We are pleased to invite the community to join us for our series of free 2025 Pavilion Lawn Talks.
We want our local community to enjoy all that SVWC has to offer, which is why we have opened up select Pavilion Talks for FREE seating on the lawn of the Sun Valley Pavilion. Bring a picnic, blanket, and low-back chair and join us July 19-21 to hear from some of our country’s most inspiring minds.
Select presentations will be broadcast live to the large jumbotron on the Pavilion lawn. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis—no ticketing or registration is required. You can browse our Bookstore Tent to purchase books by each author and join us for book signings following the talk. If you would prefer to watch from inside the Sun Valley Pavilion, we have a new Special Series Pavilion Pass available for select talks. We recommend signing up for our email newsletter to receive important updates and information about these events.
See the schedule of available talks below.
Sunday, July 20
Ocean Vuong
The Emperor of Gladness
Sunday, July 20 | 1:30pm – 2:30pm | Sun Valley Pavilion
In works of piercing beauty and heartrending grace, in poetry and prose, OCEAN VUONG has become one of his generation’s most necessary and unforgettable literary voices. Now, with The Emperor of Gladness, he returns with a bighearted second novel. One summer evening in post-industrial Connecticut, 19-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond. With his singular ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness, Vuong will discuss the novel and his writing with SVWC Literary Director JOHN BURNHAM SCHWARTZ.
Improvised Shakespeare Company
You Have to See It to Believe It
Sunday, July 20 | 3:00pm – 4:00pm | Sun Valley Pavilion
Now for some wit and joy and literary-inspired belly laughs. They come courtesy of the one-and-only IMPROVISED SHAKESPEARE COMPANY, a performing troupe that will put on a never-before-seen and never-to-be-been-again fully improvised Shakespearean masterpiece. Based on an audience suggestion for a title of the show, founder BLAINE SWEN and his merry band, ROSS BRYANT, BRENDAN DOWLING, and RANDALL HARR, will create an actual play right before our eyes. Nothing has been planned, rehearsed, or written down. This is improvisational theater at its most dazzling and risky—something to make the Bard himself laugh out loud.
Panel Discussion with Doris Kearns Goodwin, Evan Osnos & Max Boot
Our Transformative Presidents & How They Changed the Office & the Country
Sunday, July 20 | 4:30pm – 5:30pm | Sun Valley Pavilion
A few of the occupants of the highest office in the land have changed the nature and reach of the presidency and therefore the country itself. We have asked two preeminent presidential historians, DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN and MAX BOOT, to reflect upon the impact of transformative presidents and what combination of drive, vision, and charisma informed their White House tenures. Boot is the author of the much-lauded recent biography of President Ronald Reagan, and Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and has written books on Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. In conversation with award-winning journalist EVAN OSNOS, the author of a recent presidential biography on Joe Biden, they will offer wise, deeply-informed analyses of our transformative presidents and their lasting legacies.
Monday, July 21
Colum McCann
Twist
Monday, July 21 | 1:30pm – 2:30pm | Sun Valley Pavilion
From 9/11 (Let the Great World Spin) to war and peace both in Ireland (TransAtlantic) and Israel/Palestine (Apeirogon), COLUM McCANN has sought ways to channel the biggest stories of our age into resonant, elliptical, poetic works of fiction. His latest novel tells the story of a journalist sent to report on the complex work of repairing underwater cables that carry the world’s information. Dazzling on every level, human and technological, it is McCann at his best, finding beauty and mystery on the front lines of danger. Few novelists pay such close attention to the“stories of our times” as McCann, who will be in conversation with JEFFREY BROWN of the PBS NewsHour.
Vivek H. Murthy, MD
From the Heart
Monday, July 21 | 3:00pm – 4:00pm | Sun Valley Pavilion
During his tenure as the Surgeon General of the United States, VIVEK H. MURTHY, MD became, in effect, our national healer. In a soft but strong voice, he spoke about the country’s maladies like addiction, depression, and violence, and he made the passionate case that loneliness was the contributor to many of those ills, including our over-dependence on social media. That message is at the heart of his book, Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection. In conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author ANDREA ELLIOTT, Murthy will talk about the book, about his own bouts of loneliness, and how we can each learn to be a healer in our own lives.
Carl Hiaasen
Fever Beach
Monday, July 21 | 4:30pm – 5:30pm | Sun Valley Pavilion
We close the 2025 Sun Valley Writers’ Conference on a note of high hilarity with one of our favorite and funniest authors, CARL HIAASEN, talking about his brand-new novel Fever Beach, another classic based—where else—in his home state of Florida. He will have you from the opening sentence, when a man named Dale Figgo picks up a hitchhiker on Gus Grissom Boulevard in Tangelo Shores, Florida. Their escapades will take them deep into Florida at its most Floridian: a sun-soaked bastion of rightwing extremism, white power, greed, and corruption. Hiaasen is the author of seven novels for young readers and fifteen previous novels for adults, including Bad Monkey, recently adapted into a hit Apple series starring Vince Vaughn, and which, if you haven’t already seen it, you will certainly want to after hearing this talk.
2025 Presenters
Be Inspired.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Oren Cass
Clara Bingham
Colum McCann
Sloane Crosley
Paola Ramos
Ruth Reichl
Nayantara Roy
Edward Luce
Sonia Purnell
Dan Jones
Abraham Verghese
Liz Moore
Carl Hiaasen
Griffin Dunne
Theodore H. Schwartz
Meenakshi Ahamed
Wright Thompson
Todd S. Purdum
Claire Keegan
Erling Kagge
Max Boot
The Improvised Shakespeare Company
Ocean Vuong
Jonathan Blitzer
Evan Osnos
Safiya Sinclair
Andre Dubus III
Yael van der Wouden
Admiral James Stavridis
Rachel Eliza Griffiths
Vivek H. Murthy, MD
PLEASE NOTE:
Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Please no high-backed chairs. By attending any Sun Valley Writers’ Conference event, you agree to our attendance & photo policy.