ReadCon 2026
ReadCon
2026
Friday, April 24th, 5:30 to 8:30 PM
LINC Library Innovation Center, 501 8th Ave, Greeley
The Guests
Leigha Huggins
Leigha Huggins is an author, creative collaborator, and lifelong daydreamer whose work explores imagination, connection, and intentional living. She has authored nine books—including children’s picture books, guided journals, and a craft book—and co-created Lolly Rose Dolls, an intentional doll line designed to inspire creativity and meaningful connection. Leigha’s creative philosophy is rooted in curiosity and inspired action. She believes that showing up—especially before feeling fully ready—can open unexpected doors and invite possibility. Much like her collaborative project Imagine a World: Full of Wonder features artwork from 26 illustrators around the world, celebrating diverse perspectives and the power of shared storytelling.
Leigha considers herself an “accidental author,” guided first by a single sentimental book that opened an unexpected door. She jokes that she was pushed into purpose but holds deep gratitude for the yeses that have helped shape her path. Having walked the journey herself, Leigha believes our greatest responsibility is to turn back and light the way—helping ignite the journeys of others as they step toward the path ahead of creativity and self-expression.
Kristin Koval
Kristin Koval is a former lawyer who always wanted to be a writer but initially wandered down other paths. Her debut novel, PENITENCE, has been long listed for the Reading the West Book Awards, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Pick, a Book of the Month Pick, an Indie Next Pick, an Apple Books Debut of the Year, an Apple Audiobooks Must Listen, a People Magazine Book of the Week, and a Goodreads Most Anticipated Pick and Hottest Debut Selection. She lives in Boulder, Colorado and Park City, Utah with her husband, two sons and two Great Danes.
Get Kristin’s book, Penitence, from HPLD.
Learn more at KristinKoval.com
Lisa Zimmerman
Lisa Zimmerman is a professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Northern Colorado. She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate in English and History from Colorado State University and received her MFA in Creative Writing from Washington University in St. Louis.
Her poetry and short fiction have appeared in anthologies as well as magazines including Cave Wall, Florida Review, Poet Lore, Vox Populi, The Sun, SWWIM Every Day, Hole in the Head Review, and Amethyst Review, among other journals, and is the winner of Redbook Magazine’s Short Story contest.
She is the author of seven poetry collections, four chapbooks, including Sainted (Main Street Rag 2021) as well as three full-length books–The Light at the Edge of Everything (Anhinga Press), The Hours I Keep (Main Street Rag), and her debut poetry collection which won the 2004 Violet Reed Haas Poetry Award from Snake Nation Press. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net and five times for the Pushcart Prize. One of her prose poems is included in The Best Small Fictions: 2020 Anthology (Sonder Press).
Lisa is a coach for the Poetry Out Loud high school recitation project and has taught writing workshops in K-12 classrooms in Colorado and Florida. She has been the poet-in-residence at schools in Fort Collins, Brighton, Aurora, Idalia, and Longmont, and has been a master teaching artist at the annual Aesthetic Education Institute of Colorado/Institute for Creative Teaching at the University of Denver 7 times. She lives in north Fort Collins with her family.
Learn more at LisaZimmermanPoet.com
The Books
From imagining a world full of choices to a world full of harmony to a world full of innovation, parents can think about the kind of world we want our children to grow up in and raise them to be adults that go after a world with less hatred and excess. This children’s book is an anthem for a new generation of kids that want more possibilities, more connection with others, and to come together for one main purpose, to love one another.
―Sincerely Stacie
Koval maintains the pacing of a thriller while going deep on themes of guilt, forgiveness, and the toll of keeping secrets. Readers won’t be able to look away.
―Publishers Weekly
How is it that Lisa Zimmerman brings these ancient saints, the subjects of her radiant poems, as close to us as our own breath? Their presences, illuminated by the steady flame of Zimmerman’s mind and heart, shimmer across time and distance, coming to rest within her words and silences as if this is where they have always lived. Weaving together past and present, shorn hair and winter light, Zimmerman invites us, again and again, into “the great unmanageable mystery.” In the company of this book, we are less alone.
—Kasey Jueds
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