Ted Conover's Blog, page 2
April 2, 2023
Latest interview + more 2023 events
I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with writer Lisa Wells, recently out in The Common.
Also, here are some places I’m excited to be speaking this summer:
Weds, May 24, 7:00pm
READING AT INKBERRY BOOKS
Cottonwood Shopping Center
Niwot, Colorado
Saturday, May 27, 2023 (2pm and 7pm)
MOUNTAIN WORDS FESTIVAL
Crested Butte, Colorado
Tuesday, May 30, 6:00pm
FORT GARLAND MUSEUM TALK
Fort Garland Museum & Cultural Center, Fort Garland, Colorado
Friday, June 2, 2023
GRAND COUNTY LIBRARY | A CONVERSATION WITH TED CONOVER
Granby, Colorado
Friday, June 23, 2023, 9:00am
JACKSON HOLE WRITERS CONFERENCE | MORNING KEYNOTE
Jackson Hole, Wyoming
Weds, June 28, 2023, 7:00pm
ONE BOOK STEAMBOAT AUTHOR TALK
Library Hall, Steamboat Springs, Colorado
The post Latest interview + more 2023 events appeared first on Ted Conover.
February 12, 2023
Scam or Not a Scam?
The land I write about (and own a piece of) was sold in the 1970s by mail. It was so cheap that people usually bought it sight unseen, from newspaper ads: $30 down and $30 a month for 12 years was a common deal. The federal government said it was a fraud, and this TV investigation from the time seems to agree.
The post Scam or Not a Scam? appeared first on Ted Conover.
January 30, 2023
On the Horizon
I’m looking forward to some talks and appearances out West this year. (Check back soon—more coming!)
March 4-5
TUCSON FESTIVAL OF BOOKS
Tucson, Arizona. I’ll be on three panels over two days.
May 25-28
MOUNTAIN WORDS LITERARY FESTIVAL
Crested Butte, Colorado
May 30
FORT GARLAND MUSEUM AND CULTURAL CENTER
Fort Garland, Colorado
June (date TBD)
INKBERRY BOOKS
7960 Niwot Rd, Niwot, Colorado
June 22-24
JACKSON HOLE WRITERS CONFERENCE
Jackson, Wyoming
June 28, 7:00pm to 8:30pm
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS ONE BOOK AUTHOR TALK
Library Hall, Steamboat Springs, Colorado
The post On the Horizon appeared first on Ted Conover.
October 24, 2022
Cheap Land Colorado Book Tour
Tue, Nov 1, 6:00pm
TATTERED COVER BOOK STORE
2526 E Colfax Ave
Denver, CO 80206
Wed, Nov 2, 6:30pm
BOULDER BOOKSTORE
1107 PEARL ST
Boulder, CO 80302
Thu, Nov 3, 6:30pm
MILAGROS COFFEE HOUSE | READING
529 Main Street
Alamosa, CO 81101
Fri, Nov 4 6:00pm
COLLECTED WORKS BOOKSTORE
202 Galisteo Street
Santa Fe, NM 87501-2101
Sun, Nov 6, 6:00pm
MARIA’S BOOKSHOP
960 Main Avenue
Durango, CO 81301-5122
Mon, Nov 7 4:30pm
ADAMS STATE UNIVERSITY | LEON HALL | READING AND TALK
208 Edgemont Blvd.
Alamosa, CO 81101
Thu, Nov 10, 7:30pm
GREENLIGHT BOOKSTORE
686 Fulton Street
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Wed, Nov 16 7:00pm
MCNALLY JACKSON SEAPORT
4 Fulton Street
New York, NY 10038-2101
Thu, Jan 5
ASPEN JOURNALISM EVENT | ASPEN MEADOWS CAMPUS, ALBRIGHT PAVILION
845 Meadows Rd
Aspen, CO 81611
The post Cheap Land Colorado Book Tour appeared first on Ted Conover.
