Library closes … the year with a big party

Thursday, December 03, 2009

By Matthew Irwin

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Attendees at last year’s Annual Library Benefit answered identically and emphatically, when asked why they supported the library: “I love the library.” They cited classes, readings, clubs, guest speakers, “and, of course, the books.” And most of it, free – don’t think you can get out of those late fees.

This week is the library’s biggest of the year with its free Page to the Podium presentation featuring nature writer Barry Lopez on Thursday, a memoir-writing class with Debra Gwartney Friday morning and the Teton County Library Foundation fundraiser Friday night.

As is the case for most Page to the Podium events, the free tickets for Barry Lopez’s reading have been claimed and the library is holding a waiting list. If you have a ticket, but can’t use it, return it, so someone else can go.

Once a landscape photographer, Lopez now captures the emotional and necessary human connection to nature with his pen. He urges that humans are very little without a sense of place. The Earth has an importance for us perhaps greater than mere survival, and our meditation over this shared need can help us confront social and environmental disparities.

Lopez is author of Arctic Dreams, which won him the National Book Award, and Of  Wolves and Men, a National Book Award finalist, as well as many other works of fiction and nonfiction.

Readers ready to open their lives, and journals, to the public might find useful the Debra Gwartney workshop, “Writing Your Memoir,” Friday morning.
Hosted with the Jackson Hole Writers Conference, the workshop will teach how to form an interesting and moving narrative out of memories.

Gwartney is author of the memoir, Live Through This, co-editor of Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape with Barry Lopez, and nonfiction writing faculty member at Portland State University.

Maybe it’s the people, the music, the food, the venue – the “library party” at the Four Seasons Resort in Teton Village has a reputation for being one of, if not the, best annual get-togethers. Last year, it sold out at 400 guests. They donated more than $100,000 for library programs, and, in return, enjoyed snow crab, oysters, sushi, braised pork and rabbit, all provided by the Four Seasons.
The Four Seasons promises as bountiful a spread, this year, with Pam Drews Phillips Quartet providing the entertainment, and a special one-night rate of $150 for a room (driving home early is no alternative).

Page to the Podium: Barry Lopez is 6:30 p.m., Thursday, at the Center Theater, Center for the Arts; free. “Writing Your Memoir,” is 10 a.m., Friday, at Teton County Library; free. The Annual Library Benefit is 7 p.m., Friday, in the Cottonwood Ballroom at Four Seasons Resort (732-5000 to reserve a room); $100. 733-2164 for tickets, waiting lists, etc.


Courtesy Photo
DAVID LIITTSCHWAGER

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Library closes … the year with a big party | Planet JH News Article: General Music Arts and Culture

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