Mountain Words Festival 2026

Join fellow attendees to pick up your badges and grab a drink to connect before the weekend of literary magic!

Come See Me in the Good Light is a 2025 documentary film directed by Ryan White. Retracing the life of American poet, Colorado Poet Laurete, and activist Andrea Gibson.
Critically acclaimed, it is included on the National Board of Review Top 5 Documentaries of 2025, receiving several awards and nominations including the Academy Awards, Satellite Awards and Film Independent Spirit Awards.

Mountain Words partner and sponson, Crested Butte Magazine, will release their newest edition with fun and fanfare. Join Mountain Words Founder and now editor of the CB Magazine, Brooke Macmillan along with the contributors of this year's summer magazine for a drink and camaraderie. Mountain Words presenter Claire Boyles, a Crested Butte Mountain Words Writer in Residence will be there to celebrate her piece with the complement of long time writers for the magazine. 

Join readers from all over Gunnison County in celebrating David Baron's American Eclipse: A Nation's Epic Race to Catch the Shadow of the Moon and Win the Glory of the World. American Eclipse by is about the 1878 total solar eclipse that crossed the American West, focusing on the race between scientists like Thomas Edison, Maria Mitchell, and James Craig Watson to study it, revealing America's rise as a scientific power during the Gilded Age. The book blends scientific history with adventure, covering the challenges of the era, including train robberies and the frontier setting, to tell the story of this significant astronomical event.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EVENT IS AT THE GUNNISON BRANCH LIBRARY

Why does a bible scholar wear comic book t-shirts? Why does a celebrated novelist continue to write some of the most celebrated comics of our time?

Authors Dan McClellan (The Bible Says So) and Benjamin Percy (Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction, Red Moon, Wolverine, Black Panther, Star Wars: Maul, Predator) discuss their lifelong love of comics, how it shaped them, and Percy's work on iconic characters for Marvel and DC.

Join a festive and lively gathering of book signing with this year's authors!

Dan McClellan
Benjamin Percy
Claire Boyles
Wendy Videlock
Rajiv Mohabir
Terri Lewis
Michael Hettich
Nina McConigley
Megan Kate Nelson
Karen Terrey
Phil Coleman
Rakesh Satyal
Alia Hanna Habib
Megha Majumdar
Erica Reid

Join a festive and lively gathering of authors at this year's book signing!!!

David Baron 
River Selby
Dane Bahr
Cosmo Langsfeld
Steven Dunn
Laura Krantz
Ben Goldfarb
Garrett Peck
Hillary Rosner
Shelley Read
Suzi Q. Smith
Ramona Ausubel

After sunset, the stars come out at Crested Butte in all their wonder. The town is an excellent place for stargazing, as it is far removed from city lights to see the Milky Way. The Mountain Words Festival will host stargazing on the park space near the Center for the Arts on Saturday, May 23 at 9pm. We’ll meet outside the arts center, then walk to the stargazing spot. Your host is festival participant Garrett Peck, author of The Bright Edges of the World: Willa Cather and Her Archbishop, who regularly teaches stargazing in Santa Fe.

Participants are encouraged to download a stargazing app on their phone (Garrett uses SkyView, which has a free lite version, and a paid version with more features), which can help identify constellations, planets, and other interstellar objects on their smartphones. Guests should also shift their phones in advance to dark mode so as to eliminate white light that can disrupt the class.

Please note the cool to cold evening weather and come prepared with jackets, layers, blankets, and a chair if you can. 

Bible scholar and popular TikToker Dan McClellan confronts misconceptions about the Bible.

The Bible is the world’s most influential book, but do we really know what it says? Every day across social media and in homes, businesses, and public spaces, people try to cut debate short by claiming that "the Bible says so!" However, they commonly disagree about what it actually does and doesn't say, particularly when it comes to socially significant issues. For instance, does the Bible say we should be on the lookout for an antichrist associated with the number 666? Does it say women shouldn’t wear revealing clothing? Does it say it’s okay to hit your kids?

In The Bible Says So, Dan McClellan leverages his popular "data over dogma" approach, and his years of experience in the academy and on social media, to lay out in clear and accessible ways what the data indicate the Bible does and doesn't say about issues ranging from homosexuality, abortion, and slavery to monotheism, inspiration, and even God's wife. Smart, accessible, and informative, The Bible Says So is an invaluable resource for our fractious times.

Dan McClellan is an award-winning public scholar of the Bible. He has over one million followers on social media, and tens of thousands more tune in to his online classes and his Data Over Dogma Podcast. Dan received his PhD from the University of Exeter. He worked previously as a scripture translation supervisor for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is currently an honorary fellow at Birmingham University's Cadbury Centre for the Public Understanding of Religion.

Join Dan and Gunnison Congregational Church Pastor, Ian Wrisley as they discuss The Bible Says So.