Laura Pritchett

Library Author Series: Laura Pritchett

Thursday, August 6, 2015 - 7:00pm to 8:30pm
  • Library Hall

Spend an evening at the library with one of the West’s defining literary voices. Laura Pritchett speaks about her new novel, Red Lightning.

Red Lightning

“Laura Pritchett is a writer whose prose is as passionate as it is intelligent. Hers is a rare talent that does not let her compassion for humanity get in the way of her attention to the paradoxes of being human, nor its obligations. Red Lightning is a star in the West: a smart, tender, crisp piece of work about the opportunities for redemption and blessings that exist in every hour.” — author Rick Bass

Ten years ago, Tess Cross left her newborn daughter with her sister and hightailed it out of what she called NoWhere, Colorado. Now she returns to the eastern plains of Colorado, full of raw rage at herself and at the universe, yearning for the life she never led and the daughter she left behind. As a levantona who has been running drugs and illegal immigrants beyond the US-Mexican border, she's knowingly entered into a harsh and dangerous world. But suddenly her world has become darker than she can bear: The largest wildfire in Colorado history is blazing. Immigrants are dead. She's haunted by the memory of a Mexican woman she couldn't save and a lost Mexican girl she did. Traffickers – of both immigrants and drugs – are now hunting her down. But most of all, Tess is at the mercy of her own traumatized soul, and the weight of it is cracking her apart. In the act of coming home, Tess must now face her dying mother, her sister, her daughter, and most importantly, herself.

This book broaches timely topics essential in the West – immigration, rural poverty, wildfiresv – with suspense and gritty wisdom as well as Pritchett's trademark lyricism and grace. Like Libby, her sister and the central character of Pritchett's novel Sky Bridge, Tess has her own coming-of-age in a revelatory story of hard-earned transformation and redemption.

About the author
Laura Pritchett is an author and a conservationist whose work is rooted in the American West, particularly the mountains of Colorado. She is the the author of the novels Red Lightning, Stars Go Blue (finalist for the Reading the West and the Colorado Book Award), Sky Bridge (winner of the WILLA Fiction Award), and Hell's Bottom, Colorado (winner of the Milkweed National Fiction Prize and the PEN USA Award). She is also the author of Great Colorado Bear Stories.(nonfiction) and editor of three anthologies: Pulse of the River, Home Land, and Going Green: True Tales from Gleaners, Scavengers, and Dumpster Divers.

Laura has also published over 100 essays and short stories in numerous magazines, including The Sun, O (Oprah’s) Magazine, Orion, High Country News, Salon, The Normal School, High Desert Journal, OnEarth, Natural Resources Journal, 5280 (Denver's Magazine), The Pinch, and others; and her work has been anthologized in the books Comeback Wolves, A Dozen on Denver, Telling it Real, How the West Was Warmed, The Mysterious Life of the Heart, Thoreau's Legacy: American Stories about Global Warming, West of 98, and others. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize on several occasions.

When not writing or teaching, she can generally be found outside in Colorado’s mountains. She holds a Ph.D. in English (Contemporary American Literature) from Purdue University.

This community talk is free.

About the Library Author Series
Bud Werner Memorial Library presents an ongoing program of author talks throughout the year. These are free community events held in Library Hall, where a diverse award-winning range of visiting authors speak about their literary works and their writing processes. Each talk is followed by a Q&A and an opportunity to have authors sign copies of their books.

Books will be available for sale and author signing courtesy of Off the Beaten Path Bookstore.