Authors and writers are some of our favorite guests on In The NoCo. They鈥檙e creative, they bring tons of ideas to the conversation and they know how to tell a good story. In 2024 we hosted nonfiction writers, historians and at least one sci-fi writer.
If you鈥檙e looking to curl up with a good book over the holidays, here are a few our favorites from 2024. We鈥檒l share many of these conversations throughout the month as part of ITN鈥檚 Holiday Book Club series.
Rethinking which ingredients you purchase for cooking can be one of your most effective ways to shrink your carbon footprint, author Mark Easter writes. The retired ecologist, who鈥檚 based in Fort Collins, looks at regenerative peaches, grass-fed cattle and many other food sources to help guide readers toward more sustainable home-cooked meals.
Barbecue historian Adrian Miller is known as the Soul Food Scholar. His book Black Smoke uncovers the untold stories of African Americans whose contributions in the world of barbecue helped shape that into one of the most quintessentially American cuisines. And in a conversation from September, Miller shared the forgotten story of Colorado barbecue legend Columbus B Hill.
Connie Willis is often called a living sci-fi legend. She鈥檚 one of the most prolific writers in the genre, and says science fiction鈥檚 superpower is that it allows us to step outside of ourselves and imagine a different world. In a conversation from January, she discussed that power and talked about using her book The Road to Roswell to gently poke fun at UFO enthusiasts.
Wesley Marshall, who teaches civil engineering at the University of Colorado-Denver, says our roads are designed using junk science 鈥� and it鈥檚 killing us. His book makes the case that traffic engineers need a wake-up call using a surprising mix of anecdotes, traffic data and humor.
Cartoonist R. Alan Brooks is familiar to The Colorado Sun readers thanks to What鈥檇 I Miss?, which examines culture and politics through a series of funny, sometimes biting, conversations. Brooks shared stories about his career as an artist shortly before appearing at Fort Collins Comic Con to promote his recent childrens book, The Mask In Your Dreams, which explores African art at the Denver Art Museum.
