Kathryn Mayer is a Denver-based writer and journalist whose work has appeared in numerous publications including Health, Observer, Business Insider, and PopSugar. She primarily writes about business, covering workplace health and benefits strategies, and she has appeared on radio, TV, and podcasts as an industry expert. She has undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Denver.
Greg Glasgow is a longtime writer and journalist for numerous magazines and newspapers in Colorado and elsewhere, including The Denver Post, 5280 and the Boulder Daily Camera, where he worked for 10 years as arts and entertainment reporter and editor. He lives in Parker, Colorado, with his wife and co-author, Kathryn Mayer. A Colorado native, Greg has an undergraduate degree in journalism from Colorado State University and a master’s in creative writing from the University of Colorado Boulder.
SunLit: Tell us this book’s backstory. What inspired you to write it? Where did the story/theme originate?
Mayer: Several years back, the two of us (we’re a married couple) were in San Francisco, and we went to the Walt Disney Family Museum. I’m a lifelong Disney fan, and I’m especially interested in company history, so I was enjoying going through a large timeline of Walt Disney’s life. One very short mention caught our eye: That Walt had tried to build a ski resort in California in the 1960s.
While it sounded familiar, what really shocked us was that Walt Disney’s partner on the project was Willy Schaeffler, a famous Colorado skier back in the day who also had been head ski coach at the University of Denver. DU is my alma mater, and Greg and I met when we both worked in the communications department there, so Schaeffler’s name was definitely familiar to us.
UNDERWRITTEN BY
Each week, The Colorado Sun and Colorado Humanities & Center For The Book feature an excerpt from a Colorado book and an interview with the author. Explore the SunLit archives at coloradosun.com/sunlit.
That prompted us to look into the Disney project further. Out of our own curiosity, we researched a ton, and learned that there was so much to this story. It involved Walt Disney’s death, a legal battle and a nearly decade-long fight with environmentalists that was really important to the burgeoning environmental movement of the time.
SunLit: Place this excerpt in context. How does it fit into the book as a whole? Why did you select it?
Glasgow: This excerpt is from Chapter 5, which is when the story really gets going. The first few chapters lay out how the idea for a Disney ski resort came to be and why it was so important to Walt Disney, as well as the beginnings of the environmental opposition to the project.
Chapter 5 begins in August 1965, when Walt and the other bidders come to Porterville, California, to submit their bids to develop the land in Mineral King, California, for skiing. This shows all the planning that went into the bids, some of Walt’s interesting competition for the Mineral King project, and some of the political drama that was happening around the same time.
SunLit: Tell us about creating this book. What influences and/or experiences informed the project before you sat down to write?
Mayer: I grew up with Disney—going to the parks, watching the movies and shows, and eventually reading a lot about Disney history. I am also a longtime journalist and writer who always dreamed of someday writing a book. This book, however, was a case of the story finding us — we weren’t seriously thinking about writing a book and looking for a good topic; it’s just that this was such an interesting and multifaceted story that we became obsessed with it and thought it would make a great book. We were surprised no one else had written one about it.
SunLit: What did the process of writing this book add to your knowledge and understanding of your craft and/or the subject matter?
Glasgow: We are both journalists by trade, and we both have master’s degrees in creative writing, but this was the first book either of us had written. It was a true journey to find people to interview, to figure out how best to do the huge amount of research a book like this requires, and to figure out how to tell the story in a balanced way that was also readable and interesting. It was a lot of trial and error.
SunLit: What were the biggest challenges you faced in writing this book?
Mayer: Finding people to interview was one of the initial challenges, especially as this event and controversy began more than 50 years ago. But we were lucky to connect with a number of major players in this monumental story, both on the Disney side and the environmental side.
“Disneyland on the Mountain”
Where to find it:
- Prospector: Search the combined catalogs of 23 Colorado libraries
- Libby: E-books and audio books
- NewPages Guide: List of Colorado independent bookstores
- Bookshop.org: Searchable database of bookstores nationwide
SunLit present new excerpts from some of the best Colorado authors that not only spin engaging narratives but also illuminate who we are as a community. Read more.
Another challenge was making sure we told the story in a very balanced way. That was a big goal of ours in writing the book—to be very fair and neutral and to give both sides equal weight.
SunLit: What’s the most important thing — a theme, lesson, emotion or realization — that readers should take from this book?
