DNA Sleuthing with Barbara-Rae Venter 

For twelve years the Golden State Killer terrorized California, stalking victims and killing without remorse. Then he simply disappeared, for the next forty-four years, until an amateur DNA sleuth opened her laptop.

In I Know Who You Are: How An Amateur DNA Sleuth Unmasked The Golden State Killer And Changed Crime Fighting Forever, Barbara Rae-Venter reveals how she went from researching her family history as a retiree to hunting for a notorious serial killer—and how she became the nation’s leading authority on investigative genetic genealogy, the most dazzling new crime-fighting weapon to appear in decades.

Rae-Venter leads readers on a vivid journey through the many cases she tackled, often starting with little more than a DNA sample. From the first criminal case she ever solved to the search for the Golden State Killer, Rae-Venter shares haunting, often thrilling accounts of how she helped solve some of America’s most chilling cold cases in the span of just three years.

I Know Who You Are captures both the exhilaration of the moment of discovery and the sheer depth of emotion that lingers around cold cases, informing Rae-Venter’s careful approach to her work. It is a story of relentless curiosity, of constant invention and reinvention, and of human beings striving to answer the most elemental questions about themselves: What defines identity? Where do we belong? And are we truly who we think we are?

Barbara will be joined in conversation for this program with Steve Broback of Dent. Book signing to follow. In partnership with Dent.

More/register here.

This program will be livestreamed and available to view later. Click here for Vimeo link to watch online.

A Conversation with Peter Mann

Join us for a conversation with Peter Mann, Writer-In-Residence at the Hemingway House and author of The Torqued Man: a brilliant debut novel, at once teasing literary thriller and a darkly comic blend of history and invention, set in wartime Berlin and propelled by two very different but equally mesmerizing voices: a German spy handler and his Irish secret agent, neither of whom are quite what they seem. Named one of the Best Books of 2022 by The New Yorker. Mann will be in conversation with the Library’s executive director, Jenny Emery Davidson. A book signing will follow.

Berlin—September, 1945. Two manuscripts are found in rubble, each one narrating conflicting versions of the life of an Irish spy during the war. 

One of them is the journal of a German military intelligence officer and an anti-Nazi cowed into silence named Adrian de Groot, charting his relationship with his agent, friend, and sometimes lover, an Irishman named Frank Pike. In De Groot’s narrative, Pike is a charismatic IRA fighter sprung from prison in Spain to assist with the planned German invasion of Britain, but who never gets the chance to consummate his deal with the devil. 

Meanwhile, the other manuscript gives a very different account of the Irishman’s doings in the Reich. Assuming the alter ego of the Celtic hero Finn McCool, Pike appears here as the ultimate Allied saboteur. His mission: an assassination campaign of high-ranking Nazi doctors, culminating in the killing of Hitler’s personal physician.

The two manuscripts spiral around each other, leaving only the reader to know the full truth of Pike and De Groot’s relationship, their ultimate loyalties, and their efforts to resist the fascist reality in which they are caught.

The program will be livestreamed and available to view later. Find the link to watch online/view the Vimeo recording here.

Peter Mann has a PhD in modern European history and is a past recipient of the Whiting Fellowship. He teaches history and literature in Stanford’s Master of Liberal Arts program. He is also a graphic artist and cartoonist.

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Orchestral Conversations – Meet the Brass 

Upbeat with Alasdair talks provide interesting perspectives on trends and topics in classical music, along with insight on works and artists to be featured in upcoming Sun Valley Music Festival performances. This month’s talk kicks off the Festival’s Winter Season concerts, taking place March 15-17 at The Argyros.

During the March 14 program at the Library, get the inside scoop on the Winter Season, direct from the musicians! Music Director Alasdair Neale will be joined by four Festival Orchestra principal brass musicians–Andrew McCandless, trumpet; William VerMeulen, horn; Gordon Wolfe, trombone; and Peter Wahrhaftig, tuba–who will share the unique characteristics of their instruments and how they will be showcased during the winter performances.

Space is limited. Reserve your seats beginning March 7 at svmusicfestival.org or by calling 208.622.5607.

