FICTION
Book Discussion Guides
Release date February 2024
COMING 2024
NONFICTION
PLAY
Laura Pritchett is the author of five novels (Counterpoint, Milkweed Editions) and has two forthcoming (Ballantine, Torrey House) in 2024. She’s also the author of two nonfiction books and editor of three environment-based anthologies. Her work has been the recipient of the PEN USA Award, the Milkweed National Fiction Prize, the WILLA, the High Plains Book Award, several Colorado Book Awards, and others. Her best-known novel, Stars Go Blue, has been optioned for TV rights. She’s published over 300 essays and short stories in national venues, most recently in The Sun, Terrain, Camas, Orion, Creative Nonfiction, and others. She directs the MFA in Nature Writing at Western Colorado University and holds a PhD from Purdue University. When not writing or teaching, she can be found sauntering around the West, especially her home state of Colorado. She particularly likes looking at clouds.
Events:
Old Firehouse Books, Fort Collins, CO, Feb 24, 6 pm - with Alison Turner to celebrate the release of her new book Defensible Spaces
Summer 2023 is just starting to take shape, and besides directing / teaching in the Nature Writing MFA program at Western Colorado University, here’s where I’ll be:
Sitka Center Writing Workshop - Oregon - June 2023
Elk River Writer’s Workshop - Chico Hot Springs, Montana - August 2023 (full)
BIO & UPCOMING EVENTS
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
“Renovation,” Creative Nonfiction
(nominated for a Pushcart)
“Telling the Truth about the Way We Live Now,” Writers on the Range
“Ten Seconds,” Terrain
“Play, Hands,” The Sun
“Bluestem,” Santa Fe Literary Review
“Caregiving: I’ll do it my way,”
Regular columnist for the Colorado Sun
Regular columnist for Writers on the Range
TEACHING
Laura directs the MFA in Nature Writing at Western Colorado University. This is a unique 2-year, low-residency program (write from where you live!) and is one of only few in the country that focuses on contemporary environmental writing.
The Nature Writing concentration seeks to empower writers who care about the urgent and wonder-filled world of contemporary environmental literature. We are founded on the core belief that writing can be an agent of change, that creativity engenders solutions, and that students should be individually mentored to achieve their highest artistic goals. Our concentration includes work in many genres, including nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and experimental and hybrid works. Students leave the program with a book-length manuscript, short-form work, and a thorough understanding of the many approaches to writing about our place, our planet, and our people.
