November 2025
November 1st, 6pm
Rick Wertz Book Release
The Narrow Gauge Book Cooperative is pleased to welcome Rick Wertz for the release of his book, Coyotes, Gods, and Other Critters. Rick will be in store on November 1st at 6pm for a reading, discussion, and book signing. The book is out in print and available for purchase at the Narrow Gauge Book Cooperative, and online.
About the Author:
Rick Wertz was born in Las Vegas, New Mexico a few decades ago, moving to Colorado when he attended Ft. Lewis College in Durango. After what he calls an “All-American boyhood” he turned into a hippie in the 70s, and he and his wife opened a natural foods store in Gunnison after he finished college. 5 years later, he and his wife and son moved to Alamosa to start a self-sufficient farm. Beginning with a tiny-home they moved onto a foundation, Rick expanded the home gradually over the years. With no electricity in this tiny home, their entertainment came from reading books.
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As a child, Rick had a stutter, and had always retreated to the world of books, reading sports stories about Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth, then Agatha Christie and Rex Stout mysteries like his mother, and Ian Fleming like his father. When he was a parent himself, reading aloud in the kerosene-lit farmhouse in the San Luis Valley, he learned to speak without his stutter.
Throughout his life, Rick returned to books, writing stories as a child and getting them published in the paper as an adult. The place of books in his life led, naturally, to writing books himself.
About the Book:
One night, while living in Crestone and working in Alamosa, Rick was driving home and struck a coyote on the highway. That moment, and his beloved Aunt Dorothy getting a walker, inspired his first Gurranny Coyote story, of which there are many more.
Rick writes, “Where I live, there is a bounty on Coyotes. You can get five bucks for a pair of ears. Coyotes are cunning, conniving, crafty, creative, and cruel. They play games to wile away the time. Coyotes are moon critters. They wax and wane to a symphony of tides. They are shrewd, and wild, and devious. Coyotes answer to no one except moon agitation. Native Americans call Coyotes tricksters. Imported American Aliens call Coyotes sinister. Coyotes are secretive and silent unless agitated by the moon.
There is always a bounty on Gods. A verifiable (literal?) picture of one would be worth millions. They are cunning, conniving, crafty, creative, and cruel as well. They play games to wile away their timelessness. Gods are sun critters. God’s laws wax and wane to a symphony of cultures. They are wily, wild, and untamed. Gods answer to no one except yin and yang. Native American Indians call everything God. Imported American Aliens call God in his distant sanctuary. Gods are secretive and silent unless provoked by another critter.
The other critters are along for the ride. Bunny rabbits, pixies, poodles, centaurs, humans and all the others roam the space between Coyotes and Gods. They are earth critters. They worship the sun and the heavens. They fear Coyotes and Gods.
I am just another critter. I have DNA of both Coyote and God. I have DNA of all the other critters, porcupine, squid, elf, and a myriad of other manifestations of star dust.
The lives of Coyotes, Gods, and other critters are interwoven. They are the triad that makes existence entertaining and challenging in a life and death sort of way.”
We’re excited to have Rick in store to talk about and read from his book, and we hope to see you there!
November 7th, 4pm - 6pm
Bill Tite Artist Reception
The Narrow Gauge Book Cooperative is pleased to announce Bill Tite as our November artist of the month! Please join them on November 7th from 4pm - 6pm for a come-and-go reception. Bill’s art will be up for the full month of November.
About the Artist:
Bill Tite has been exploring the San Luis Valley since arriving here from the Detroit area in 2019. He received his MFA from Savannah College of Art and Design, and taught in the ASU Art Department until May 2024.
He works in a variety of mediums, including screen printing, painting, photography, sculpture, and digital- and mixed media, each through multi-sensory immersion. He is especially fascinated with the senses of touch.
Along with visual art, he also writes poetry and prose. His work embodies the intersections of landscape and human-ness (we are the landscape), made possible through long walks and meditation. He loves the San Luis Valley. He loves exploring the world in abstraction, which he believes opens art up to wider individual experience. He loves music and lying in mountain meadows throughout the seasons. He’s very interested to learn how you feel about what he creates.
He is currently working on a series of multi-media canvases. An “Emotional Cartography” performance piece is in the planning stages. It will take place in and around Alamosa next Spring.
You can find copies of some of his books in the Local Author section at the Narrow Gauge, and you’ll be able to see his art throughout the month of November. We hope you’ll come and meet him and talk with him at the reception on November 7th, between 4pm and 6pm!
November 8th, 6pm
An Evening with
David Primus
The Narrow Gauge Book Cooperative is pleased to welcome David Primus, author of Beneath Blue Mesa: The Gunnison River Valley Before the Reservoir for a presentation, discussion, and signing on November 8th at 6pm.
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About the Author:
Dave has lived in Gunnison, Colorado since 1978, graduating from Western College University in 1981. After enjoying a 30-year career in technology, he retired in 2021. His life-long passion has been the history of the American West, specializing in Colorado history. A third generation Coloradoan, he has written the books Beneath Blue Mesa: The Gunnison River Valley Before the Reservoir, Steamboat Springs: Memories of a Colorado Pioneer, and was a member of a small team producing Medicine in the Mountains, a history of the Lake City Medical Center. He has been a long-time member of the Gunnison County Historic Preservation Commission, writes historical articles for the Gunnison Country Times, and has helped develop a historical mapping project with Gunnison County.
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About the Book:
In the late 1950s, the United States Bureau of Reclamation was authorized to construct the Curecanti Project, consisting of three dams on the Gunnison River. The largest, Blue Mesa Reservoir, was created by the construction of a 390-foot dam at the start of the Black Canyon, inundating 23 miles of the Gunnison River Valley in the 1960s. This is the story of the loss of three towns, sixteen fishing resorts, and fifteen ranches along the scenic Gunnison River west of Gunnison, Colorado.
Local historian David M. Primus has spent over twenty years researching what was once beneath Blue Mesa Reservoir. He has interviewed dozens of people who grew up in the valley and have generously shared their photographs and stories. It is to the many people who were displaced by the reservoir this book is dedicated. The book includes over 200 photographs and many stories of life in the valley before the reservoir. It can be used as a tour, allowing the reader to stop at various points and imagine what was there before.
We are excited to have David in store, and look forward to seeing you there!