four years working for the student newspaper and TV station. While at Elon, he also worked as a sports correspondent for the Burlington Times-News, covering ACC football and basketball as well as Carolina Panthers NFL football. When he’s not in the office, Alex enjoys hiking, practicing Spanish, playing basketball and reading poetry. He was born and raised in Connecticut.

Smith is the Fresh Water News Editor at Water Education Colorado. Prior to joining WEco, she worked as a news editor and reporter for an array of Colorado news outlets including the Rocky Mountain News, the Daily Camera and Times-Call newspapers. A former fellow at the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado, she has a Bachelor of Science degree in political science from the University of Evansville in Indiana and a master’s in journalism from Northwestern University. When she isn’t reporting and editing, she enjoys hiking, cross country skiing and mountain biking with her husband and two sons.

Ruder is a freelance health and science reporter whose work has appeared in JAMA, Kaiser Health News, NBC Health, The Denver Post, PBS News Hour, U.S. News and World Report, Chicago Tribune, and multiple other publications. She has a master’s in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, with a focus on science writing and an undergraduate degree from Hamilton College in Clinton, NY.

Spur Campus tour 

The Hydro Building (Greek for water) includes exhibits, classrooms and Denver Water Department’s new water quality lab, which tests over 200,000 water samples per year.

The Vida Building (Spanish for life) includes the veterinary medicine program, equine sports medicine and exhibits on the connection between animals and human health. The Temple Grandin Equine Center provides equine-assisted therapy for people with physical, emotional and mental challenges.

The Terra Building (Latin for earth) focuses on agriculture from farming to food products and transportation. It features a rooftop garden and greenhouse labs for researchers to work on improving crops; food labs for developing new food products; a sensory lab and commercial kitchen for testing recipes and teaching about cooking and nutrition.

Also, Western Daughters Kitchen buys meat from farmers and ranchers in the area who raise grass-fed and pasture-raised animals. Visitors can buy food and drinks there and sign up for the Meat Club, a monthly subscription service for locally sourced and butchered meat and poultry.

REGISTRATION AND DIRECTIONS:

For a map showing access to the new CSU Spur campus at the National Western Center, click here. Free parking is available in Lot N. We are in the Hydro building (Willow Creek Classroom), marked #3 on the map and colored blue. The street address is 4777 National Western Drive, Denver, CO 80216.

To cover box lunch and room rental, the registration fee is $27 for members and $30 for guests. Registrations must be received by Monday, May 1. To send a check made out to “Colorado Press Women,” mail to Treasurer Teresa Ford. (Email her to get address at tfordco@gmail.com.) To pay online — extra fee added to cover costs — select one of the options on the button below.

Jan. 21:

 Downsizing, Rightsizing & Living with Loss 

CPW will hold a Zoom meeting Saturday, Jan. 21 at 10 a.m. with presenter Rachel Kodanaz who is a speaker, consultant and author of “Living with Loss, One Day at a Time,” “Grief in the Workplace” and “Finding Peace, One Piece at a Time.”

She has been speaking to national audiences of all sizes for 20 years about change, growth and acceptance. Widowed at 31 with a two-year-old, she worked in management for Fortune’s 100 companies.

She brings compassionate, experienced and honest insight to the difficult problem of what to do with possessions, many of which are attached to memories.

According to her website, “Rachel’s book [“Finding Your Peace”] “provides encouragement and tools for those seeking to downsize, rightsize or sort through a loved one’s possessions … [and] shares practical ways to thin, repurpose, and redistribute these possessions so they continue to share the story with future generations.”

See rachelkodanaz.com for more information about her books.

There is no charge for the talk. The Zoom link will be sent from info@coloradopresswomen.org to all CPW members in good standing a week before the talk.

2022

Saturday, November 5

Authors’ lunch features award-winning storytellers

Three noted Colorado authors will share insights on their latest books with Colorado Press Women and guests on Saturday morning, Nov. 5, at the new home of CPW member Gay Porter DeNileon, 13812 W. 59th Ave., Arvada.

Erika Krouse, whose latest book, “Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation,” was recently featured on Colorado Public Radio’s Turn the Page series, will be joined by E.J. Levy, highlighting her historical novel “The Cape Doctor,” and Steven Schwartz, author of “The Tenderest of Strings.”

