Too long have books been associated with quiet, dusty corner spaces or somber, bespectacled librarians with no lives of their own. There is plenty of evidence to suggest a literati, sparkling, fun-loving collection of writers—and readers!—full of fashion sense, quick wit and expansive knowledge. And while television has given us Carrie Bradshaw-sized glimpses into a New York literary scene, this circle of beyond-wallflower authors is living and writing among us. In fact, Denver has a fast-growing literary scene putting the Mountain West on the writers’ map at Reading Den.
“After spending almost a decade covering books and authors on a national level, I wanted to turn my attention to bringing the community here together,” explains Adam Vitcavage, co-founder of the well-known literary podcast, Debutiful, and my Reading Den co-founder. “There were pockets of writers who built their own strong communities, but since we’re all creatures of habit, I never expanded beyond those groups. Case in point: I thought Sarah lived in New York and once I realized she was here in the mountains, I asked if she’d help make a reading series a reality.”
We created Reading Den with two main goals: support the burgeoning literary scene springing up in Denver and create a rich community—with a sexy vibe—for writers and readers alike. We asked, what if it was like a cool, intimate concert, except instead of music, people come to listen to stories? That was the birth of Reading Den, a curated reading series held at Fort Greene bar in Globeville, featuring notable published authors and new writers bursting onto the Colorado scene and beyond.
The goal of any literary group is to create community and to bring together folks with shared interests and tastes. That’s more challenging if the perception is that book lovers are only introverted, introspective individuals—and this is what Adam and I had a good laugh about when we first met IRL. It wasn’t long into our first coffee that we were saying, it shouldn’t be as hard as awkwardly stalking someone’s Instagram to make friends in the literary realm.
Adam sprang into action. “Before we officially launched, we chatted with a lot of writers in the community to see what they needed. Some noted the closing of BookBar and the uncertain status of Tattered Cover as a sign there needed to be a free place to gather and discuss books. Others just wanted to connect face-to-face with people again after a long stint of living and working from home. I missed going to bars to see writers read and while that existed in various forms, there wasn’t a definitive series that brought all of the small communities together.”
This fact-finding proved we weren’t alone in our frustration. The writing community was something people were hungry for. We put our Reading Den concept out into the world, and before our first event, The Denver Post had picked up the story. We had to cap RSVPs the first night, packing people into Fort Greene’s disco room. In the last six months, our monthly lineups have featured a Pulitzer finalist, award-winning novelists, New York Times choice authors, and a local poet laureate. Authors known around the world for their great works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry have read to us from their best-known writing, recent releases and even works-in-progress.
“I have learned that not only are there good writers in Denver, there are world-class writers in Denver,” says Adam. “Every month we get emails from emerging and established writers from Colorado wanting to join a lineup. We also have started getting contacted by authors from all over the country wanting to read with us. We are achieving our goals: not only are we building a literary community here, we’re starting to show the rest of the country we’re a literary scene as hot as the coastal cities.”
Reading Den now meets the last Wednesday of every month at 7 p.m. at Fort Greene. July promises an introduction to some of Colorado’s up-and-coming writers, including the winner of the Robert Haiduke Poetry Prize, Mariella Saavedra Carquin and visiting author and Director of the MFA in Creative Writing Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Debora Taffa.
To learn more, visit readingden.co and follow on Instagram at @reading__den for event updates and RSVP information.
