{"id":8185,"date":"2016-07-08T17:31:32","date_gmt":"2016-07-08T17:31:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/idsunmedia.com\/?p=8185"},"modified":"2016-07-08T17:31:32","modified_gmt":"2016-07-08T17:31:32","slug":"conference-traverses-new-ground-with-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/08\/conference-traverses-new-ground-with-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"Conference traverses new ground with friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cCrossing to Safety\u201d is this year\u2019s theme<\/i><\/span><\/h2>\n

By Dana DuGan<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Justice
Justice Stephan Breyer. Photo courtesy of The Collection of the SCOTUS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Sun Valley Writers\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cGame of Thrones,\u201d David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. The founders of the Irish Repertory Theatre of New York, Ciara\u2019n O\u2019Reilly and Charlotte Moore, will present \u201cA Celebration of Yeats.\u201d Also, David Milibrand, president of the International Rescue Committee, will address the plight of the 50 million refugees around the globe.<\/p>\n

\"Salman
Salman Rushdie. Photo courtesy of Beowulf Sheehan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cOur theme this year is\u00a0\u2018Crossing to Safety,\u2019 taken from the title of the wonderful Wallace Stegner book about friendships and enduring love,\u201d Robin Eidsmo, executive director of the Conference, said. \u201cOur program touches on many themes of passage \u2013 from Salman Rushdie in his book\u00a0\u2018Joseph Anton,\u2019 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\u2019s refugee crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eidsmo guarantees some fun along the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve 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?\u201d<\/p>\n

Another treat will be the appearance of writer Thomas McGuane.<\/p>\n

\"David
David Miliband. Photo courtesy of Lynda Shenkman Curtis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cTom is the prose laureate of the West and captures the humanity and the humor of characters from Big Sky Country,\u201d Eidsmo said.\u00a0\u201cPlus, we are showcasing young, fresh voices of fiction and performance by the Irish Repertory Theatre.\u00a0It\u2019s an enormous privilege for us to bring these extraordinary talents to Sun Valley.\u201d<\/p>\n

As with every year, this year\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The exclusive break-out sessions, available only to Festival passholders, will feature such writers as Phillip Gourevitch discussing \u201cRwanda: Writing in the Aftermath\u201d; Susan Casey spying on dolphins in \u201cVoices in the Ocean\u201d; Clara Bingham\u2019s oral history called \u201cWitness to the Revolution 1969\/70\u201d; and NPR critic Maureen Corrigan considering \u201cThe Great Gatsby\u201d and why it still captivates.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cWaging War.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Erik
Erik Larson. Photo courtesy of Benjamin Benschneider<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Following a screening of the Academy Award-winning film, \u201cSpotlight,\u201d there will be a panel discussion with Walter Robinson, editor of the Boston Globe\u2019s spotlight team, David E. Hoffman, author of \u201cThe Billion Dollar Spy,\u201d and Steven Lee Myers, author of \u201cThe New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin,\u201d with Neal Conan moderating.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Library to fourth- to ninth-graders about her last book, \u201cIt Ain\u2019t So Awful, Falafel.\u201d These are open to all.<\/p>\n

For more information visit www.svwc.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cCrossing to Safety\u201d is this year\u2019s theme By Dana DuGan The Sun Valley Writers\u2019 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,18,37],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8185","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-event-preview","8":"category-news","9":"category-special-feature"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}