Meet the 2019 Inductees

Marilyn Van Derbur Atler

Marilyn Van Derbur Atler’s award winning book: Miss America By Day stands as a benchmark and left much of her Colorado home base stunned with its revelations when she spoke the words in public, "I am an incest survivor." Marilyn was 53 years old. During the past 16 years, her book has been used as a college text book and has educated judges, lawyers, health providers about the long term physical impact of sexual abuse and has given hope to millions of survivors worldwide. 

With her Writer’s Digest Award win for Most Inspirational Book, she opened the door for tens of thousands of sexual abuse survivors to also speak the words, many for the first time. Her voice, her book, her insight, and her wisdom has made her a “she-ro” and a mentor for millions of survivors.

Rex Burns

Rex Burns has been writing Colorado-based mysteries since 1975 along with being a professor of American Literature at the University of Colorado. To date, he has published 17 novels. He is the recipient of multiple book awards, including the Edgar for his first mystery The Alvarez Journal. His book The Avenging Angel was adapted into the 1988 film “The Messenger of Death” staring Charles Bronson.

For years, Rex wrote a monthly mystery book review column for the Rocky Mountain News. He is a contributor to Scribner’s Mystery and Suspense Writers, an advisor and contributor to the Oxford Companion to Mystery and the host of the Starz-Encore Mystery Channel television series, “Anatomy of a Mystery.”

Margaret Coel

Margaret Coel is the author of the Windriver Mystery Series (the first and only series featuring the Arapaho people) Were it not for Margaret, the complexities of modern Arapaho culture might be virtually unknown. Her carefully structured intertwined plots reveal a depth of understanding of how two cultures interact and affect one another. Without her intriguing work, the Arapaho culture might still be shrouded in mystery.

Margaret is also the author of the Catherine McLeod Mysteries, set in Denver, her original hometown. The State of Colorado has proclaimed December 8th as Margaret Coel Day. As the recipient of multiple book awards, including a WILLA Award and six Colorado Book Awards granted by the Colorado Center for the Book, she believes in, and practices, mentoring and supporting fellow authors. When she received an endorsement from Tony Hillerman, her own books began to hit the best-seller lists. She has since given endorsements to several other authors, making a difference in their careers. Margaret’s first book was an award-winning historical work, Chief Left Hand, about the great Arapaho Chief.

John Dunning

John Dunning has revealed some of book collecting’s most shocking secrets in his bestselling series of crime novels featuring Cliff Janeway: Booked to Die, which won the prestigious Nero Wolfe award; The Bookman’s Wake, a New York Times Notable Book; and the New York Times bestsellers The Bookman’s Promise, The Sign of the Book, and The Bookwoman’s Last Fling. He is also the author of the Edgar Award-nominated Deadline, The Holland Suggestions, and Two O’Clock, Eastern Wartime. The Independent Mystery Booksellers Association awarded him the Dilys, its annual award given to the mystery title of the year which their member booksellers have most enjoyed selling. As the owner of the Old Algonquin Bookstore in Denver for many years, he became an expert on rare and collectible books.

John Fielder

John Fielder is the photographer of more than 40 photography coffee table books, guide books, and children’s books, all but four about Colorado. He might be best known for creating Colorado’s best-selling book ever, Colorado: 1870 – 2000, which juxtaposes historic photographer William Henry Jackson’s images of the 19th-century landscape with those of today. He is a nationally renowned photographer, publisher, teacher, and environmentalist. He hikes and skis hundreds of miles in Colorado alone each year—and drives thousands—in order to record on film, its most sublime natural places.

For the last 40 years, no one has traveled Colorado like John Fielder, from its rolling plains to the soaring Rocky Mountains and the Western Slope’s remote plateaus and river canyons. He has worked tirelessly to promote the protection of Colorado’s open space and wildlands. His photography has influenced people and legislation earning him recognition including the Sierra Club’s Ansel Adams Award in 1993, and in 2011 the Aldo Leopold Foundation’s first Achievement Award given to an individual.

W C Jameson

W C Jameson is the award-winning author of more than 100 books, 1500 published articles and essays, 400 songs, and dozens of poems. Jameson, who wrote several of his books while residing in Woodland Park, is the bestselling treasure author in America, and his prominence as a professional fortune hunter has led to stints as a consultant for the Unsolved Mysteries television show, the Travel Channel, and a number of other television projects. He served as an advisor for the film National Treasure starring Nicolas Cage and appears in an interview on the DVD. His book, Treasure Hunter: A Memoir of Caches, Curses, and Deadly Confrontations was named Best Book of the Year (2011) by Indie Reader. Several of Jameson's books have been optioned for film, and his work has appeared in ten anthologies.

