GRAYDON “DEE” HUBBARD

After 35 years a CPA I retired, deurbanized and moved to Steamboat Springs to write. I discarded a stale world of numbers and embraced an exciting new world of words, where I can work with either reality or perception, or imagination, or fantasy, even a combination of all four – my choice. Liberating creativity brings a sense of personal freedom.

As the mind hungers for new challenges, so does the body. Cross country skiing captured my fancy at age 60. Succumbing to the lure of high mountains at age 65, climbing became my obsession. With my resident muse, my wife Bonnie McGee, I’ve celebrated Colorado Rocky Mountain highs from 29 of its loftiest summits – The 14ers, overlooked misty moors from 25 of Scotland’s highest mountains – The Munros, slithered the ridge traverse between New Mexico’s two highest peaks, and even scrambled to the summit of a mystical mountain in Tasmania.

On my saner days I go fishing with my golden retriever, Skye. She carries the net.

Nourished not by academics or formal training but by gritty life experience, my writing has been recognized in local, regional, national, and international literary competitions. Published by McGraw-Hill, my major work of creative nonfiction, SLIM TO NONE, a Journey through the Wasteland of Anorexia Treatment, was nominated for Colorado Book of the Year. The Rocky Mountain News featured my “Best of the West” prize winning short story, The Prize, in its Sunday Spotlight supplement. Another award winning short story, The Duchess Run, appeared in Cutthroat, a Journal of the Arts.

My award-winning first novel, Charlie’s Pride, is a tribute to a Native American’s unyielding devotion to a river. It seeks a publisher. Nearing completion is a second novel, At the Altars of Money, a romp through the tangled world of high finance featuring a modern-day “Robin Hood.”