Writer-in-Residence Program

2024 Sun Valley Playwright’s Resident. Award-winning playwright of The Treasurer and Judy. A Sundance Institute fellow, recipient of a Heideman Award, a Helen Merrill Emerging Playwright Award, and two Le Compte du Nuoy Awards from Lincoln Center. On-stage Conversation on October 2.

Both retired from careers in national security, currently collaborating on a book based on Rising family letters. Ernest Hemingway’s Best Friend: Introducing General Buck Lanham on November 21.

English-born professor in Montana, writes on wildlife and climate, winner of the 2022 Andrew Light Award for Public Philosophy, and author of Tenacious Beasts. Program information forthcoming.

Award-winning playwright and novelist. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and author of the novels Homeland Elegies and American Dervish. Community Speaker Series on Vimeo.

Winner of the Lightship International Short Story Prize and creative writing instructor. Author of Blind Speed, Before Hiroshima, and Mexico. “Wonder Travels” on Vimeo.

Artist whose large-scale multimedia projects fuse performance art, video, and sculptural installation. Works include The Cremaster Cycle, River of Fundament, and Redoubt. “Redoubt” Film Screening.

Wilderness advocate, activist, and the author of more than thirty books, including the short story collections The Watch and For a Little While; the memoir Colter; and the novel All the Land to Hold Us.

Fifth U.S presidential inaugural poet—the first Latino, immigrant, and gay person to serve in such a role. Author of several collections of poetry, chapbooks, and memoirs. 2020 Hemingway Distinguished Lecture on Vimeo.

Obie-award-winning playwright and inaugural Sun Valley Playwright’s Resident in 2021. Plays include Harry Clarke, We’re Only Alive for A Short Amount of Time, and Sandra. Playwright reception on Vimeo.

Writer, translator, and the author of The Line Becomes a River, winner of the 2018 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in nonfiction. “The Line Becomes a River” on Vimeo and 2024 Writing Workshop.

Author of Leda and the Swan and an assistant professor in creative writing at Boise State University. Editor-in-chief of the Idaho Review. To Taste Life Twice 2024 Instructor.

2023 winner of an Academy of American Poets Prize and a current MFA candidate at the University of Arizona, where they are a 2023 Southwest Field Studies in Writing fellow. Writing Workshop: Finding Your Center on May 30.

Book critic for NPR’s Fresh Air, columnist, and professor. Author of Leave me Alone I’m Reading and So We Read On: How the Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why it Endures. Winter Read 2024 Kickoff.

Best-selling author and journalist known for meticulously reported narrative nonfiction. Author of The Stahl House and What Stands in a Storm. “In Light of All Darkness.”

Professor and Chair of English at Troy University. Executive director of the international F. Scott Fitzgerald Society and the author of several works of fiction and criticism. 2024 Ernest Hemingway Seminar.

Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor and Chair of History at Weber State University whose work focuses on environmental politics in the U.S. Author of Losing Eden: An Environmental History of the American West.

Environmental ethicist and Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Santa Clara University who through her work argues in favor of biodiversity, wildness, forest, and dark sky conservation. Music in the Dark on Vimeo

Author of Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You. Her work has appeared in Kenyon Review and elsewhere. A 2019 graduate of the Boise State University MFA Program in Creative Writing. “Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You” on Vimeo.

Writer and lecturer since 2008 in geography, environmental studies, and writing at the College of Idaho in Caldwell. Workshop at the Hemingway House.

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and a National Book Award-winning author of nine books, including The Big Burn and A Pilgrimage to Eternity. 2021 Hemingway Distinguished Lecture on Vimeo.

Author of 16 books, including Last Words of the Executed, Hidden Hemingway, Hemingway in Comics, and Moby-Dick: Illustrated by Gilbert Wilson. “Hemingway in Comics” on Vimeo.

Graduate Creative Writing student at the University of Denver. Fourth annual Writing by Writers residency recipient. Fiction writer, outdoor enthusiast, and an avid sewist. Collage Poetry Workshop.

Memoirist, poet, and essayist. She mentors high school teens in the juvenile system and co-hosts a radio program, Writer to Writer. She earned two MFAs, one in CNF, the other in Poetry. Author of a memoir-in-verse, Tangled By Blood. To Taste Life Twice Seminar.

Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Elderflora and On Zion’s Mount. 2021 Jack Grove Writer-In-Residence, and returning resident in 2023. Trees and Writing on Vimeo.

Author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, the Library’s 2020 Winter Read and winner of the 2010 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. Also the author of The Many Daughters of Afong Moy and two other novels. 2020 Winter Read Keynote on Vimeo.

Author Family Attractions, The Chinchilla Farm, A Desert of Pure Feeling, Red Water, Set for Life, The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and The Woman He Loved, and MacArthur Park. “MacArthur Park” on Vimeo.