The annual CPW authors’ event begins at 9:30 a.m., with registration, and will end after lunch with a short business meeting. Lunch will be a variety of salads and sandwiches catered by Bread Winners Cafe & Catering. Cost is $25 for CPW members and $27 for nonmembers.

A writer of fiction and nonfiction, Erika Krouse teaches and mentors for the Book Project at Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver. She attended middle school and high school in Japan and earned her B.A. from Grinnell College and M.A. in English Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she also taught creative writing classes. She is the offsite/traveling retreat coordinator for Lighthouse, instructing at The Himalayan Writing Retreat in Uttarakhand, India, and teaches yearly at the Grand Lake Retreat in Colorado. She has won fellowships and scholarships to the Longleaf Writers Conference, Bread Loaf Writers Workshop, Sewanee Writers Workshop and the inaugural Amtrak Residency.

“Tell Me Everything” is Krouse’s memoir of her time as an investigator for a lawyer who won a landmark civil case that changed the way Title IX is implemented and viewed at colleges and universities across the country. Although she never directly names the college or the people involved, the story is clearly about the football recruiting scandal at CU-Boulder during the early 2000s, when young women were sexually assaulted by football players and recruits, then ostracized by the university when they sought justice. Krouse weaves her own experience of sexual abuse throughout her narrative, and the result is a compelling page turner told with lyric beauty and subtle humor.

E.J. Levy taught in the MFA Creative Writing Program at Colorado State University for ten years, before resigning this June to write full time. She has been a film magazine editor in Manhattan, a faculty member at American University in D.C. and University of Missouri-Columbia, and frequently teaches at Kenyon Review’s Summer Writers Workshop. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and in Best American Essays. She has received a Lambda Literary Award, Flannery O’Connor Award, Chicago Literary Award, Michener Fellowship, Pushcart Prize and Loft-McKnight Fellowship, among other honors, and held fellowships to Bread Loaf Writers Workshop, Sewanee Writers Workshop and as an Aspen Institute Writer in Residence. Her award-winning story collection was translated into French; foreign editions of her debut novel are forthcoming in French, Spanish, and Italian.

Her debut novel, “The Cape Doctor,” is inspired by the life of Dr. James Miranda Barry, an eminent nineteenth-century army surgeon who was born Margaret Anne Bulkley but took on a male persona in 1809 to obtain an education and practice medicine, 40 years before Elizabeth Blackwell would receive her medical degree in 1849. A dandy, duelist and advocate for the marginalized, Barry was first to successfully perform a caesarian in Africa and rose to the pinnacle of colonial society in Cape Town in the 1820s, before he was accused in a sodomy scandal with the aristocratic governor, which nearly cost them their lives. The book was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and one of Barnes and Noble’s’ “Best Books of Summer,” and won a Colorado Book Award.

Steven Schwartz is a Professor Emeritus of English at Colorado State University, where he taught in the MFA Creative Writing Program. He also taught at the Warren Wilson College Low-Residency MFA Program and Lighthouse Writers Workshop. His fiction has received the Nelson Algren Award, Sherwood Anderson Prize, Cohen Award, Colorado Book Award, two O. Henry Prize Story Awards, Foreword Review Gold Medal for Short Stories and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell and Bread Loaf. He is currently fiction editor for the Colorado Review.

His third novel, “The Tenderest of Strings” tells the story of Reuben and Ardith Rosenfeld and their two children as they move from Chicago to the fictional small town of Welton, Colorado, where Reuben purchases the local paper. Ardith stays home and copes with the task of fixing up an older house in great disrepair and carries on a secret affair. One night, after a cookout at friends’ farm, a fatal hit-and-run shocks the community, exposes a secret and rips apart the Rosenfeld family. Like most of Schwartz’s work, “The Tenderest of Strings” focuses on families and their psychological motivations.

Registration for the authors’ lunch can be made via PayPal/credit card using the registration below (a processing fee has been added) or by mailing a check to Teresa Ford (email her for address), by Friday, Oct. 28.

Parking is limited, so please carpool to the event if possible. Also, out-of-town members are encouraged to contact their CPW friends in the metro area as many have guest bedrooms and welcome visitors who want to attend the event.