Also an accomplished songwriter and musician, Jameson has recorded eight critically acclaimed CDs of original music. In 1999 he was named Songwriter of the Year by the Texas Folk Music Guild. He has contributed to the soundtracks for four feature films, two PBS documentaries, and one commercial short documentary. His music has been heard on NPR, and he wrote and performed in the musical, Whatever Happened to the Outlaw, Jesse James? Two songs written by Jameson have been included in America's Top 100 Western Songs list. and music videos featuring three of his songs have been produced. An actor, Jameson has also appeared in five films.

Jerry Jenkins

Jerry Jenkins is the author of the Left Behind series, selling more than 70 million copies. He has written more than 190 books across several genres (including romance, mysteries, children’s adventures biographies of several famous people). His writing has also appeared in magazines like TIME, Reader's Digest, Parade, Guideposts and many others. Left Behind was listed as one of the 100 favorite novels in America by PBS.

He wrote his first books on a manual typewriter that sat on a board suspended between two chairs, learning early that there are no shortcuts to publishing success. As a teenager, an author he admired took an hour to advise him, and he vowed that if he ever succeeded, he'd pay forward that kindness. And he does. Jerry owns the Jerry Jenkins Writers Guild, through which he trains writers online from his home in Black Forest, CO.

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.

Ann Parker

Ann Parker is the author of the Silver Rush Mystery Series, including 6 novels, set in the 1880s mountain town of Leadville, Colorado. Her books have won multiple awards, and her series was chosen as the “Booksellers Favorite” by the Mountains and Plains Independent Bookseller Association. Book Awards include the Colorado Book Award finalist, Macavity Historical Novel Award finalist, Agatha Best Historical Mystery finalist, WILLA finalist, ForeWord Indies Finalist, Sarton Women’s Book Award, and a CIPA EVVY award. Her books have been the “Recommended Read” of Colorado Country Life Magazine, and the “Favorite Read” of True West Magazine.

Reading her books is like entering a time machine, with the fascinating accuracy of details about everything from clothing and cooking to transportation and construction, much of it told from a female perspective so often missing from historic chronicles. By exploring her own ancestral roots, Ann has uncovered a tremendously rich vein in Colorado history, all connected to the state’s many years of mining for Gold, Silver, and other metals.

Dom Testa

Dom Testa is an author, speakers and broadcaster. For twenty-five years he has captained the morning radio show The Dom and Jeremy Show on Denver’s Mix 100, a four-time winner for Best Morning Radio Show, presented by the Colorado Broadcasters Association. Dom is also a well-known, award-winning author of both fiction and non-fiction who write within multiple genres. Among his sixteen published books are the Galahad Series of young adult books (Tor/Macmillan), which won the International Grand Prize from Writer’s Digest, and claimed a Top Shelf selection from The American Library Association. His Mindbender Books have reached #1 on The Denver Post’s bestseller list and the Color of Your Dreams, was written for anyone who has longed to see their name on a book cover and his new Eric Swan spy thriller series debuts in 2020.

Helen Thorpe

Helen Thorpe is the author of three highly acclaimed books, Just Like Us, Soldier Girls, and The Newcomers. Her works of narrative nonfiction have prompted a rich national conversation about difficult, but important, topics as she documents in a very human and intimate way the lives of immigrants, refugees, and veterans of foreign conflicts.

A multi-book award winner, including the Colorado Book Award granted by the Colorado Center for the Book, her stories have aired on the radio shows This American Life and Soundprint. The Newcomers was named a finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award and was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Just Like Us was adapted for the stage by the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and Soldier Girls was optioned by HBO and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a potential mini-series and named a best book of the year by Publishers Weekly. 
The very essence of Helen’s life work: to shed light on those who live in the shadow of one of America’s greatest debates in history—immigration. Who gets to live in America? And what happens when we don’t agree?

Jill Tietjen

Jill Tietjen is ensuring that women are reflected in the historical narrative of the U.S. as evidenced by her nine books, 100-plus eNewsletters, 200-plus articles, five exhibits for Google Arts & Culture, four book chapters and more than 180 blog posts. Her two books in the Her Story Series®: Her Story: A Timeline of the Women Who Changed America received the Daughters of the American Revolution History Award Medal. Her latest, Hollywood: Her Story, An Illustrated History of Women and the Movies has just been released and the next in the series will be Her Story: Africa.