May 17, 2022
New book on the way
My new book about life off-grid in Colorado’s San Luis Valley comes out this fall, and I’m super excited about it. Cheap Land Colorado: Off-Gridders at America’s Edge describes the unusual people who choose to live on that beautiful, lonely prairie and my life among them—first as a volunteer for a group trying to prevent homelessness, and then as a neighbor, after I bought my own five acres. You can read more about it and pre-order the book here.
Jessica Bruder, who wrote Nomadland, had this to say about Cheap Land Colorado:
“Conover invites readers to ride shotgun along an unraveling edge of the American West, where sepia-toned myths about making a fresh start collide with modern modes of alienation, volatility and exile. Unflinchingly candid and eternally big-hearted, Conover brings the frontier and its denizens into focus without blurring any contradictions: splendor and brutality, freedom and deprivation, hospitality alongside a deep-seated unease.”
The title, by the way, comes from the phrase some prairie people have used in order to search online for land they can afford.
July 18, 2019
Off-grid
For the past couple of years I reported “The Last Frontier,” the cover story of the August 2019 issue of Harper’s Magazine.
It’s a tale of alienation and ingenuity, politics and weed, and the possibilities of a frontier. I researched it by volunteering with an outreach group and by living off-grid myself over a couple of years, off and on, renting space for my small trailer from a family that is home-schooling their five daughters out on the high prairie, and moving with them when they found a better plot. You can read about them and a lot of other outsiders here or here.
People both seek the edges and are pushed there. Most seem to appreciate solitude and are not necessarily eager to sit down with a writer; getting to know them takes time. That was okay with me. I enjoy space and quiet as well, and the chance to lead a different, more independent life than the densely interconnected world of the city. Back in Rolling Nowhere, my first book, I tried to find words to describe the way it felt arriving in Havre, Montana, on a freight train. The vastness of the place, I wrote, was “more than something to see, it was something to feel … something inside me just became more free and expansive—‘opened out,’ I guess I could say.” That’s still how it is for me.
January 18, 2018
The price of dignity
My latest article is “The Strike That Brought MLK to Memphis,” in the January 2018 issue of Smithsonian Magazine. Dr. Martin Luther King came to Memphis to support striking sanitation workers in 1968. Just before his second march, he was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel by James Earl Ray, a white supremacist.
Some of those strikers are still alive; some even still collect garbage for the city of Memphis. With the 50th anniversary of the assassination approaching, I felt urgency in getting the article done … but the bigger driver was the age of the remaining sanitation workers. One, Alvin Turner, died in the month between our first conversation and my follow-up call. Another fell ill and couldn’t keep our appointment.
Elmore Nickelberry with Aaron Coleman, my research assistant
The workers were grateful for special payments recently made to them by the city. But as you will read, not all were convinced that it was actually enough. To answer that, one needs to ask: was the money purely for underpayment? Was it also for mistreatment? Was it to some extent a reparation for racism? The mayor answered no to the last question, but it’s hard not to think of it that way, which then raises the question: can money ever erase the legacy of racism? If so, how much does it take? Is some money better than no money? The workers I spoke with seemed to feel it is.
Dr. King was talking more and more about economic inequality at this point in his life. I wish we could know what he would have said.
Here is an interview about this story that I did with Jonathan Capeheart on “Midday on WNYC” on January 15, 2018.
March 28, 2017
IN A SEMINAR (DENVER)
https://secureservercdn.net/166.62.108.139/r7r.80b.myftpupload.com/wp-content/themes/ted-conover/video/Ted_in_a_seminar-edit.m4v
To book an appearance, please email Jodi Solomon Speakers, or call them at (617) 266-3450.
The post IN A SEMINAR (DENVER) appeared first on Ted Conover.
Reading and Q&A
Connecticut College, New London, CT
To book an appearance, please email Jodi Solomon Speakers, or call them at (617) 266-3450.The post Reading and Q&A appeared first on Ted Conover.
February 28, 2017
Frank B. Hanes Writer-in-Residence Reading
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
To book an appearance, please email Jodi Solomon Speakers, or call them at (617) 266-3450.
The post Frank B. Hanes Writer-in-Residence Reading appeared first on Ted Conover.
Ted Conover's Blog
- Ted Conover's profile
- 253 followers
