Aspen Words announces summer writers-in-residence

Seven writers will spend a month in Woody Creek this summer and fall as part of Aspen Words’ Writer in Residence program, held in partnership with the Catto Shaw Foundation.

Free public events held monthly from May through October will feature resident author readings and discussions. The first event, with “Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist” author Sunil Yapa, is scheduled May 17. Yapa’s novel is set amid the high-stakes drama of the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle. It was named one of the Most Anticipated Books of 2016 by the Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly and TIME, among several other publications. Copies of the book will be available to the community for free through Aspen Words’ Catch and Release program.

In June, Tom Bouman will take a break from studying for his law degree to work on the sequel to “Dry Bones in the Valley,” his debut novel, which won the 2015 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. July’s writer-in-residence is “Follow Me” author Paul Griner. Writer couple Helen Schulman and Bruce Handy will leave their two children behind in New York City while they spend August in Woody Creek. September brings environmental writer Jenny Price to Woody Creek.

In the next few months, three former residents will publish books that were shaped during a Woody Creek residency. Adam Haslett’s new novel, “Imagine Me Gone,” published Tuesday, which he worked on while in residence in 2013. In July, two former residents, Brad Watson and Alexandra Oliva, also will have their highly anticipated novels published. Watson wrote two thirds of the first draft for his new book, “Miss Jane,” while in Woody Creek in 2014 and Oliva spent last August there finishing her debut novel, “The Last One.”