Colorado is experiencing its warmest year in 131 years of record, and one of its driest. The Roaring Fork Valley sits at the epicenter, among the hardest-hit areas in the state for severe drought. With snowpack now peaked at historic lows, climate scientists are drawing comparisons to years that defined what catastrophic wildfire looks like in Colorado.This event aimed to bring our community together for a direct conversation about what these conditions mean for our valley, what local fire departments and researchers are doing about it, and what each of us can do to protect our homes and our neighbors.

Colorado is experiencing its warmest year in 131 years of record, and one of its driest. The Roaring Fork Valley sits at the epicenter, among the hardest-hit areas in the state for severe drought. With snowpack now peaked at historic lows, climate scientists are drawing comparisons to years that defined what catastrophic wildfire looks like in Colorado.This event aimed to bring our community together for a direct conversation about what these conditions mean for our valley, what local fire departments and researchers are doing about it, and what each of us can do to protect our homes and our neighbors.

Colorado is experiencing its warmest year in 131 years of record, and one of its driest. The Roaring Fork Valley sits at the epicenter, among the hardest-hit areas in the state for severe drought. With snowpack now peaked at historic lows, climate scientists are drawing comparisons to years that defined what catastrophic wildfire looks like in Colorado.This event aimed to bring our community together for a direct conversation about what these conditions mean for our valley, what local fire departments and researchers are doing about it, and what each of us can do to protect our homes and our neighbors.

First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing is a literary podcast produced and hosted by Mitzi Rapkin. Each week the podcast features an in-depth interview with a fiction, non-fiction, essay, or poetry writer. The show is equal parts investigation into the craft of writing and conversation about the topics of an author’s work.

Aspen Historical Society and TACAW host author Lance R Blyth to share “Unknown Tales of the Tenth,” unexpected stories he learned while researching and writing Ski, Climb, Fight: The 10th Mountain Division and the Rise of Mountain Warfare (Oklahoma, 2024). These include that a unit called 10th Mountain was never at Camp Hale, that the Roaring Fork Valley almost became the site of the Army’s mountain training camp, and that mountain training continued in Colorado after WW II well into the 1950s.

Year after year, English In Action’s Immigrant Voices event bridges cultural divides by bringing people together to honor our differences and highlight our shared human experiences.

Adventurer and storyteller Tara Roberts discusses her searing memoir, “Written in the Waters,” which recounts her epic journey to trace the global slave trade across the Atlantic Ocean. Roberts, a National Geographic Explorer in Residence, spent years diving with and telling stories about a group of Black scuba divers searching for slave shipwrecks around the world. For fans of Cheryl Strayed’s “Wild” and Jesmyn Ward’s “Men We Reaped,” Roberts’ memoir is a powerful blend of personal and cultural history.

First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing is a literary podcast produced and hosted by Mitzi Rapkin. Each week the podcast features an in-depth interview with a fiction, non-fiction, essay, or poetry writer. The show is equal parts investigation into the craft of writing and conversation about the topics of an author’s work.

Mitzi Rapki in conversation with journalist Devon O’Neil, author of The Way Out: A True Story of Survival in the Heart of the Rockies.

First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing is a literary podcast produced and hosted by Mitzi Rapkin. Each week the podcast features an in-depth interview with a fiction, non-fiction, essay, or poetry writer. The show is equal parts investigation into the craft of writing and conversation about the topics of an author’s work.