Glasgow: That there are two sides to every story, and in some cases the motivations are pure on both sides. We certainly hope it makes people think more about the environment and access to beautiful places in nature, and we also hope that Disney fans will have some fun realizations about how so many pieces of this story fit into the company’s history and creations.
SunLit: Walk us through your writing process: Where and how do you write?
Glasgow: We wrote this book together, most of it during the COVID pandemic, so we had lots of time at home to fill. We both also have full-time jobs, so the bulk of the book was written on nights and weekends. Sometimes we would sit on the couch or at the kitchen table together; sometimes we would be in separate spaces.
We used Google docs so we could collaborate back and forth. One cool thing about being a married couple and working on a project like this is that we essentially lived the book for two or three years — talking through ideas while we made dinner or walked our dog. Some of our best ideas came when we weren’t actually at the computer keyboard.
SunLit: Who do you think should have won the battle – Disney or the environmentalists who fought the project?
Glasgow: We think about this a lot, and we go back and forth. The motives really were pure on both sides. As Disney fans, of course we would love to see what a Disney ski resort would have looked like, but the Mineral King is so beautiful that it seems like the story ended the way it was supposed to. Disney has gone on to embrace environmental themes in many of the projects it has done since.
SunLit: Tell us about your next project.
Mayer: We are working on a new nonfiction project now and are still in the early stages of it. It’s nothing we can announce quite yet, but it’s definitely in the same vein as “Disneyland on the Mountain” in terms of an interesting time in history, a pop culture intersection and big amounts of controversy and intrigue.
A few more quick questions
SunLit: Which do you enjoy more as you work on a book – writing or editing?
Mayer: I think there was something really special about getting some of those first words on paper, so I would say the writing. But we actually loved going back through it and editing—refining and rearranging and adding things that helped bring the story to life.
SunLit: What’s the first piece of writing – at any age – that you remember being proud of?
Glasgow: When I was in third grade, I wrote a poem about springtime that my teachers thought was really great. That was the first time I ever thought about possibly becoming a writer.
Mayer: I started writing for my high school newspaper and absolutely fell in love. I immediately knew I wanted to do it for a living. I wrote a humorous op-ed about how ridiculous it was that our school didn’t allow us to have or drink water in classrooms (like, what?) and it somehow struck a chord with people. I remember loving to start a dialogue in a fun and funny way. It also won an award from the Los Angeles Times, and I was dumbstruck and so excited.
SunLit: What three writers, from any era, would you invite over for a great discussion about literature and writing?
Glasgow: Jack Kerouac, Jonathan Ames, Michael Connelly
Mayer: Ray Bradbury, Maya Angelou, Nathalia Holt
SunLit: Do you have a favorite quote about writing?
Mayer: “Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens.” — Ray Bradbury
SunLit: What does the current collection of books on your home shelves tell visitors about you?
Glasgow: That we just wrote a really research-intensive book involving the Walt Disney Company and the environmental movement!
SunLit: Soundtrack or silence? What’s the audio background that helps you write?
Glasgow: I sometimes listen to jazz or other instrumental music, but generally silence is best.
Mayer: I need silence when I’m writing.
SunLit: What music do you listen to for sheer enjoyment?
Mayer: Oldies. I’m a big fan of ’50s and ’60s music, from doo-wop and Motown to Neil Diamond and the Beach Boys. I also love crooners like Sinatra and Doris Day. And Barry Manilow—I love him.
Glasgow: Steely Dan and other yacht rock, crooners like Sinatra and Dean Martin, and pop artists like Barry Manilow and the Carpenters.
SunLit: What event, and at what age, convinced you that you wanted to be a writer?
Mayer: When I was very young, maybe 6, I created what I called a newspaper (small papers I would staple together) filled with articles I wrote that I would distribute to my family. The stories were just about mundane things that happened in our household, like my dad going to work or my brother playing in a basketball game. But I feel lucky in the fact that I had the spark lit young for writing and telling stories.
SunLit: Greatest writing fear?
Mayer: Not finishing.
Glasgow: Finding the next big/good idea.
SunLit: Greatest writing satisfaction?
Mayer: This book!
Glasgow: Agreed! Finishing it and turning it in to the publisher felt great, but the whole process of getting an agent and selling it to a publisher had a lot of satisfying moments as well. And we’re thrilled when anyone reads it and enjoys it.