Jill is a pioneer for the STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics), has conducted research into historical women around the world for the past thirty years and speaks around the country about women’s contributions to history. One of the top historians on women across all fields of endeavor, she works to bring more visibility to women through her continual nominations of historical and living women for national, state and local awards. Jill is often profiled and quoted in the media, and her articles have been printed in a wide variety of publications. She has received more than 25 awards and honors, was inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame, and later served as its president.

Kris Tualla

Kris Tualla writes and publishes historical romance whose heroes are all Norsemen. In pursuing her dream of becoming a multi-published author of historical fiction, she started in 2006 with nothing but a nugget of a character in mind and has now created a 30-book series. Two of the books in The Hansen Series, featuring her Hansen Dynasty have been optioned for movies. Outlander author Diana Gabaldon describes them as “charming love stories, gracefully told, in fresh and engaging settings.”

Her three historical novels in the Camp Hale series that detail the formation of, the training of, and the deployment of the soldiers in the US Army’s highly esteemed original 10th Mountain Division and the 99th Battalion (Separate), all of whom trained at Camp Hale high in the Colorado Rockies near Leadville, Colorado.


Her words in describing her writing, "In the Historical Romance genre, there have been literally countless kilted-warrior stories told. Norway is the new Scotland, with big, blond, buff and beautiful men, with the wild, untamable blood of their Viking ancestors flowing through their veins. The Hansen Men of Arendal, Norway, whose stories extend from the end of the Vikings in 1070 through the modern day, are just such heroes.”

Connie Willis

Connie Willis creates science fiction and fantasy that is out of this world from her Colorado home. She has won eleven Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards and most recently the "Best Novel" Hugo and Nebula Awards for her book, Blackout/All Clear. She was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2009 and the Science Fiction Writers of America named her its 28th SFWA Grand Master in 2011.

Some have said that when she is an emcee, it’s like getting Billy Crystal back as host of the Oscars. She is known for writing “romantic ‘screwball’ comedy in the manner of 1940s Hollywood movies.

Mary Taylor Young

Mary Taylor Young is an award-winning nature writer who has been bringing the West to life in books and other significant ways for more than 25 years. She is the author of 18 books including the Rocky Mountain National Park: The First 100 Years and Land of Grass & Sky: A Naturalist’s Prairie Journey.

She’s written hundreds of magazine articles and pieces for various governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations. Her “Words on Birds” column appeared in the Rocky Mountain News for 16 years.

She has been awarded the Professional Achievement Award for Wildlife Education from The Wildlife Society. Her multiple book awards include the 2018 Fran Waters Award for exemplary literary achievement and a canon of writing that communicates a deep understand, celebration and love of the west. The Association for Conservation Information honored her with its National Award and the Association of Partners for Public Land named her its Publication of the Year.

Madeleine Albright

Madeleine Albright is the former Secretary of State and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. A prolific author, she’s authored 13 books and contributed countless Forewords to others. Her latest book, Fascism – A Warning required audience seating space of over 1,000 attendees at a time. She delivers a unique, no-holds-barred perspective at the highest levels of the American government. Margaret’s first home in America was Denver, where her father was a professor at Denver University.

As the Ambassador, she was often one of the few women in the room (often, the only one). Realizing that if she only observed and listened, it meant the voice of the United States wouldn’t be heard, she spoke up. Being compared by the Iraqi media to a serpent, she wore a large snake pin for her next meeting in the country. Pins became her branding.

Clive Cussler

Clive Cussler, a Colorado resident for many years, began writing novels in 1965 and published the first work featuring his continuous series hero, Dirk Pitt®, in 1973. His first nonfiction, The Sea Hunters, was released in 1996. The Board of Governors of the Maritime College, State University of New York, considered The Sea Hunters in lieu of a Ph.D. thesis and awarded Cussler a Doctor of Letters degree in 1997. He has penned over 70 novels, published in more than 40 languages in more than 100 countries.

Cussler was an internationally recognized authority on shipwrecks and the founder of the National Underwater and Marine Agency, (NUMA) a 501C3 non-profit organization that dedicates itself to preserving American maritime and naval history, searching for lost ships of historic significance. He and his crew of marine experts and NUMA volunteers have discovered more than sixty historically significant underwater wreck sites. He has been honored with the Lowell Thomas Award for outstanding underwater exploration.

