Writing Colorado, a year-long series, features twelve writers whose books reveal the essential character of this state we call home. Colorado’s landscapes and lifescapes inspired many writers in the last two and a half centuries. Some just passed through; some came and stayed; some did not become writers until they lived here awhile. Their words, living long after they disappear, yet speak of yesterday’s Colorado that we might more clearly understand the Colorado of today. April - Isabella Bird A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains 1879 Many British women of the nineteenth century challenged the aristocratic notion of how a proper woman should behave, but the writings of Jane Austin, though daring and revealing, seem timid compared to the bold life of Isabella Bird. Her topping of Longs Peak was but a single chapter in a life lived defiantly and filled with personal and social conquests.