Attitudes at Altitude June Hall of Fame Newsletter

Welcome to the June edition of Attitudes at Altitude, the voice of the Colorado Authors’ Hall of Fame. Here in the Rockies, we can feel and see spring coming forth. What I love is the sudden appearance of the new leaf greening that begins to encompass the naked branches.

In each edition, you will get updated news on happenings. This month the Board will be presented with the Aspiring Authors Scholarships candidates. Next month we will notify each of the recipients and announce who they are in a press release. The awards luncheon will be on Monday, September 16. Don’t miss it and TELL OTHERS to come.

During this spring the authors of the AuthorU community raised over $1900 in Barnes & Noble book sales to support the Aspiring Author Scholarship funds. Bravo to Joseph Caldara, Pat Williams, Brian Barnes, Mara Purl, Linda Schaal, Doug Krug, Natli VanDerWerken, Linnea Tanner, Kathy Schultz and Kathlyn Flanagan.

As fall approaches—can I really be thinking that when summer isn’t officially here yet—nominations will open for the 2025 Hall Induction.

Dive into a celebration of the outstanding authors inducted into the Colorado Authors’ Hall of Fame. Check out the 2023 latest Inductees along with the photo gallery of the event HERE. https://coloradoauthorshalloffame.org/inductions

You will be introduced to individual Inductees each month and encourage to add their books. This month, 2019 Inductees Stephen King and Louis L’Amour are featured.

In gratitude for you and your support of the Hall,

Stephen King

Stephen King is the recipient of The National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and the National Medal of Arts. In all, he has garnered over 100 book and writing awards, including the Grand Horror Master, and he has sold over 350 million copies of his books, several of which have transitioned from print to both television and film.

After living in Colorado for a year to create The Shining, bringing the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park to prominence, he returned to Maine to finish The Stand, set in Boulder. His first book received 30 rejections before Doubleday picked it up for $2,500—big money for the trailer-living family of four.

It was the paperback deal that racked up a $400,000 advance, which propelled Carrie into the public’s eye and launched his career. Stephen quit his day job. He was inducted into the Hall in 2019

FEATURED BOOKS: Holly, Fairy Tale, You Like it Darker.

Louis L’Amour

Louis L’Amour (1908 – 1988) has been awarded the National Book Award, the Congressional Gold Medal, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan for his more than 100 published works creating in excess of 325 million published copies.

His books defined the American West for several generations of readers and created a legacy for future students of American history, not only because of his vivid imagination but also through his extensive research. Embodying the courage and determination of many of his protagonists, Louis held a wide variety of occupations, while always knowing his goal was to be a published author. For years, he papered his walls with rejection letters. Whenever opportunities presented themselves, he was willing, sometimes using a pen name if required, such as when he was hired to write some Hopalong Cassidy stories.

Louis was a resident of both California and Colorado. His words and body of work teach his readers about human nature, championing our best qualities, and unmasking our worst. For fellow authors, he was a role model of discipline, diligence, persistence, and the joy of writing. Louis was inducted in 2019 as a Legacy recipient.

FEATURED BOOKS: Down the Long Hills, Collected Short Stories – Volume 1, The Sacketts Volume One

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
― Stephen King

In the afterword to his acclaimed guide On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King shares the following reading list of 96 books, covering a diverse range of fiction and non-fiction titles.

Accompanying the list is this explanation:
These are the best books I’ve read over the last three or four years, the period during which I wrote The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Hearts in Atlantis, On Writing, and the as-yet-unpublished From a Buick Eight. In some way or other, I suspect each book in the list had an influence on the books I wrote.

As you scan this list, please remember that I’m not Oprah and this isn’t my book club.
These are the ones that worked for me, that’s all. But you could do worse, and a good many of these might show you some new ways of doing your work. Even if they don’t, they’re apt to entertain you. They certainly entertained me.

