The Amazing Authors Tour 2017 is showcasing published writers from the Southwest and beyond at libraries in Bayfield, Cortez and Telluride in January, March and May.
The next Amazing Author stop in Cortez will be at 6 p.m. Wednesday. The library will present Brendan Leonard, author of “Sixty Meters to Anywhere,” in a “motivational stand-up comedy show,” according to a press release. His presentation will be free and open to everyone.
Denver-based Leonard is well known for the funny and inspirational adventure essays he’s published since 2011 on Semi-Rad.com. Now he is recognized for his new book, one of Amazon’s 2016 Best Books of the Year So Far. Brendan’s work has appeared in Outside, Men’s Journal, CNN.com, Alpinist, Backpacker, High Country News and dozens of other publications. He is a contributing editor at Adventure Journal and the Dirtbag Diaries, and a former contributing editor at Climbing Magazine. He has co-produced and co-directed numerous award-winning short films that have toured internationally with Mountainfilm and the Banff Mountain Film Festival.
While on the road promoting his book, Brendan talks about his journey through addiction and recovery, and then rock climbing. But this is not just a climbing memoir. Since a drinking problem landed him in rehab at age 23, he’s gone on to get a master’s degree, lived out of a van for three years, spent weeks below the rim of the Grand Canyon, climbed the Grand Teton in a day, bicycled across America and across Norway’s Lofoten Islands, trekked Italy’s Alta Via routes and the original Haute Route, traversed Wyoming’s Wind River Range and Colorado’s Sangre de Cristo Range by foot, climbed big walls in Zion National Park, skied off the summits of peaks in Colorado, Washington and Switzerland, and has never been without a full-time job since he finished graduate school in 2004.
Leonard has two more books coming out this year. “The Great Outdoors: A User’s Guide” (April 4, Artisan Books) is a general guide to everything in the outdoors, from camping to canoeing to ice climbing. “Best Served Wild: Real Food For Real Adventures” (August 15, Falcon), is a cookbook with co-author Anna Brones and has recipes for day hiking, backpacking and car camping. Leonard is also working on some film projects. One is about a friend who builds bicycles in Denver’s Five Points neighborhood, and another is about a group of men trying to break the speed record for paddling through the Grand Canyon.
Next he is headed into the Maze District of Canyonlands National Park later this month for a backpacking trip while hoping to travel to Nepal in November. In between those adventures he has a couple of ultra-marathons, and then he will take his mother on a rim-to-rim backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon in October.
“It’s all about getting your life together, figuring out who you are,” Leonard said. “I want this to be universal; to reach people more than climbers ... when I got out of substance-abuse treatment, I needed to find something else, and I hope everyone in that situation finds something else, whether it’s climbing or needlepoint or writing.”
For more information on the Cortez event, call 970-565-8117 or visit the Cortez Public Library at 202 N. Park St.