Nearly 100 people gathered to raise awareness for upcoming Hemingway Festival
People of all ages clustered together at BookPeople of Moscow for a sneak peek into the upcoming Hemingway Festival.
The sneak peek event offered a fun environment for people who love writing, enjoy hearing local writer’s works or just love Hemingway.
Genie Tran | Rawr
Bret Shepard, a UI English professor, read his poems about Hawaii Jan. 16 at the Sneak Peeks event hosted by BookPeople of Moscow.
The event was full of laughter and applause, as 10 different University of Idaho writers read sections of their unpublished work to an audience. In between each writer’s readings, door prize gifts were given to lucky ticket holders and Hemingway trivia questions were asked to test the crowd’s knowledge, Jamaica Ritcher said.
“This was the first year the Sneak Peek has been done,” said Max Eberts, MC of the event and this year’s Hemingway Fellow. “I think it was a success, especially in sharing local works with the community.”
Ritcher, event coordinator of BookPeople, deemed the event a success. She said about 75 chairs were set up in the bookstore for the event, but those were quickly filled and some people watched the readings standing in the back row. She said there was likely 90 to 100 people at the event.
The Sneak Peek raised awareness for the rapidly approaching Hemingway Festival and provided an easy way to learn more about the event and about Hemingway.
Every year, the UI creative writing program awards a fellowship to a third-year Creative Writing graduate student. This chosen student is named the Hemingway Fellow and in addition to the fellowship, is given the honor to read some of his or her work and introduce a special guest at the festival.
This year, Eberts will have the opportunity to read some of his work and introduce the special guest and Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award Winner, NoViolet Bulawayo, author of the book, “We Need New Names.”
“Students at the University of Idaho and community members get the chance to go to the Kenworthy to hear national and internationally acclaimed writers,” Ritcher said. “That’s a big thing for a town of our size.”
Having lived and died in Idaho, the Hemingway Festival is a great way to honor Ernest Hemingway’s relationship to the state while also bringing exceptional talent to small-town Moscow, Ritcher said.
“We celebrate Hemingway and his life,” Eberts said. “It’s a wonderful festival and an opportunity to bring the Moscow community together with the UI writing program and English Department.”
This year is the sixth year the Hemingway Festival is coming to Moscow. The festival will take place March 3-6 at various locations in downtown Moscow. These events include readings, films, open-mics and one of the festival’s most anticipated events, A Moveable Feast.
A Moveable Feast is a multi-course feast directly inspired by Hemingway’s work. The feast is catered by Gnosh and the menu features foods similar to what Hemingway had eaten, based off his books and stories, Ritcher said.
“A Moveable Feast is a celebration, but also a fundraiser that helps to fund the department’s ability to sustain the Hemingway Fellow program,” she said.
The Hemingway Festival events start March 3, with Ron MacFarland reading “Appropriating Hemingway: Using Him as a Fictional Character” at BookPeople.
Alexia Neal can be reached at [email protected]