Dancer, choreographer, and educator. Artistic Director at SFDanceworks. Residency in partnership with Ballet Sun Valley.

Classically-trained violinist, President of the board of the Chelsea Symphony in New York City, and now resident Concertmaster for the Wood River Valley Orchestra. Community concerts.

Author of six critically acclaimed novels, winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction, and graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. “One True Sentence” on Crowdcast.

Writer, editor, and environmental columnist for Outside online. Author of the books Downriver, and Powder Days. How Does Water Matter in the West? on Vimeo.

Renowned musician, poet, and the first Native American U.S. Poet Laureate, celebrated for her significant contributions to art and literature. 2024 Hemingway Distinguished Lecture.

Writer of short stories and novels, winner of a Whiting Award, a National Magazine Award, and fellowships from the NEA, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Idaho Commission on the Arts. To Taste Life Twice Seminar 2023-24.

Health advocate, author, and film/television producer. Author of Invisible Girl and Out Came the Sun, as well as Running with Nature, Mariel’s Kitchen, and Finding My Balance.

Photographer of the series Landscapes for the Homeless and Discarded, and the monographs Anthony Hernandez (SFMOMA) and Forever (MACK). Recipient of a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship, among other honors.

Author of the memoir, Deep Creek, as well as two novels, Contents May Have Shifted and Sight Hound, two collections of short stories, Cowboys Are My Weakness and Waltzing the Cat, and a collection of essays, A Little More About Me.

Author of Eleutheria and the short story collections Of This New World and The Last Catastrophe. “Eleutheria” on Vimeo.

Acclaimed singer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter. A graduate of the Berklee College of Music. A Song Film by Kishi Bashi: “Omoiyari” and Music in the Dark

Craig Johnson is the New York Times bestselling author of the Longmire mysteries and the recipient of the Western Writers of America Spur Award for fiction. Craig Johnson on Vimeo.

Screenwriter, actor, producer, activist. Films include Imagine I’m Beautiful and Bite Me. Author of The Wrong Kind of Women: Inside Our Revolution to Dismantle the Gods of Hollywood. “The Wrong Kind of Women” on Vimeo.

2023 Sun Valley Playwright’s Resident. Obie Award-winner and grant awardee for Outstanding New American Play by the National Endowment for the Arts. Conversation on Vimeo.

A 2023 AmeriCorps Lead for America Fellow, helping Iowans build bridges with their immigrant neighbors. Graduate of Stanford University. Open Book Storytelling Event.

Award-winning staff writer at The New Yorker magazine and author of Empire of Pain and Say Nothing, and Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks. Community Speaker Series event.

Author of the poetry collections Mirrorforms and Deviants. Former Wallace Stegner Fellow, director of the Bazaar Writers Salon, and writing teacher at the University of San Francisco and Stanford. Reading and Conversation on Vimeo.

Journalist and author, reporting on travel, food, and style. Longtime contributor to The New York Times and other outlets. Writing Workshop: What Makes a Good Story?.

Screenwriter and inaugural Writing by Writers residency recipient. Dispatches from a Residency on Vimeo.

Founding member of Big Dance Theater, actor, and recipient of two Bessies and an Obie Award. “Cage Shuffle” and A Life on Stage on Vimeo.

Artist and educator based in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, specializing in traditional Mexican papier-mâché art. His work is on exhibit as part of the 2023 Winter Read. “Las Catrinas: A Celebration of Mexican Culture”.

Author of the novels The Roxy Letters and Wildfire. She has an MA in English/Creative Writing from the University of Texas and an MFA in Creative Writing from Boise State University. Writing workshop.

Author of Home Waters: A Chronicle of Family and a River, five other works on wildland fires, and an award winning author and journalist. The Boy, the War, and the Big Two-Hearted River on Vimeo.

Second annual Sun Valley Playright’s Resident in 2022. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Cost of Living, Sanctuary City, Queens, and Ironbound. Reading and conversation on “Cost of Living.”

Author of The Torqued Man and a graphic artist and cartoonist. Teaches history and literature in Stanford’s Master of Liberal Arts program. “The Torqued Man” on Vimeo.

Author, historian, curator, and associate professor of law at New York Law School. Winter Read 2024: “When Books Went to War” on Vimeo.

Conservationist and author of On the Dark Side of the Moon, a memoir, and Living in the Broken West, a book of essays. Workshop on Self-Publishing: How Do You Do It?

Third annual Writing by Writers residency recipient. Short story writer, graduate of the Columbia University MFA program, and a 2018 Tin House Scholar. How to Overcome Writer’s Block Workshop.

Author and former Chief of Disguise in the CIA’s Office of Technical Service. “ARGO”: Behind the Scenes and “In True Face.”