May 14: A conversation about podcasting, honors

The ins and outs, ups and downs of creating and hosting a podcast will be discussed by a panel of experts on Saturday, May 14, during CPW’s annual membership meeting.

Presenting their experiences of creating podcasts will be Jo Ann Allen, host of Been There Done That, Denise Gorant Gliwa, host of the podcast Bite Your Tongue, and Pam Moore, host of Real Fit podcast. On Been There Done That, Allen interviews people of the Baby Boom Generation about the unique experiences that shape their lives. She recently retired from Colorado Public Radio, where she was the steady voice of CPR’s broadcast of All Things Considered. Gliwa has worked in the public relations and marketing profession in Denver, New York City and China for more than 35 years. Bite Your Tongue is a look at exploring that next chapter in parenting: building healthy relationships with adult children. From money and finance to relationships and sibling rivalry, Gliwa and co-host Dr. Ellen Braaten bring together experts, parents and young adults to discuss this next phase of parenting. Pam Moore is an occupational therapist-turned-award-winning health and fitness freelance writer and speaker who’s a regular contributor to the Washington Post. Her podcast features conversations with women athletes about body image, confidence and more, a natural segue for a six-time marathoner who finished the Ironman twice.

The meeting is in the Thersa Dando Meeting Room at Sheridan Public Library, 3425 W. Oxford Ave., Sheridan, in the southwest metro area with registration starting at 9:30 a.m. while attendees enjoy coffee or tea, and the program starting at 10 a.m. followed by lunch and recognition of CPW’s winners in the NFPW Communications Contest. This annual CPW meeting also includes a discussion of CPW finances and succession planning, and a look at future events.

Registration for in-person attendance costs $24 and includes a box lunch with a deli sandwich from Biscuits and Berries. A variety of sandwiches will be provided, including vegetarian. Register online by clicking the button below (processing fee added). If you wish to pay by check, contact Treasurer Teresa Ford at tfordco@gmail.com for her mailing address.  Registration deadline May 10.

An effort will be made to make this meeting available by Zoom for the convenience of members living outside metro Denver. If you’d like to receive the Zoom link, send an email to info@coloradopresswomen.org. If we’re able to secure a meeting location for free that we can broadcast from, there’ll be no charge for a Zoom link.

Questions? Contact CPW Program VP Ann Lockhart, ajldenver@aol.com, 303-388-6978.

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On the Front Line

Panel features public information pros

Managing public information in times of community crises—shootings, fires, medical emergencies—is the job of public information specialists, several of whom will speak to Colorado Press on Wednesday, Feb. 23, at 4:00 p.m. The Zoom event will feature Jacki Kelley, Kyle Patterson and Sara Spaulding discussing their experiences as media leads for governmental entities. The panel on breaking news will be moderated by CPW member and former PIO Marilyn Saltzman.

The timely panel discussion is free for members and nonmembers alike; but registration is required so the Zoom link can be provided prior to the event. Send a note of interest to Sharon Almirall at salmirall@yahoo.com by Tuesday, Feb. 22.

Jacki Kelley is Public Information Director for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. A retired police officer with more than 30 years of law enforcement experience, Kelley has also served as a public information officer for the Westminster Police Department. She has broad experience in handling communications during crisis events, including the deadly shootings at Columbine and Platte Canyon high schools, New Life Church and Arvada theater, the Lower North Fork Fire in 2012 and, most recently, assisting during the immediate aftermath of the devastating Marshall Fire.

Kyle Patterson is the Management Specialist/Public Affairs Officer at Rocky Mountain National Park, which was hit by two huge fires in 2020. Her main duties include media relations, community outreach and overseeing the park’s digital media presence, including the website and social media channels. As a member of the park’s Leadership Team she is engaged in a number of park efforts. She has been in this position since 2001. Prior to this she was the Public Information Officer at Mount Rushmore National Memorial.

Sara Spaulding is the Public Information Officer/Communications Manager for the City of Wheat Ridge and the Wheat Ridge Police Department. Her 25+ years of experience include serving as spokesperson for emergency medical services agencies, hospitals, non-profit organizations and corporations. As the PIO for Swedish Medical Center in the 1990s, she handled communications following the crash of an AirLife medical helicopter and when wounded Columbine High School students were transported to Swedish. She has served as a volunteer PIO for six memorial services for Colorado Law Enforcement officers and as a media liaison for the families of victims killed in the Boulder shooting last year. She also volunteered in the Joint Information Center as a PIO supporting the response to the Marshall Fire in January of 2022.

