NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is a non-profit organization that provides tools, structure, community, and encouragement to promote creative writing around the world. The goal is to write 50,000 words during the month with prescribed daily word counts. The flagship program occurs from November 1st to the 30th.

A NaNo Write-In is a place for writers of all ages and experiences to gather and have focused “sprints” from 15-30 minutes long, then relax and share (or not) with the group. The write-in will give each writer access to a number of resources, such as prompts, brainstorming sessions, and sharing information like blogs, craft books, and websites.

Come and go as you see fit. And grow your writing community as you learn new skills! 

If you can’t join in person, you can also join the group through Microsoft Teams. Please email Martha Williams at mwilliams@comlib.org for the link. (Microsoft Teams does not have to be downloaded. You will be able to join the meeting through your web browser.)

This Write-In will be led by writer AJ Super. AJ/Angela Super’s debut novel, Erebus Dawning, and its sequel, A Star Reborn, were published by Aethon Books in 2021. The conclusion of the Seven Stars Saga trilogy, Queen of the Black, is forthcoming. She has degrees in Creative Writing and Theater from the University of Idaho, and has recently moved back to the Wood River Valley to be closer to family. She enjoys supporting community writers, young and old, new and published.

Monday, November 21, 2022
2:00pm – 6:00pm
Idaho Room

A workshop with Mike Medberry

Mike Medberry has published two books: one with a traditional publisher, Caxton Press (On the Dark Side of the Moon), and one that was self-published (Living in the Broken West—Essays). He will contrast each of the ways to gain publication and along that path will share with participants some valuable lessons. Mike will share the reasons for self-publishing, steps to take to publish, the costs of self versus standard publication, different routes to consider, and how to gather support for and share your work. The group, limited to 20 attendees, will also have the opportunity to share projects they are considering for self-publication and to ask questions about the process.

Mike Medberry is the current writer-in-residence at the Hemingway House with The Community Library. He has written essays on conservation for 30 years covering issues for Mountain Gazette, Idaho Magazine, Limberlost Press, High Country News, Boise Blue, The Idaho Mountain Express, Northern Lights, Stroke Connection, Boise Weekly, among others and in the books, Idaho Wilderness Considered and River by Design. He has published short stories, was an Artist in Residence for the City of Boise, has taught classes on writing the memoir, and has edited several published books. He has also authored two books, On the Dark Side of the Moon, about surviving from a severe stroke in Idaho’s Craters of the Moon National Monument, and Living in the Broken West—Essays, his newest book. He was a lead staff person for The Wilderness Society, Idaho Conservation League, Hells Canyon Preservation Council, and other organizations for three decades. He has a MFA from the University of Washington.

In June 2022, the Pulaski Users Group (PUG) and the Flourish Foundation embarked on a collaborative trip to the Garden Isle of Kaua’i. Five alumni from the Compassionate Leaders Program, along with a student from Oahu, and PUG and Flourish staff, spent two weeks exploring the island, deepening their understanding of and appreciation for the cultural practices and significance of the Hawaiian culture and engaging in regenerative tourism. 

What makes the Hawaiian Islands truly special is the stunning natural beauty, vibrant culture, and the deeply rooted practice of mālama. Mālama means to take care of, tend, attend, care for, preserve, protect, save, and maintain. The Hawaiian culture exemplifies this practice and the group was fortunate to experience this in a deep and profound way by giving back to the local trails.

Please join us to watch the premier of the video created by Flourish and PUG about mālama and their time on Kauai. After the short film, they will discuss how we can all engage in regenerative tourism and mindful environmental stewardship. 

The event will be livestreamed and available to watch later. Click here to watch online.

Hemingway’s Widow: The Life and Legacy of Mary Welsh Hemingway

Online only

Timothy Christian, professor emeritus at the University of Alberta, discusses his new book Hemingway’s Widow: The Life and Legacy of Mary Welsh Hemingway with Jenny Emery Davidson, executive director of The Community Library.

This Kennedy Library Virtual Forum is hosted by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. Click here to register. This is a Zoom-only program. There will not be a broadcast in the Library. The program will also be recorded for later viewing through the Kennedy Library.

Event URL: https://www.jfklibrary.org/events-and-awards/forums/11-21-hemingways-widow

Timothy Christian graduated as a Commonwealth Scholar from King’s College, Cambridge. During a varied legal career, he served as a law professor and Dean at the Faculty of Law at the University of Alberta and a visiting professor in Japan and Taiwan. Christian read A Moveable Feast in the cafes of Aix-en-Provence when he was a young man studying French. Realizing that no one had written deeply about Mary Welsh Hemingway, Christian began researching her story–and discovered a woman vital to Hemingway’s art. Christian is married to a lawyer and abstract artist, Kathryn Dykstra, and lives in a Mediterranean microclimate on Vancouver Island’s beautiful Saanich Inlet.

About Hemingway’s Widow: A stunning portrait of the complicated woman who becomes Ernest Hemingway’s fourth wife, tracing her adventures before she meets Ernest, exploring the tumultuous years of their marriage, and evoking her merry widowhood as she shapes Hemingway’s literary legacy.

Mary Welsh, a celebrated wartime journalist during the London Blitz and the liberation of Paris, meets Ernest Hemingway in May 1944. He becomes so infatuated with Mary that he asks her to marry him the third time they meet—although they are married to other people.  Eventually, she succumbs to Ernest’s campaign, and in the last days of the war joined him at his estate in Cuba.

Through Mary’s eyes, we see Ernest Hemingway in a fresh light.  Their turbulent marriage survives his cruelty and abuse, perhaps because of their sexual compatibility and her essential contribution to his writing.  She reads and types his work each day—and makes plot suggestions.  She becomes crucial to his work and he depends upon her critical reading of his work to know if he has it right.

We watch the Hemingways as they travel to the ski country of the Dolomites, commute to Harry’s Bar in Venice; attend bullfights in Pamplona and Madrid; go on safari in Kenya in the thick of the Mau Mau Rebellion; and fish the blue waters of the gulf stream off Cuba in Ernest’s beloved boat Pilar.  We see Ernest fall in love with a teenaged Italian countess and wonder at Mary’s tolerance of the affair. 

We witness Ernest’s sad decline and Mary’s efforts to avoid the stigma of suicide by claiming his death was an accident.  In the years following Ernest’s death, Mary devotes herself to his literary legacy, negotiating with Castro to reclaim Ernest’s manuscripts from Cuba, publishing one-third of his work posthumously.  She supervises Carlos Baker’s biography of Ernest, sues A. E. Hotchner to try and prevent him from telling the story of Ernest’s mental decline, and spends years writing her memoir in her penthouse overlooking the New York skyline.  

Her story is one of an opinionated woman who smokes Camels, drinks gin, swears like a man, sings like Edith Piaf, loves passionately, and experiments with gender fluidity in her extraordinary life with Ernest.  This true story reads like a novel—and the reader will be hard pressed not to fall for Mary.