The Frank Waters and Golden Quill
Literary Awards Luncheon
Each year, the Friends of the Pikes Peak Library District select and present two awards during their annual luncheon, The Frank Waters and Golden Quill Literary Awards Luncheon; its signature event. The event is designed to encourage and recognize exemplary national and local writers.
Historically, The Frank Waters Award celebrates its namesake’s love of the American West. The $2,000 award is given to a writer who strives to foster literary excellence and a recognition of the people, culture and landscape of the American West. The Frank Waters Award is a nationally recognized lifetime achievement award that celebrates the cultures, spirit, people and/or landscape of the West and Southwest. Waters wrote more than 20 books, including Pikes Peak: A Mining Saga, an early history of Colorado Springs, and Midas of the Rockies, about Winfield Scott Stratton, as well as books about the plight of native Americans.
The Golden Quill Award honors local authors – from El Paso or Teller counties – who have created outstanding work in writing, the arts, photography, or publishing. This award often focuses on work that enhances our understanding of the Pikes Peak Region but also recognizes authors who have achieved national status. The Golden Quill Award, the newer award, is a $1,000 prize given for literary achievement by an outstanding local author, illustrator, photographer or publication. Its recipient often is also engaged in fostering literacy in the community.
2026 Gold Sponsors - $2000
2026 Silver Sponsors - $1,000
2026 Bronze Sponsors - $500
Frank Waters Foundation
2026 Frank Waters Award Winner ~
Terry Tempest Williams.
Terry Tempest Williams is an acclaimed American writer, naturalist, and environmental activist whose work weaves together nature, family, spirituality, and social justice.
Williams' writing is rooted in the American West and has been significantly influenced by the arid landscape of Utah. Her work focuses on social and environmental justice, ranging from issues of ecology and the protection of public lands and wildness to women’s health, to exploring humanity's relationship to culture and nature. She writes in the genre of creative nonfiction and the lyrical essay.
Best known for Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, she draws on her experiences in the American West—especially Utah’s desert landscapes—to explore the profound connections between land and human responsibility. Her latest book, The Glorians — Visitations From the Holy Ordinary, will be published this spring and has been featured by The New York Times on its list, “The Books Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2026.”
With lyrical prose and moral urgency, Williams is currently writer-in-residence at Harvard Divinity School and divides her time between Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Castle Valley, Utah.
2026 Golden Quill Award Winner
~ Nancy Bentley
The Golden Quill award recipient for 2026 is Nancy Bentley. She is a local author, filmmaker, former library media specialist and educator. She has authored fourteen books for children, written adult essays, and written and directed several award-winning documentary films.
Her educational background includes a degree in Philosophy, a Masters in Educational Communications, a Masters in Library Science and certificates from the University of Denver Publishing Institute and the Stanford University Publishing Institute. Nancy had the honor of spending three internships with Holiday House Publishers in New York City, before deciding that writing her own work and living in Colorado was her true calling.
Her works for children include a series of articles in Colorado Fever, a publication of the Colorado Historical Institute for Children, board books with Price-Stern-Sloan, a picture book with Doubleday, a series of chapter books with Scholastic, four co-authored nonfiction books for children with Millbrook Press on how-to-write mysteries, movies, newspapers, and plays, and a nonfiction book with Enslow Publishing on how to write a report without plagiarizing.
Her documentary films include Mary Calhoun: The Making of a Storybook; A Garden Experience: Growing Organic, featuring the oldest and largest community garden in Southern Colorado; the bio-documentary Eric Bransby, American Mural Artist, available through Colorado PBS; and Quail Lake Meditation, which chronicles one woman’s meditative walk around her favorite lake after a life changing medical diagnosis.
