Crested Butte, Ep. 1

May 28, 2022 — In our first event in Colorado since 2010 (what!?), Literary Death Match joined forces with the Mountain Words Literary Festival for a fantastic event at the Center for the Arts Crested Butte that saw Claire Boyles outlast Suzi Q. Smith in a down-to-the-wire Arithme-Lit finale that won Boyles the LDM Crested Butte, Ep. 1 crown, and literary immortality to go with it. 

Here's the full lineup from the night: 

JUDGES: 
Literary Merit: Chelsey Johnson, author of the novel Stray City, a Stegner Fellowship recipient, and an associate professor at Northern Arizona University

Performance: Sam Robards, actor who has been directed by legends Paul Mazursky and Robert Altman, who’s acted alongside Kevin Costner and Chris Elliott, starred in AI: Artificial Intelligence and has appeared in TV shows like The West Wing, Sex in the City and Gossip Girl

Intangibles: Jason Antoon, actor who play Ernie on NCIS Hawaii who has appeared in Modern Family, Minority Report, Contact, and is author of The Cursed Frog: and Other Modern Fairy Tales for Grown-Ups, modern fables that are like the classic, except they're funnier and nobody ever learns anything

READERS:
Round 1:
* Suzi Q. Smith, award-winning artist, organizer, and educator and author of poetry collections Poems for the End of the World, A Gospel of Bones, and Thirteen Descansos

* Steven Dunn, author of water & power and Potted Meat, a 2021 Whiting Award winner, shortlisted for Granta’s “Best of Young American Novelists,” and finalist for the Colorado Book Award 

Round 2: 
* Mario Alejandro Ariza, poet, investigative reporter and author of Disposable City: Miami’s Future on the Shores of Climate Catastrophe who's work has been selected for Best American Essays

* Claire Boyles, a 2022 Whiting Award winner, author of Site Fidelity (longlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Award; Reading the West Award; and is a finalist for the Colorado Book Award)

Hosted by LDM creator Adrian Todd Zuniga (author of the award-nominated novel Collision Theory)

Where: Steddy Theatre, 606 6th St, Crested Butte, CO
When: May 28, 7 p.m. sharp