COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KOAA) — A Colorado Springs coffee shop has become a daily gathering place for people across the community, drawing in musicians, writers and neighbors looking for a welcoming spot to connect.
As part of my Convos and Coffee segment, I, alongside Meteorologist Lauren Brand, visited Treehouse Cafe, where so many gatherings happen day after day. CLICK HERE to view their community calendar.
There, I met Therese, who lives in downtown Colorado Springs, and her friend Christine, who lives in the Briargate area on the north side of town. The cafe is their perfect meeting spot, roughly halfway between their homes. Therese raved about the environment at the shop and praised what the owner, Sarah Beth Grant, has done to create a welcoming space. Grant is also an herbalist who runs a business on the side and has opened the building to other entrepreneurs and artists.
One regular event Therese wanted to highlight is the Black Rose Acoustic Society. Founded in 1994 in the Black Forest area, the group brings local musicians together, and its members often play at Treehouse Cafe. The music is mostly bluegrass, and the performers can be different every time.
"It's joyous music," Therese explained about a Black Rose Acoustic Society. "It's down to earth. They're very approachable and will speak with you and share their knowledge about their instruments, and so it's a really fun thing."
A Black Rose Acoustic Society jam is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 14, and Saturday, Oct. 28, from 10 a.m. to noon.
The cafe is also home to a group of local authors who meet every Tuesday morning. Some are published, some write for fun, but they all love connecting with other creative writers. The group focuses on writers helping writers, from tackling writer's block to getting published. The authors have been meeting at the location for about a dozen years, even before it was the Treehouse Cafe, and have continued through several changes in ownership. Jerilyn Winstead, who organizes the group, is working on a couple of series she hopes to have published. Click here for more on Jerilyn's work.
"There's plenty of writers' critique groups in town already, where you critique each other's writing, but we wanted something different. We wanted something where we could get together, drop our pens, and just talk shop," Winstead said.
The gathering is called Pen Drop Writers' Group. Members talk about their writing, the books they are reading, their creative process and the publishing world, from submitting to agents to planning launch parties.
"We've had several people actually mention that they've learned more about the publishing process in this group than they have from like college courses or conferences," Winstead added.
Winstead's first series, "Encyclopedia Magica, Volume One: Alchemy," is a beginner's potions textbook that is also an interactive novel. She is resubmitting it to agents as young adult fiction. She also writes a second series under a pen name. The group averages six to eight people on a Tuesday and also meets once a month on a Saturday evening for those who work during the day. The Tuesday meetings run from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
In the coming weeks, I plan to highlight a few more local authors we met at Treehouse.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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