Noted "Cheap Land Colorado" author draws overflow crowd

Acclaimed author Ted Conover appeared at Inkberry Books in Niwot on May 24 to read from his new book, "Cheap Land Colorado: Off-Gridders at America's Edge," to an overflow crowd.

Conover's earlier book, "Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing," won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He is a professor at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, and has written for the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's, and National Geographic.

Inkberry Books proprietor Gene Hayworth was asked how he was able to get Conover to appear at the bookstore. He said he simply e-mailed Conover-a former Colorado resident-who responded immediately, and said he happened to be involved at a book festival in Crested Butte in May, so would be glad to visit.

When introducing Conover, Hayworth recalled that Conover simply asked if Inkberry would be able to get at least six people to attend his event. As it turned out, an enthusiastic overflow crowd came for the talk. Nonplussed, Hayworth borrowed additional chairs from Una Vida owner Kristin Dura to accommodate everyone.

During the 1970s, Colorado's San Luis Valley witnessed the creation of some 40,000 five-acre lots, inexpensive land initially advertised in newspapers in Chicago, Hartford, and in TV Guide. "Cheap Land Colorado" relates Conover's experiences, beginning in 2017, living in the valley and telling the story of the off-gridders (the "'prairie people")-often military veterans with PTSD, drug addicts, conspiracy theorists, home-schooling families-those choosing, and sometimes struggling, to be self-sufficient.

Conover tells the stories of these modern-day homesteaders with empathy, humor, and humility. A large plot of land, often available for less than five thousand dollars, offered a decided appeal for residents of "the flats," despite severe challenges posed by wind, cold, abject poverty, and the difficulties of installing water and septic systems.

While there, Conover lived in a trailer, renting a corner of a lot, and meeting residents, many at first suspicious of his triple-threat background as journalist, professor, and New York resident. Some of his stories emerge from his volunteer work at a homeless shelter that also provided food, where indoor eating converted to takeaway meals after the onset of the Covid pandemic.

Readers may find some of Conover's themes echoing those found in other books, such as "Nomadland."

"Nomadland" author Jessica Bruder writes, "Cheap Land Colorado," cements Conover as among our greatest subcultural storytellers. In these dispatches, he invites readers to ride shotgun along an unraveling edge of the American West..." Rocky Mountain PBS has a two-part documentary highlighting the book's issues as part of its Colorado Voices series.