In praise of indie bookstores supporting local authors in Rocky Mountain states

Hummingbirdminds saw this post on the Rocky Mountain Authors at the Tattered Cover Facebook page. While it was written with Colorado authors in mind, I think it can easily be revised to reflect an interest in writers from a Big Square State other than Colorado.

Here's my revised version:

There are lots of good reasons to read work by local Rocky Mountain authors. Here are a few, and feel free to add your own good reasons to this list!

1. Buying a book by a local author from your local Tattered Cover Book Store helps to keep money in the State of ColoradoWyoming, instead of sending it off around the country where ColoradoWyoming residents can't benefit from sales taxes or business incentives. Money spent in ColoradoWyoming, ON ColoradoWyoming, STAYS in ColoradoWyoming.

2. By supporting local authors, you help diversify the knowledge that can be distributed through the written word in the Rocky Mountain region. We write lots of books here in the Rockies that can be found nowhere else on Earth (except perhaps online on the Tattered Cover website! http://www.tatteredcover.com/).

3. When you buy a local author's book, you are helping to nurture the artistic and intellectual community of ColoradoWyoming. Studies show that great cities and great communities are great not because of their technology or industry, but because of their arts and cultural offerings. Every time you buy a locally written book you add another brick to the cultural palace of the Rocky Mountains!

Other states in the Rocky Mountain West may want to do some customizing of their own. What say you Montana and New Mexico and Utah and Arizona and Idaho?

Now go investigate other regional writers at http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Denver-CO/Rocky-Mountain-Authors-at-the-Tattered-Cover/351469358952?ref=nf

I noticed a very fine section of Rocky Mountain writers (past and present) during a visit last week to Lander's Book Basket on Main Street. I know that the bookstore disguised as a barn at Sweetwater Junction packs plenty of heat by local and regional writers. I didn't stop there during my recent trip due to the fact that I couldn't see the turnoff in the blizzard. I could go on and on about fantastic bookstores in unexpected places. You can find a long list at the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association page.