Marilyn Saltzman has more than 30 years of experience in public relations, including crisis communications, internal relations and media relations. She was a manager in the Communications Services Department of Jeffco Public Schools, Colorado’s largest school district, during the aftermath of the Columbine shootings.

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2021

Three Colorado authors to speak Nov. 6 at Buell Center

Mystery, history and an award-winning collection of short stories are on tap as three local authors speak to Colorado Press Women and friends on Saturday, Nov. 6 at 9:30 a.m. at the Buell Public Media Center, 2101 Arapahoe St., Denver.

Patricia Raybon, award-winning Colorado author, former journalist and University of Colorado/Boulder professor emerita, will talk about her debut novel in a 1920s mystery series set in Colorado’s dangerous Klan era. Denver historian Mark Barnhouse’s new book, “Tattered Cover Book Store: A Storied History,” covers the book store’s first 50 years with tales from the thousands of author events it has hosted over the decades. Jennie Shank’s new award-winning book, “Mixed Company,” reveals moments of grace and connection between people of her hometown, Denver, through a collection of short stories that contrast the city during its oil-bust era of economic troubles and court-ordered crosstown busing for racial desegregation with the burgeoning and gentrifying city of recent years.

Raybon’s “All That Is Secret” is a riveting puzzle about a prim, poor but clever young Black female theologian—a fan of Sherlock Holmes—trying to solve her father’s cold-case murder in a city ruled by the Ku Klux Klan. The award-winning Colorado author, essayist and novelist writes stories of faith by day and mystery by night. Her previous books have included “My First White Friend,” a racial-forgiveness memoir; “I Told the Mountain to Move,” a candid prayer memoir; “The One Year God’s Great Blessings Devotional”; “Undivided: A Muslim Daughter, Her Christian Mother, Their Path to Peace”; “Bound for Glory,” a tribute book honoring African American spirituals; and “Beautiful Blessings from God,” a daily devotional.

Raybon’s essays on family and faith have been published in The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, USA Today, USA Weekend, Country Living Magazine, Chicago Tribune, The Denver Post, Guideposts, In Touch Magazine (In Touch Ministries), Our Daily Bread, Christianity Today, and Today’s Christian Woman. She earned a B.A. in journalism from The Ohio State University and an M.A. in journalism from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

“Tattered Cover Book Store: A Storied History” was commissioned by the store to celebrate a half century in business, starting with just 950 square feet, and growing into a multistore operation and important cultural institution. The store has been a forum for ideas, with hundreds of writers visiting each year to sign books and greet readers. Barnhouse, a Denver native, worked at the bookstore from September 1994 through March 2000, in Cherry Creek and LoDo.

A graduate of the University of Colorado-Denver, double majoring in history and English, he has researched and written about Denver’s history for 25 years. His most recent books include “Vanished Denver Landmarks,” “A History Lover’s Guide to Denver” and “Lost Department Stores of Denver.” See ArcadiaPublishing.com for a full listing. He is a member of one of Denver’s oldest western history groups, the Denver Posse of Westerners. Find him on Facebook: “Denver History Books by Mark A. Barnhouse.”

Among the stories in Shank’s “Mixed Company” is “Casa del Rey” in which a cautious pregnant woman must contend with her out-of-control and intrusive neighbor. In “Hurts,” a girls’ basketball team at a majority Black Denver high school clashes with a white mountain team. In “La Sexycana,” a bottom-feeding journalist ventures to a dance club to confront the young Latina woman she mentored as a teenager who then cut off all contact with her. These fictional stories and others address real human issues in a complicated world through humor, heart and grit.

“Mixed Company” won the George Garrett Fiction Prize from publisher Texas Review Press. Established in 1998, the prize highlights one book a year for excellence in a short story collection or novel. Shank’s first novel, “The Ringer,” won the High Plains Book Award. Her stories, essays, satire and reviews have appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Prairie Schooner, Alaska Quarterly Review and numerous other publications. Her work has been honorably mentioned by The Best American Essays, the Pushcart Prize anthology and her mother. Shank publishes The Tumbleweed, a monthly newsletter about books, writing and publishing, and she teaches in the Mile High MFA program at Regis University and the Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver. She lives in Boulder.