Sybil Downing

Sybil Downing (1930 – 2011) wrote novels based on historical events, including The Binding Oath, about the Ku Klux Klan in Denver, In Plain Sight about child labor in the northern Colorado beet fields and Fire in the Hole about the Ludlow Massacre. She also wrote The Vote, about women’s right to vote, and Ladies of the Goldfield Stock Exchange, about women who opened a stock exchange in Nevada. In addition, she co-wrote 12 children’s books and one young-adult book with Jane Barker of Boulder.

She chaired the Colorado Center for the Book and was dedicated to improving literacy, a cause she was devoted to until her death. She was the co-founder of Women Writing the West, which has recently established the Sybil Downing Journalist Award. Books were Sybil Downing’s life: she read them, wrote them, reviewed them and collected them.

George Cory Franklin

George Cory Franklin (1872 – 1962) sold his first story at the age of 55. A year later, he had sold 26 additional stories and articles to national magazines. Two of his stories were made into motion pictures, including The Swimming Herd, published in Lariat Story Magazine, which became Trigger Tom (1935] starring Tom Tyler, and Into the Crimson West that became Prairie Schooners (1940] starring Bill Elliot.

He devoted his writing years to delineating and defining the American West through authentic tales of the people and the creatures that lived in the rugged Colorado backcountry. It is estimated that he sold a thousand articles and stories. Franklin was noted for his realism and lack of over-embellishment his characters.

In the 1950s and 60s, librarians had difficulty keeping Franklin's wildlife novels on the shelves due to their popularity. Readers wore out the books that were checked out as quickly as they were re-shelved. An entire generation of young people were introduced to the remarkable life and adventures of wild creatures that inhabit the Colorado mountains.

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 rejections 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.

Minnie Reynolds

Minnie Reynolds (1865 – 1936) was the Society Editor for the Rocky Mountain News, Minnie J. Reynolds was one of a handful of professional women journalists in Denver in the 1890s, using her writing platform to further women’s rights, including acting as Press Chair for the state’s successful women’s suffrage campaign of 1893. Reynolds worked tirelessly on a national scale for women’s right to vote as a writer, organizer, and spokeswoman from 1893 to 1920, along with establishing the still vibrant Denver Woman’s Press Club in 1898 – one of the oldest continuously operating organizations of women authors and journalists in the nation.

In addition to her journalism and political writing, Minnie Reynolds wrote several poems, short stories, and several novels. The Crayon Clue, published in 1915, was a semi-autobiographical novel in which her characters expounded her passionate views on women’s rights. Her most celebrated novel, The Terror, was a historical novel set against the background of the French Revolution, published in 1930.

Ann Haymond Zwinger

Ann Haymond Zwinger (1925 – 2014) is simply Colorado’s most outstanding naturalist/author. Her writing includes 20 books, 10 anthologies, 20 forewords and numerous periodicals for such magazines as the Smithsonian, Adventure Travel, Orion and Audubon. 

She received the Sara Chapman Francis Medal from the Garden Club of America; the John Hay Award from Orion Society for achievement in writing, conservation and education; The Western Arts Federation Award for Creative Nonfiction; the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Western Literature Association; the John Burroughs Medal for Nature Writing. Quotes from her books are used in such prestigious places as Rocky Mountain National Park and Great Sand Dunes National Park. Her book, Land Above the Trees is the all-time classic on alpine tundra.

Joyce Meskis

Joyce Meskis, legendary bookseller and bookstore owner, is known as Denver’s Literary Lioness, a staunch defender of authors, words, publishing and visionary. Passing the ownership of the Tattered Cover after 40 years of growth, influence and recognition as one of the premier independent bookstores in the United States, she is the inspiration for book dealers globally. “She understands independent bookstores as much as anyone and has mentored many of us.”

Under her leadership, the Tattered Cover stores hosted 500 to 600 author events annually. The Who’s Who of authors have found their way to her stores on the book tours—from National Book Award winners to Nobel Peace Prize winners to former Presidents. J.K. Rowling made sure she was there; Kareem Addul-Jabbar wins the tallest author award and when Arnold Schwarzenegger showed up, fans climbed on shelves to get a better view.

Books have been Joyce Meskis’ calling, as should be anyone’s who cherishes the written word.