Reading five to six books every month for an entire year to select material and authors for the Rocky Mountain Literary Festival is just part of the leg work behind the scenes of the annual book-lovers event. 

Book lovers united with multiple authors for a day of presentations, auctions, autographing, socializing and more at the seventh annual festival on Oct. 16 at Mount Vernon Canyon Club in Golden.

The festival was created and continues to benefit Bootstraps Inc., a local scholarship/loan organization that supports continuing education for mountain area students. In six years, the festival has raised $34,000 for scholarships.

It featured Andrea Bobotis, Pam Houston, David Treuer, Carter Wilson and Melanie Crowder, best-selling authors who have won awards from USA today, the New York Times and more. 

Nancy Heister, Bootstraps’ director of development, has been to six RMLF events, calling them “a great gathering of people who really love to read.”

This year’s event hosted about 150 people in person and had a virtual audience of around 30.

“People are hungry to get together in person,” Heister said, especially after last year’s event was completely virtual.

Bobotis gave a presentation about her recent novel, “The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt.” She started by asking the audience to imagine something important to them and explaining how beginning to write about objects eventually led her to reconnect with her southern roots.

“I grew up in a southern home crowded with heirlooms,” she said.

Tanya Kaanta from Evergreen was one of the original organizers of the event in 2015. This year she hosted one of the authors. 

“(I’m) here to celebrate these amazing authors,” she said. “The whole goal is to help high school seniors with their education.”

Susan Henry attended the first RMLF event as the president of Bootstraps, but this year she attended as the executive director. She called the festival important for the community.

“It is an opportunity for people who love reading to come together,” she said.