In partnership with the Sun Valley Music Festival. The program will be livestreamed and available to view later. Click here to watch online.

This lively discussion group is a perennial favorite for inquisitive minds in the Wood River Valley. The curriculum is developed by the Foreign Policy Association, and it investigates a range of contemporary foreign and domestic policy issues. The discussions will be moderated by Don Liebich, who has been involved with economic development, citizen diplomacy, and human rights projects in the Middle East. Don is an author and an international consultant.

Topics for the 2023 program include energy geopolitics, war crimes, China and the U.S., economic warfare, politics in Latin America, global famine, Iran, and climate migration.

Class dates are Tuesdays and Thursdays, March 7 – 30.* Registration is free, but purchase of a the Great Decisions 2023 Briefing Book is required. Click here to purchase the book through the FPA.

*Note: The class for March 14 has been adjusted to Monday, March 13.

Register once to attend all sessions.

More/register here.

A One-Woman Performance by Mary Mott 

Mary Mott observes. Reflects. Questions.

She writes about things we don’t usually talk about or consider. But she does. She peels away the layers  revealing a self that is vulnerable. Unsure. But willing to be the brunt of any issue she stumbles into. And there are many.

What does it feel like to be female now? After 60? What will our children remember of us? Why living in the middle can get us stuck. What an empty house tells us. Grief.

Mary Mott has performed four one-woman shows covering various aspects of her life. Her shows, writings and podcasts can be found on her website: marymottwrites.com. She started writing in college and quickly moved into the advertising business in New York and San Francisco for over twenty-five years. After moving to the Wood River Valley she wrote a column for the local paper originally called “Mindsoup,” and co-hosted a weekly radio show. 

This show, “As I see it”, will be a concoction of observations, musings, stories and readings. Please join us. Bring a friend. Run time is one hour. The performance will be livestreamed and recorded.

More/register here.

with Kali Fajardo-Anstine

Join your local libraries for the closing of the 2023 Winter Read, featuring keynote speaker Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author and National Book Award Finalist. Her debut story collection, and this year’s community read, “Sabrina & Corina,” made waves in the literary community for its honest, provocative look at life in the American West for women of Latina and Indigenous descent.

Drawing from her Southern Colorado heritage and life experiences living across the American West, Fajardo-Anstine’s writing and lectures reflect her own heritage as a Colorado Chicana with roots in Indigenous, Latina, and Filipino cultures. In rousing talks that challenge the status quo, Fajardo-Anstine speaks about her racial and familial identity, the systems in our society that hold back marginalized people, and the craft of writing about and researching one’s cultural roots. 

In Sabrina & Corina, Fajardo-Anstine puts Latinas of Indigenous descent living in the American West at the center of each story. Her words serve as a powerful meditation on friendships, identity, mothers and daughters, and the deep-rooted truths of our homelands. Against the remarkable backdrop of Denver, Colorado, the women in these stories navigate the land the way they navigate their lives: with caution, grace, and quiet force. 

In addition to being a finalist for the National Book Award, Sabrina & Corina was also a finalist for the Story Prize, a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection, and the winner of the American Book Award. The collection was named one of the best books of the year by the New York Public Library, Kirkus Reviews, and Library Journal, and the American Library Association named it a 2020 Notable Book. 

The program will be livestreamed and available to view later. Link forthcoming.

Fajardo-Anstine is also the author of the novel Woman of Light (June 2022), a dazzling epic of betrayal, love, and fate that spans five generations of an Indigenous Chicano family in the American West. Her stories and essays have appeared in GAY Magazine, The American Scholar, Boston Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Southwestern American Literature, Electric Literature, and more. Fajardo-Anstine has attended residencies at Yaddo, where she was the 2017 recipient of The LeSage-Fullilove Residency, Hedgebrook, and MacDowell Colony. 

Kali Fajardo-Anstine earned her MFA from the University of Wyoming and has lived across the country, from Durango, Colorado, to Key West, Florida. She is the 2022/23 Endowed Chair of Creative Writing at Texas State University.

More/register here.