Ali Noorani is the Program Director of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s U.S. Democracy program, and formerly the president & chief executive officer of the National Immigration Forum. Crossing Borders on Vimeo.

Award-winning filmmaker and Executive Director of the Japanese Community Youth Council. Works include Reparations and Alternative Facts: The Lies of Executive Order 9066. He also produces content for the Stop Repeating History campaign.

Author of A Sea of Change: Ernest Hemingway and the Gulf Stream and editor of the Teaching Ernest Hemingway series for Kent State University Press. Research on the Library’s David Meeker Collection.

Author of Bitterbrush Country: Living on the Edge of the Land, a collection of short essays revealing humorous, heartwarming, and heartbreaking moments from her life on Idaho’s Flat Top Sheep Ranch.

Author of the poetry collections Double Portrait and The Curiosities. Teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Stanford University. Reading and Conversation on Vimeo.

Environmental historian and author of American Zion: Cliven Bundy, God and Public Lands in the West. 2021 Jack Grove Writer-In-Residence. “True West” on Vimeo.

Novelist, Crested Butte indie bookstore owner, and second annual Writing by Writers residency recipient. “A New West” on Vimeo.

Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions. How Will the Rural Economy Support or Drag Down China’s Future Growth? on Vimeo.

Digital media executive and former Chief Executive Officer of Match.com and Ask.com.

Writer, reporter, and producer, and author of Every Day the River Changes. “Stranger in the Desert” on Vimeo.

Writer, teacher, critical theorist, scholar of religion, and author of five books, including Stranger Care: A Memoir of Loving What Isn’t Ours, and Draw Your Weapons, winner of the 2018 PEN-America Award for Creative Nonfiction.

Teacher, administrator, consultant, and author of Influencing Hemingway. Papa’s Places on Vimeo.

Author of two poetry collections, Almanac and Flyover Country, and has received NEA and Wallace Stegner fellowships in prose. Teaches at Stanford University. “Big Two-Hearted River” Class.

Editor of BBC Music Magazine. Editor of The Strad from 2017-2022, and has also worked for Gramophone Magazine and as a freelance arts writer. Also performs as an active chamber musician.

Nonfiction writer and author of All the Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf. Writing workshop.

2023 Jack Grove Writer-In-Residence. Author of No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us, and Associate Professor at American University. “Women We Buried, Women We Burned” on Vimeo.

Emmy-nominated producer, documentary filmmaker, activist, and Co-founder of Advocates for Inclusion in Media. Media and Ourselves on Vimeo.

16th Supreme Allied Commander at NATO and author of twelve books on leadership, the oceans, maritime affairs, and Latin America.

Author of Wild, Tiny Beautiful Things, Brave Enough, and Torch. 2020 Jack Grove Writer-In-Residence. Virtual writing workshop, Cheryl Calling on Vimeo, and A Tiny Beautiful Evening.

Author of The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, The Lonely Polygamist, and Letting Loose the Hounds. Writing workshop.

Acclaimed writer and author of Goodnight, Irene, The House of Broken Angels, Into the Beautiful North, The Devil’s Highway, and other titles. 2023 Hemingway Distinguished Lecture on Vimeo.

Author of The Golden Spruce, The Tiger, The Jaguar’s Children, and Fire Weather. “Fire Weather” on Vimeo.

Tucson-based musician and artist whose work uses songwriting, sampling, field recording, video, installation and collaboration to ask questions about place, the duality of inner and outer landscapes and one’s role in the natural world. Deep Listening Workshop.

Author of The Quick and the Dead, a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize, and four collections of stories, as well as Ill Nature, a book of essays. Visited in partnership with Boise State University’s MFA Program and led two student workshops.

Award-winning author of Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place and When Women Were Birds, among others. Currently the Writer-in-Residence at the Harvard Divinity School. 2019 Hemingway Distinguished Lecturer.

Senior Lecturer at Miami Herbert Business School. Hemingway’s Coda on Vimeo.

Educator and biologist from Salt Lake City where he teaches at Rowland Hall. Natural history survey of the Hemingway House Preserve and high school lesson plans blending science and literature.

Idaho’s 2016-2019 Writer in Residence, and co-founder of Storyfort. A graduate of Seattle Pacific University and the Boise State University MFA program. Writing Workshop: Short Form Hemingway and To Taste Life Twice Seminar 2023-24.

Former Director of The Arrupe Center for Community-Based Learning at Santa Clara University and a chaplain at Stanford University. “Beyond: How Humankind Thinks About Heaven” on Vimeo.

Award-winning novelist, short story writer, and memoirist. His work appears regularly in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, and other magazines and literary journals. The Art of the Story.

Author of the poetry collection Unaccompanied and Solito: A Memoir. Former Stegner Fellow at Stanford. “Solito: A Memoir” in 2023, and programs at Wood River Middle and High Schools in 2024.