Community Engagement

At SVWC we are proud to call the Sun Valley area home.

Your contribution to the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference goes beyond the Conference itself; it also helps fund our school and community programs, educating, inspiring, and fueling a love of literature and learning among students, teachers, and the entire Wood River Valley.

We collaborate year-round with the area’s schools, libraries, and other nonprofit organizations.

Please read more about our community initiatives and outreach efforts below.

Thanks to the support of our generous donors, we are able to provide free access to much of the SVWC content.

EDUCATE . . . Scholars & Fellows Program

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 four Writing Fellows in 2022—two from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and two 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.

SHAKIRAH PETERSON is a prose writer and multimedia artist whose work has been supported by the Hurston/Wright Foundation, Clarion West Writers’ Workshop, and Voices of Our Nation, among others. Her writing has appeared in The Amistad, Epiphany Magazine, The Citron Review, and elsewhere. Originally from Los Angeles, she is completing her MFA candidacy in Creative Writing at Louisiana State University.

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.

INSPIRE . . . Local School Initiatives

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.