1. Peter Abrahams, A Perfect Crime
2. Peter Abrahams, Lights Out
3. Peter Abrahams, Pressure Drop
4. Peter Abrahams, Revolution #9
5. James Agee, A Death in the Family
6. Kirsten Bakis, Lives of the Monster Dogs
7. Pat Barker, Regeneration
8. Pat Barker, The Eye in the Door
9. Pat Barker, The Ghost Road
10. Richard Bausch, In the Night Season
11. Peter Blauner, The Intruder
12. Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky
13. T. Coraghessan Boyle, The Tortilla Curtain
14. Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods
15. Christopher Buckley, Thank You for Smoking
16. Raymond Carver, Where I’m Calling From
17. Michael Chabon, Werewolves in Their Youth
18. Windsor Chorlton, Latitude Zero
19. Michael Connelly, The Poet
20. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (Free eBook – Gutenberg / Kindle)
21. K.C. Constantine, Family Values
22. Don DeLillo, Underworld
23. Nelson DeMille, Cathedral
24. Nelson DeMille, The Gold Coast
25. Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist (Free eBook – Gutenberg / Kindle)
26. Stephen Dobyns, Common Carnage
27. Stephen Dobyns, The Church of Dead Girls
28. Roddy Doyle, The Woman Who Walked into Doors
29. Stanely Elkin, The Dick Gibson Show
30. William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
31. Alex Garland, The Beach
32. Elizabeth George, Deception on His Mind
33. Tess Gerritsen, Gravity
34. William Golding, Lord of the Flies
35. Muriel Gray, Furnace
36. Graham Greene, A Gun for Sale (aka This Gun for Hire)
37. Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana
38. David Halberstam, The Fifties
39. Pete Hamill, Why Sinatra Matters
40. Thomas Harris, Hannibal
41. Kent Haruf, Plainsong
42. Peter Hoeg, Smilla’s Sense of Snow
43. Stephen Hunter, Dirty White Boys
44. David Ignatius, A Firing Offense
45. John Irving, A Widow for One Year
46. Graham Joyce, The Tooth Fairy
47. Alan Judd, The Devil’s Own Work
48. Roger Kahn, Good Enough to Dream
49. Mary Karr, The Liars’ Club

50. Jack Ketchum, Right to Life
51. Tabitha King, Survivor
52. Tabitha King, The Sky in the Water
53. Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
54. Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air
55. Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
56. Bernard Lefkowitz, Our Guys
57. Bentley Little, The Ignored
58. Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
59. W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence (Free eBook – Gutenberg)
60. Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain
61. Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing
62. Frank McCourt, Angela’s Ashes
63. Alice McDermott, Charming Billy
64. Jack McDevitt, Ancient Shores
65. Ian McEwan, Enduring Love
66. Ian McEwan, The Cement Garden
67. Larry McMurtry, Dead Man’s Walk
68. Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, Zeke and Ned
69. Walter M. Miller, A Canticle for Leibowitz
70. J oyce Carol Oates, Zombie
71. Tim O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods
72. Stewart O’Nan, The Speed Queen
73. Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient
74. Richard North Patterson, No Safe Place
75. Richard Price, Freedomland
76. Annie Proulx, Close Range: Wyoming Stories
77. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News
78. Anna Quindlen, One True Thing
79. Ruth Rendell, A Sight for Sore Eyes
80. Frank M. Robinson, Waiting
81. J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
82. J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
83. J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
84. Richard Russo, Mohawk
85. John Burnham Schwartz, Reservation Road
86. Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
87. Irwin Shaw, The Young Lions
88. Richard Slotkin, The Crater
89. Dinitia Smith, The Illusionist
90. Scott Spencer, Men in Black
91. Wallace Stegner, Joe Hill
92. Donna Tartt, The Secret History
93. Anne Tyler, A Patchwork Planet
94. Kurt Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus
95. Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
96. Donald Westlake, The Ax

Attitudes at Altitude’s promises to our readers…

We celebrate the outstanding authors inducted into the Colorado Authors’ Hall of Fame since 2019. They are the first in the United States with a connection to Colorado to have been honored as published authors, highlighting the impact and breadth of their work.

The next Induction will be on September 15, 2025. Put the date on your calendar. The venue is the DoubleTree Hilton Denver Tech Center in Greenwood Village.

• Each month, past Inductees are featured with their backgrounds and latest books.

• Past Inductees will offer their sage advice on “how they do it”–whatever “it” is.

• You will be the first to hear about planned Hall Events. Meet a favorite author ... or a new one that has delivered mega hours of reading enjoyment ... one that has made an impact on society or their field.

Support the Hall

The Colorado Authors' Hall of Fame celebrates the accomplishments of living and deceased authors who have been connected to Colorado—their words, wisdom, accomplishments, and the life-changing impact their works create. The result: their legacy lives on.

The Hall is an all-volunteer-run 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that honors and celebrates authors connected with Colorado by birth, residence, temporary residency for writing encouragement and support, writing about elements within Colorado, or placing storylines in or about Colorado.

Authors’ words have immense power and impact on changing others’ lives. They solve problems, bring awareness to a topic, and provide hours of pleasurable reading. It’s the power of their words.

Your financial assistance through donations and participation at events supports the bi-annual Induction Gala in odd-numbered years, the Aspiring Author Scholarships, and the general operation to bring these events to the public.

Please support the Hall for this year going forward.