Meet Jeff Stover of Blue Throne in Morrison

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeff Stover.

Jeff, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I joined the Navy only two weeks after graduating from High School in Pennsylvania. I’d love to say that I didn’t know that decision set me on an unknown trajectory in life but to be honest…I was counting on it.

Life as a nuclear propulsion plant operation on a fast attack submarine required things of me that I’d never imagined I possessed. It was a lens through which I still see much of the world: hard work, process, and fellowship.

Once I was honorably discharged, I spent the next few years wrestling with my artistic inclinations and my newfound viability in the working world. I was a manufacturer by name, but still a writer and poet in truth. I found over the years that the two could exist in one person, so after watching widgets and digits pass through processes I designed and maintained for years, I wrote my first book. I have written four more as of the writing of this missive, for a total of five.

It was then I was asked by a friend to pitch a literary-based event idea to the Central City Opera Board. The Central City Opera owns much of the historical buildings in Central City and is helping them build the arts in that area of Colorado. With the gracious support and help of Central City’s Mayor, I proposed the “Central City Poetry Festival”. This event would celebrate poetry both new and ancient, globally, and is on track to being the biggest Poetry Festival in the world. The idea was to share the resurgence of poetry with readers and poets alike. Many “Instagram” poets have emerged and are succeeding in selling millions of books, the sales in the U.S. of poetry books doubling over a short span of years.

On September 21, we had the inaugural Central City Poetry Festival in the charming Teller House Hotel (built-in 1872, and now a historical site). It was a huge success. Poets met with visitors, sharing stories, sold books, and gave workshops. Our special event took place in an old west horse stable converted to a theater in the round. Poets of all kinds shared their work, with a master musician playing music between readings.

It’s just the beginning, I am pleased to say.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Integrating my abstract artistic soul (which has no care for tangibles, really) with my very austere sense of precise processes and outcomes has been difficult.

The Poetry Festival represented a harmonization of these two states, and I’m proud to say I’m doing more festivals and events in the months to come.

We’d love to hear more about your work.
Blue Throne publishes fiction and poetry and is developing a next-generation book manufacturing and distribution method that is protected company intellectual property (you’ll see!)

We also run the Blue Throne Poetry Society, which supports poets through workshops, networking, and building the Central City Poetry Festival.

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
As said, we will have the 2nd annual Central City Poetry Festival in September of 2020. Our publishing operations will expand in 2020, as well (more books), and we will hopefully have some prototypes ready for our as-of-now secret publishing method and distribution.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bluethrone.com
• Email: contact@bluethrone.com
• Instagram: #jeffstoverpoet
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeffstoverpoet/info
• Other: www.ccpoetryfest.com

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