Ten Great Books putting Aspen on the American Literary Map

Posted on 18. Jul, 2009 by admin in Aspen, Blog, Travel Writing

For decades devoted bookworms and “Dead Poets Society” quoting high school English teachers have flocked to Hemingway’s Key West, Tennessee Williams’ New Orleans, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s New York, Steinbeck’s Monterey, Ginsberg’s and Kerouac’s San Francisco, Faulkner’s Mississippi, and Robert Frost’s New England on their summer vacations to celebrate the authors who worked there and assess the creative muses inspiring the great works of American literature associated with these locales. Yet, for whatever reason, well-read literati and travel list arbiters have never ranked Aspen, Colorado on the lists of great American literary destinations. This is understandable, to a degree, because of the exhaustive litany of cities, towns, and regions worthy of such lists.

Here in the remote alpine resort town of Aspen, a confluence of factors like astronomical real estate prices, short attention spans, and an inflated cost of living makes the town – for better or worst – unpractical for prize-winning authors or best-selling novelists looking to establish and settle down in a comfortable stomping ground. Even degree-holding newspaper writers are pigeonholed into employee-mandated housing because of sky-high rents. Nonetheless, the river of literary tradition and cultural significance in our quirky mountain community of 6,000 runs wide and deep – perhaps just as deep as any significant college town chockablock with erudite scholars, a research library, and bookish intellectuals with bombastic vocabularies.

Aspen Literature: Ten Great Books putting Aspen on the American Literary Map

I’m mighty proud of this piece. It received an honorable mention in the Travel Channel’s illustrous World Hum blog. Eva Holland wrote:

When most people think of Aspen, Colorado, I doubt if the words “literary pilgrimage” pop all that promptly into their heads. But that’s going to change—at least if Aspen.com’s Brandon Wenerd has anything to say about it.

It also received a nod from the Elegant Varitation, a great literature blog that I read almost daily.