The Community Library, a non-profit institution in Ketchum, Idaho, each year holds an Ernest Hemingway Seminar focusing on the work and life of the author who spent many years, including his final ones, in the Ketchum/Sun Valley area. The seminar began in 2009 and is now in its 17th year.
The Community Library is composed of the library, the Jeanne Rodger Lane Center for Regional History and its archive, the Wood River Museum of History and Culture and its archive, the Gold Mine Thrift and Consign stores, and the historic Ernest and Mary Hemingway House and Preserve, a private residence and the site of an ongoing residency program. We are a privately-funded institution, supported entirely by donations, grants, and income from the Gold Mine stores.
The Ernest Hemingway Seminar is held each September over two and a half days at the library, and annually we select a Hemingway text to focus on as our theme. The program is a mix of presentations, panels, conversations, discussion groups, films, receptions, and creative dramatic readings of Hemingway texts and texts reimagined. The audience of about 100 people is non-academic, but enjoys a rigorous examination of the author's life and work. We invite several keynote speakers each year, and faculty from Boise State University, a sponsor of the event, also present. To view past speakers, topics, and agendas, visit: www.comlib.org/programs/hemingway-seminar/
For 2025, we are initiating an open call for presentations that invites scholars, historians, graduate students, and others to submit your ideas. We anticipate accepting 2-3 proposals, and invited speakers will be responsible for their own travel and lodging. Their seminar fee will be waived.
This year's central text is the book, "A Moveable Feast." We'll be exploring Ernest Hemingway's time in Paris, his early writing career, and the role of memory and nostalgia in this posthumous publication.
Three presentations have already been confirmed: an opening keynote on the compilation of "AMF" from Ernest's intentions to the present; "AMF" as travel writing; and Hemingway's Three Muses in "AMF": Sylvia Beach, Hadley Richardson, and Gertrude Stein. Duplications of these topics will not be considered.
The seminar advisory committee welcomes proposals for presentations, readings, or other formats in lengths from 30-45 minutes. We are seeking dynamic speakers who will engage our deeply knowledgeable audience and participate in the community atmosphere of our seminar (i.e. not just reading a paper). Topics closely connected to our theme text are more likely to be accepted.
Deadline for proposals: May 2, 2025. Submission site.
Selected proposals will be announced June 6, 2025.
Seminar dates: September 4-6, 2025.