REGISTRATION & COST:  The cost is $27 for members and $32 for guests. (Friends and fellow readers are more than welcome!) Because we’re renting a room with enhanced A/V capabilities, the online via Zoom cost is $10; your email address is furnished by PayPal when you register. Sign up by Saturday, Oct. 30. Register online using the button below (processing fee added) or mail a check to “Colorado Press Women,” c/o Mary Parmelee at 586 S. Gaylord St., Denver, CO 80209. Her email address is taijidancer126@gmail.com. Registration starts at 9:30 a.m., while members and guests enjoy coffee or tea. Each of the authors will have 40 minutes to talk and answer questions, followed by a break to allow then to sign and sell their books. Biscuits and Berries Catering Company will provide a box lunch of a sandwich, chips, fruit, salad and cookie. Masks are required in the building, and CPW requests all attendees be fully vaccinated to participate in person.

DIRECTIONS & PARKING: The Buell Center for Public Media at 2101 Arapahoe St. is located several blocks from Coors Field between two one-way streets. Parking lots are at two corners of 21st Street and Arapahoe, facing from The Buell Center.

CPW recognizes local news to celebrate 80th

Colorado Press Women was founded 80 years ago by a statewide consortium of women who primarily covered community news for their local newspapers. Appropriately then, Linda Shapley, publisher of Colorado Community Media, will be the featured speaker at CPW’s 80th anniversary on October 2, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m., at the Buell Public Media Center, 2101 Arapahoe St., Denver.

The celebration begins with a hardy brunch of eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes, pastries and fruit catered by Colorado Catering. Then we’ll launch a Zoom meeting at 10:45 a.m. for a presentation on our organization’s past by CPW historian Lee Ann Peck, assistant professor of media ethics at Colorado State University and co-editor of Media Ethics at Work: True Stories from Young Professionals.

Next up is Shapley, who was named publisher of Colorado Community Media in July. A longtime denizen of Colorado journalism, Shapley has a 30-year history at news publications including the Greeley Tribune, The Denver Post and Colorado Politics, as well as a volunteer on the boards of Colorado State University’s student media alumni group, the Denver Press Club and Society for News Design.

She leads CCM’s two-dozen Colorado newspapers and websites as the company’s first publisher since its spring sale to The Colorado News Conservancy, a partnership of The Colorado Sun and the National Trust for Local News dedicated to fostering community journalism. The state’s largest community media outlet, CCM newspapers serve Adams, Arapahoe, Clear Creek, Denver, Douglas, Elbert, Jefferson and Weld counties, reaching more than 300,000 people each week.

Following the presentations, participants can tour the Buell Public Media Center, the new home of Rocky Mountain Public Media—parent company of Rocky Mountain PBS (KRMA Channel 6) and KUVO Jazz 89.3-FM. The center is also the new base for Colorado News Collaborative (COLab), The Associated Press, Chalkbeat Colorado, Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, Colorado Media Project, Colorado Press Association, The Colorado Sun, KGNU Community Radio and Open Media Foundation, as well as Metzler Family Learning Center, Masterpiece Studio, Bonfils-Stanton Performance Studio and the 5,000-square-foot Community Media Center, a classroom and production workspace for students supported by Emily Griffith Technical College and the city and county of Denver.

Cost for the in-person celebration is $25; the price is $10 for Zoom only. Send checks, made out to Colorado Press Women, to arrive by Sept. 23 to Sharon Almirall, 955 Eudora St., #605, Denver, CO 80220 or pay online using the button below. A small processing fee will be added to online payments. Zoom-only registrants need to include their email address if paying by check.

In-person registration opens at 9:45 a.m. and the presentations via Zoom begin at 10:45 a.m.

Masks are required in the building, and CPW requests all attendees be fully vaccinated to participate in person. Ann Lockhart, Sandy Graham and Sandy Nance are offering accommodations for fully vaccinated members from outside the metro area who wish to attend in person.