Laura Pritchett

Laura Pritchett is the author of seven novels. Her first book, Hell’s Bottom, Colorado (Milkweed Editions), won the PEN USA Award for Fiction and the Milkweed National Fiction Prize. This was followed by the novels Sky Bridge, Stars Go Blue, Red Lightning, and The Blue Hour (Milkweed and Counterpoint), which garnered other awards including the WILLA, the High Plains Book Award, and several Colorado Book Awards. Stars Go Blue has been optioned for TV rights. Her newest novels, Playing with {Wild}Fire (Torrey House) and Three Keys (Ballantine), will be released in 2024.

She’s also written two nonfiction books, Great Colorado Bear Stories and Making Friends with Death: A Field Guide to Your Impending Last Breath. Environmental issues are close to her heart, and she’s editor of three anthologies about conservation. Her first play, Dirt: A Terra Nova Expedition, was produced in 2018.  

She’s had over 300 pieces published, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, Orion, The Sun, Salon, Creative Nonfiction, High Country News, The Millions, Publisher’s Weekly, The Normal School, Writers on the Range, Terrain, Camas, The Cincinnati Review, and many others. She is also a regular columnist for the Colorado Sun.

She holds a PhD from Purdue and currently is Director of the MFA in Nature Writing at Western Colorado University. When not writing or teaching, she’s often found exploring her home state of Colorado.