“Crossing to Safety” is this year’s theme
By Dana DuGan
The Sun Valley Writers’ Conference, now in its 21st year, has entertained participants each summer with an intimate gathering of some of the most revered of the literary world, from Frank McCourt and David Halberstam to W.S. Merwin and Jane Smiley. The Conference takes place this year from Tuesday, July 12, to Friday, July 15, in Sun Valley.
This year, headliners include Salman Rushdie, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, neuroscientist and author David Eagleman, author Erik Larson, and the creators and show-runners of the television sensation “Game of Thrones,” David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. The founders of the Irish Repertory Theatre of New York, Ciara’n O’Reilly and Charlotte Moore, will present “A Celebration of Yeats.” Also, David Milibrand, president of the International Rescue Committee, will address the plight of the 50 million refugees around the globe.
“Our theme this year is ‘Crossing to Safety,’ taken from the title of the wonderful Wallace Stegner book about friendships and enduring love,” Robin Eidsmo, executive director of the Conference, said. “Our program touches on many themes of passage – from Salman Rushdie in his book ‘Joseph Anton,’ describing the journey of his life, to Bryan Stevenson, working for the equal treatment of minorities, to David Miliband, who, in his work for the International Rescue Committee is at the center of the world’s refugee crisis.”
Eidsmo guarantees some fun along the way.
“We’ve paired the comic writer Patricia Marx with neuroscientist David Eagleman for a conversation about neural connections in your brain or, more importantly, to understand the question: Where did I leave my car keys?”
Another treat will be the appearance of writer Thomas McGuane.
“Tom is the prose laureate of the West and captures the humanity and the humor of characters from Big Sky Country,” Eidsmo said. “Plus, we are showcasing young, fresh voices of fiction and performance by the Irish Repertory Theatre. It’s an enormous privilege for us to bring these extraordinary talents to Sun Valley.”
As with every year, this year’s players run the gamut from scholarly to popular with detours into legend. Longtime presenters Ethan Canin and Anne Taylor Fleming and John Burnham Schwartz will be joined by authors Firoozeh Dumas, Judith Freeman, Anne Enright, Jamaica Kincaid, Hector Tobar and Alexander Maksik. As well, there will be talks with poets Terrance Hayes and Arlo Haskell.
The exclusive break-out sessions, available only to Festival passholders, will feature such writers as Phillip Gourevitch discussing “Rwanda: Writing in the Aftermath”; Susan Casey spying on dolphins in “Voices in the Ocean”; Clara Bingham’s oral history called “Witness to the Revolution 1969/70”; and NPR critic Maureen Corrigan considering “The Great Gatsby” and why it still captivates.
Marine biologist James B. McClintock will share stories of fishing adventures along with illustrating how climate changes and how it is affecting our planet. David Barron will expound on how the government goes about “Waging War.”
Following a screening of the Academy Award-winning film, “Spotlight,” there will be a panel discussion with Walter Robinson, editor of the Boston Globe’s spotlight team, David E. Hoffman, author of “The Billion Dollar Spy,” and Steven Lee Myers, author of “The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin,” with Neal Conan moderating.
A new feature this year is the result of a partnership with The Community Library, which will host two free talks at the library from 5 to 6 p.m., Monday, July 11. Author Jamaica Kincaid will speak in the lecture room, while author Firoozeh Dumas will speak in the Children’s Library to fourth- to ninth-graders about her last book, “It Ain’t So Awful, Falafel.” These are open to all.
For more information visit www.svwc.com.