Peter Anderson
Box 904, Crestone, CO 81131
email: pilgrimage@fairpoint.net

Reading Colorado: A Literary Road Guide (Bower House Books, 2023)

Reading Colorado, winner of a 2024 Colorado Book Award, is a high-octane road trip through the diverse literary landscapes of the Centennial State, that gathers narratives of exploration, stories from the mining and agricultural frontiers, urban tales reflecting the emergence and growth of Denver and the Front Range, and a diverse range of contemporary voices, from the Plains to the Peaks, who invite readers into their home territory.

Take a drive into the literary landscape of Colorado. Meet Kent Haruf's bachelor farmers in the Eastern Plains, ford the South Platte in a stagecoach with Mark Twain, rail against nuclear weapons with Anne Waldman and Allen Ginsberg, hitch a ride into Denver with Jack Kerouac, climb the highest peaks with Isabella Bird and Enos Mills, explore the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde with Willa Cather.

Selected Works

Riding the Wheel: prose-poems (Kelsay Books; 2024)

Peter Anderson's dispatches from the western slope of the Sangre de Cristos appeared for many years in Colorado Central Magazine and the Crestone Eagle. Riding the Wheel gathers and distills many of those seasonal meditations into a lyrical almanac, which affirms and celebrates the great wheel of life.

Heading Home: Field Notes (Conundrum Press, 2017)

Heading Home begins with Peter Anderson's dharma-bum passion for the road, which leads him through the mountains and deserts of thr American West, and eventually lands him in an eccentric end-of-the-road town fill of mystics, misfits, and mountain dwellers. This book is a gathering of "field notes"--observations, recollections, and stories along the way, where home is understood as a work in progress and the way is a road that never ends. Winner of the Colorado Authors League Award for Nonfiction and the National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Nonfiction (Southwest).

First Church of the Higher Elevations: Mountains, Prayer, and Presence (Conundrum Press, 2015)

In these contemplative essays written for seekers and adventurers of all kinds, Peter Anderson explores the scripture of place, the topography of memory, and the landscape of the imagination.

Going Down Grand: Poems from the Canyon (Lithic Press, 2015)

Going Down Grand, the first full-length anthology of Grand Canyon poetry, gathers the voices of cowboys, explorers, river-runners, hikers, artists, geologists, rangers, and others whose words bear witness to this complex and magnificent place. For readers on the river, the trails, the rim, or beyond, the poems on these pages will make fine canyon company.
Edited by Peter Anderson and Rick Kempa and nominated for a Colorado Book Award.

Reading Colorado: A Literary Road Guide (Bower House Books, 2023)

Reading Colorado, winner of a 2024 Colorado Book Award, ia a high-octane road trip through the diverse literary landscapes of the Centennial State, that gathers narratives of exploration, stories from the mining and agricultural frontiers, urban tales reflecting the emergence and growth of Denver and the Front Range, and a diverse range of contemporary voices, from the Plains to the Peaks, who invite readers into their home territory.

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