Community Engagement

Education Fellows

We have expanded our Fellows program for 2022 to include representatives from Teach for America. They will attend the Conference and offer feedback about the potential for future collaboration with TFA corps teachers and classrooms.

Writing Fellows

SVWC is committed to bringing aspiring writers to the Conference and providing them with inspiration and direction as they embark on their creative paths. We are thrilled to welcome three Writing Fellows in 2022—two from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and one from Louisiana State University’s Creative Writing MFA Program—who have been recommended by the faculty of their institutions/programs.

DAVID ASTROFSKY is a writer and teacher from Boston. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, recent finalist in Narrative Magazine‘s 2021 30 Below Contest, and is currently at work on a short-story collection and a novel.

JEREMIAH JENKINS is a writer and MFA candidate at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He is currently teaching undergraduate fiction in Iowa City while at work on his first short-story collection.

PENDA SMITH is an emerging writer originally from New York and a second-year MFA student at Louisiana State University. She is a two-time Watering Hole fellow, forthcoming Cave Canem fellow, and has work featured/forthcoming at HuffPost, Obsidian Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, Interim Poetics, and more.

Community Scholars

Thanks to the generosity of our donors, SVWC is proud to offer two local scholarships each year. A full pass, under the Barbara and Jim Cimino Scholarship, is awarded annually to the Executive Director of The Community Library. Another full pass is awarded each year to a local teacher or high school student through the Gary Hunt Scholarship in his memory.

Additionally, SVWC offers two full scholarship passes to Boise State University’s Creative Writing Department, Starting in 2023, proceeds from the annual bookstore profits will help to fund the lodging and travel and expenses for two candidates chosen by the faculty to attend the Conference. Below are our scholars for 2022.

NATANYA BISKAR is a fiction writer and holds an MFA from Boise State University, where she taught writing and served as Associate Editor for The Idaho Review. The recipient of a 2021 Alexa Rose Foundation Grant and the winner of the 2021 Glenn Balch Award for Fiction, her work has appeared in Subtropics, The Indiana Review, and SELF.

DESMOND EVEREST FULLER is an MFA candidate in fiction at Boise State University and the associate editor of The Idaho Review for the 2023 issue. His short stories are forthcoming or appear in Indiana Review, West Trade Review, The Gravity of the Thing, and elsewhere.

Community Scholars Student/Author Luncheon

SVWC, in conjunction with local high school teachers, chooses an author and book with a topic pertinent to students. SVWC donates copies of the book for students in the spring/summer Language Arts classes. The students read the book and are invited to attend any of the talks given by that writer during the Conference, including Pavilion talks or smaller breakouts.

The students are also invited to join the writer at a private luncheon hosted by SVWC in July during the Conference. This year’s featured author will be Anthony Doerr. In 2019, the featured author was Dave Eggers, who discussed his book, The Circle. Past authors have included Colson Whitehead discussing The Underground Railroad, and Karan Mahajan and his novel, The Association of Small Bombs. 

Fall Schools Speaker

In the fall of 2019, SVWC brought celebrated middle grade author, Pablo Cartaya, to the Wood River Valley to visit the area’s schools and speak to students and teachers, free of charge. He spoke to nearly 800 students at the Wood River Middle School and, in collaboration with The Community Library and Iconoclast Books, also gave a free presentation and book signing in the library’s Lecture Hall. We look forward to bringing this program back in the fall of 2022.

“Thank you for sharing your story with us. I appreciate that you’re encouraging students to learn their story and to get engaged with their family roots. Now it’s my time to find my story.”  –  WRMS 6th Grader, Thank You Note to Pablo Cartaya

 

“Thank you for coming to our school and giving the most awesome book talk ever! I really liked the way you told the stories – it made me laugh so hard I almost cried. Not lying.”  –  WRMS 7th Grader, Thank You Note to Pablo Cartaya

“Thank you for giving us your story. I have always thought authors of books are celebrities, but you reminded me that they are just ordinary people who have done extraordinary things.”  –  WRMS 6th Grader, Thank You Note to Pablo Cartaya

Free Student/Teacher Talks

In an effort to share the Writers’ Conference with our community, local students and teachers are invited to attend Pavilion talks for free, as space is available.

Free Lawn Talks

Since 2014, SVWC has offered a selection of Pavilion talks to the public on the upper lawn at no charge during the weekend of the Conference at the Sun Valley Resort. The local community is invited to attend these free events, with talks broadcast live to the Pavilion lawn big screen.

Lawn seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis beginning thirty minutes prior to each talk.

Single Event Tickets

Every year, SVWC offers individual tickets to a selection of Pavilion talks for purchase. Members of the local community are given priority during the sale of these tickets.

Community Speaker Series

Librarian Passes

For many years, SVWC has invited local librarians to attend Pavilion talks for free. The Community Library, Hailey Public Library, and Bellevue Public Library each receive several full Conference passes to share amongst their staff.

Partnership with Boise State Bookstore

For the last several years, the Boise State University Bookstore, a nonprofit entity, has managed the bookstore at the Conference, with 100% of the profits going toward the BSU Readers & Writers Scholarship Fund. The scholarship encourages intellectual growth for readers and writers in higher education.

Since 2016, almost $75,000 has been donated to the program through the SVWC Bookstore.

2016: $18,042.08

2017: $15,930.69

2018: $16,928.78

2019: $16,472.45

(2020: canceled)

2021: $5,000-$8,000 (exact amount still TBD)

Our enhanced selection of Free Programming includes Pavilion
Lawn Talks, the Beyond the Page podcast, and access to all
SVWC audio and video recordings, online and livestreamed via our website and YouTube channel.