Ernest Hemingway Seminar explores 'Fathers and Sons' with Sherman Alexie

Ernest Hemingway with his sons.

The Community Library will host its annual Ernest Hemingway Seminar—a three-day affair for Hemingway enthusiasts and lovers of the written word to gather and discuss the life and work of the author—from Sept. 7 - 9.

This year’s theme—”Fathers and Sons”—invites attendees to read a selection of Hemingway’s short stories that center on the father-son relationship. Acclaimed author Sherman Alexie will deliver the keynote.

Attendees are asked to read six stories in preparation for the seminar: “Indian Camp,” “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife,” “My Old Man,” “Ten Indians,” “Fathers and Sons,” and “An African Story.” Set in Hemingway locales from Michigan to Africa, Italy, and France, the stories examine father-son relationships that often imitate Hemingway’s own relationships with his father, Clarence Edmonds Hemingway, and his three sons Jack, Patrick, and Gregory.

“Each year, we select a central text and theme, and then shape three days of events to dive deeply into Hemingway’s writing, the context of his works, and discussions on how we can engage with his literary legacy today,” said Martha Williams, the library’s director of programs and education who oversees the event. “It’s an incredible weekend of close reading, learning, engaging, and being in dialogue with others who are interested in continuously examining Hemingway’s relevance and intrigue.”

The seminar has been held each year since 2009 and features scholars as well as contemporary literary figures and other special guests and events.

The seminar opens on Thursday evening with a lecture from National Book Award-winning author Sherman Alexie, who returns to the valley after speaking in 2017 as The Community Library’s inaugural Hemingway Distinguished Lecturer. Alexie will present an original talk composed for the seminar: “Two Indians: My Father and I Imagine Hemingway.” Alexie is a poet, writer, and filmmaker, and also winner of the PEN Faulkner Award. He’s the author of “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” among other titles. He’s an enrolled member of the Spokane Tribe of Indians and lives in Seattle.

Boise State University speakers Dr. Clyde Moneyhun and Dr. Stacey Guill begin the program Friday with a panel, during which they’ll examine the collection of this year’s stories and dive deeply into one of the stories (“My Old Man”). Friday afternoon will feature breakout discussions, when participants split into smaller groups to discuss three of the six short stories. Discussions are led by library staff, BSU scholars and MFA in creative writing students, and others, such as local educator and author Phil Huss (author of “Hemingway’s Sun Valley”). The first full day ends with a screening of “Under My Skin,” a 1950 adaptation of “My Old Man” starring John Garfield and Micheline Presle.

Saturday begins with a keynote talk from Dr. Marc Seals, Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Baraboo, who has written about Hemingway and trauma, and on F. Scott Fitzgerald and poet Gwendolyn Brooks. Seals will present his talk, “Ernest Hemingway: Fathers, Sons, and the Natural World,” which explores Hemingway’s two losses of his own father: emotional abandonment in his teen years and then by his father’s suicide in 1928. Seals will examine how these traumas emerge repeatedly in Hemingway’s fiction, and how the natural world is often the crucial setting.

Later that morning, participants will once again divide up into small groups to discuss the remaining three stories. In the afternoon, the letters of Ernest and his second son Patrick will be brought to life in a performance before the closing keynote lecture: “No One You Love is Ever Dead,” by Dr. Verna Kale, which will explore the complexities of parent-child relationships in Hemingway’s life and work.

Kale is Associate Research Professor of English at the Pennsylvania State University and Associate Editor of the Hemingway Letters Project. She is the author of a biography of Hemingway and editor of the forthcoming Norton Library edition of “The Sun Also Rises.” During her time in Ketchum, the Hemingway scholar will also spend time with the library’s collection of Hemingway items, particularly The Community Library’s Jeanne Roger Lane Center for Regional History David Meeker Collection on Ernest Hemingway.

Registration is required to attend the three-day seminar. In-person tickets are $95, and a fully-virtual option is also available for $30. A limited number of single-event tickets are also available for Alexie’s opening keynote on Thursday night. Learn more and register at comlib.org/programs-and-exhibits/hemingway-seminar/.

A special screening of the film “Smoke Signals,” which is based on a short story by Alexie and for which he wrote the screenplay, will run on Wednesday, Sept. 6. This event is free and open to the community, though pre-registration is required to attend. Alexie will help introduce the film, which is set on a Coeur d’Alene reservation. It is the first feature film written, directed, and produced by Native Americans and nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. The film is PG-13, and the run time is 89 minutes. Seats can be reserved at www.comlib.org. 

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“It’s an incredible weekend of close reading, learning, engaging, and being in dialogue with others who are interested in continuously examining Hemingway’s relevance and intrigue.”

Martha Williams

The Community Library

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