The Colorado Book
(New and Improved)

 

Edited by Sandra Dallas, Tim Noel & Pam Sandlian-Smith

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Some 30 years ago, two Colorado historians, an art historian, and I put together an anthology of Colorado literature titled The Colorado Book.

Published by Fulcrum, an independent publisher based in Denver, the book has been out of print for some time. The two historians, Eleanor Gehres and Maxine Benson have passed away, and the art expert has moved on to other projects. That left me.

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A couple of years ago, Fulcrum chairman Bob Baron invited me to lunch, saying he wanted to talk about revising The Colorado Book. Don’t do it, I told myself. You’ve did it once. Besides, you’ve got more than you can handle.  But Bob is very persuasive. By the time the lunch was over, I knew I had to be involved. I agreed to revise the book for Colorado’s 150th birthday—with one condition. I wanted Tom Noel to act as co-editor. Tom, who is Colorado’s most popular historian, knows more about the state than anyone. To my relief, Tom agreed. Then Bob brought on Pam Smith to help find entries for subjects not covered in the first book.

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Working with Tom was a joy. He is a professional and knew exactly what historical writings should be eliminated from the old book and which added to the new one. Meeting in Tom’s basement office, where every wall in every room is lined with bookshelves, we went over each excerpt.  We didn’t want just an updated version of the old book but an entirely new book, with historical excerpts of writing that are relevant to today’s readers and new ones from contemporary writers, many of them up-and-coming authors who weren’t even around 30 years ago.

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We were open to any subject matter, although the excerpt had to be about Colorado. That excluded some authors who live here but whose books have nothing to do with the state.  And we would not pay for the excerpts. It was tempting to make a few exceptions, but if we paid one, we should pay all, and that cost would have been prohibitive. In a few cases, excerpts we wanted to include were dropped, because we could not get publishers to respond.

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The Colorado Book is not all-inclusive. The limited space meant we had to pick and choose, and some of our favorite excerpts ended on the cutting-room floor. But we think the new and improved The Colorado Book is a sample of the best writing about the state and a book we hope will encourage you to pursue the authors whose work you encounter there.