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Curated events featuring five tellers who develop and shape their stories with The Moth directors. Moth stories are true, as remembered by the storyteller and always told live. Beyond theater, The Moth Mainstage is a community where entertainment and enlightenment merge.

In the 1970s, with the swagger of unapologetic Indianness, organizers of the American Indian Movement (AIM) fought for Native liberation and survival as a community of extended families. “Warrior Women” is the story of Madonna Thunder Hawk, one such AIM leader who shaped a kindred group of activists’ children – including her daughter Marcy – into the “We Will Remember” Survival School as a Native alternative to government-run education. Together, Madonna and Marcy fought for Native rights in an environment that made them more comrades than mother- daughter. Today, with Marcy now a mother herself, both are still at the forefront of Native issues, fighting against the environmental devastation of the Dakota Access Pipeline and for Indigenous cultural values. Through a circular Indigenous style of storytelling, this film explores what it means to navigate a movement and motherhood and how activist legacies are passed down and transformed from generation to generation in the context of colonizing government that meets Native resistance with violence. The film runs 64 minutes and will be followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Dr. Elizabeth A. Castle, who will join us remotely. This program is part of the 2023 community-wide Winter Read.

Have you ever had trouble remembering people’s names? Do you ever come out of the grocery store and not remember where your car is? Have you ever missed an appointment? If you, or a loved one, have experienced any of these types of situations, this presentation is for you. On March 6, neurologist Dr. Richard Hammond of St. Luke’s Magic Valley Medical Center in Twin Falls will discuss the importance of our executive function skills in living a productive life, in particular how our memory serves us and how we can keep our memory healthy for an enhanced quality of life. Following Dr. Hammond 30-minute talk, attendees will have an opportunity to ask questions and explore topics related to brain health, such as caring for our brains through nutrition, sleep, and exercise. Register at www.comlib.org to save your seat. The Miracle of the Mind programs at The Community Library are presented in partnership with Anita Dromey, Speech-Language Pathologist at St. Luke’s Rehabilitation in Ketchum. Dr. Richard Hammond earned his bachelor’s degree from Oakland University. He performed his medical internship and neurology residency at Emory Affiliated Hospitals and completed his EEG/EMG fellowship at Emory University. He attended medical school at Wayne ...

Join your local libraries for the closing of the 2023 Winter Read, featuring keynote speaker Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author and National Book Award Finalist. Her debut story collection, and this year’s community read, “Sabrina & Corina,” made waves in the literary community for its honest, provocative look at life in the American West for women of Latina and Indigenous descent. The stories serve as powerful meditations on friendships, identity, mothers and daughters, and the deep-rooted truths of our homelands. Register online, as space is limited. The event will also be streamed on Vimeo. The Winter Read is an annual collaboration between The Community Library in Ketchum, Hailey Public Library, Bellevue Public Library, and the Stanley Community Library. Events are held January-March. Join us for speakers, films, discussions, exhibits and more throughout the valleys.

Mary Mott observes. Reflects. Questions. She writes about things we don’t usually talk about or consider. But she does. She peels away the layers revealing a self that is vulnerable. Unsure. But willing to be the brunt of any issue she stumbles into. And there are many. What does it feel like to be female now? After 60? What will our children remember of us? Why living in the middle can get us stuck. What an empty house tells us. Grief. Mary Mott has performed four one-woman shows covering various aspects of her life. Her shows, writings and podcasts can be found on her website: marymottwrites.com. She started writing in college and quickly moved into the advertising business in New York and San Francisco for over twenty-five years. After moving to the Wood River Valley she wrote a column for the local paper originally called “Mindsoup,” and co-hosted a weekly radio show. This show, “As I see it”, will be a concoction of observations, musings, stories and readings. Please join us. Bring a friend. Run time is one hour. The performance will be livestreamed and recorded.

What happens to a community as it faces the changes that come with growth and change? As we’ve all felt the effects of Idaho being the fastest growing state in the nation, many of us have wondered what lies ahead for our community. Will wildlife still wander down Main Street? Will recreation still be as memorable? Will this valley still be the kind of place we all love to live, work, and play in? This fall, at the Sun Valley Economic Forum, Dr. Jaap Vos gave a talk about the incredibly difficult conversation and community discussions that need to happen in the face of growth and change. This moving presentation was a highlight of the Sun Valley Economic Forum, and has prompted plenty of discussion. In a recent “Our View” opinion from the Idaho Mountain Express, we’re reminded that we’ve had to navigate these hard questions before. For Blaine County and its cities in the 1970s, adapting to change was a do-it-yourself project. Unlike nearly any other communities in the nation, they adopted zoning that kept commercial development off the highway, development off its hillsides and protected downtown vitality and livability. This is why the Sun Valley area is still ...

Join The Community Library for a conversation with Peter Mann, Writer-In-Residence at the Hemingway House and author of “The Torqued Man”: a brilliant debut novel, at once teasing literary thriller and a darkly comic blend of history and invention, set in wartime Berlin and propelled by two very different but equally mesmerizing voices: a German spy handler and his Irish secret agent, neither of whom are quite what they seem. Named one of the Best Books of 2022 by The New Yorker. Mann will be in conversation with the Library’s executive director, Jenny Emery Davidson. A book signing will follow. Berlin—September, 1945. Two manuscripts are found in rubble, each one narrating conflicting versions of the life of an Irish spy during the war. One of them is the journal of a German military intelligence officer and an anti-Nazi cowed into silence named Adrian de Groot, charting his relationship with his agent, friend, and sometimes lover, an Irishman named Frank Pike. In De Groot’s narrative, Pike is a charismatic IRA fighter sprung from prison in Spain to assist with the planned German invasion of Britain, but who never gets the chance to consummate his deal with the devil. Meanwhile, the other ...

For twelve years the Golden State Killer terrorized California, stalking victims and killing without remorse. Then he simply disappeared, for the next forty-four years, until an amateur DNA sleuth opened her laptop. In “I Know Who You Are: How An Amateur DNA Sleuth Unmasked The Golden State Killer And Changed Crime Fighting Forever,” Barbara Rae-Venter reveals how she went from researching her family history as a retiree to hunting for a notorious serial killer—and how she became the nation’s leading authority on investigative genetic genealogy, the most dazzling new crime-fighting weapon to appear in decades. Rae-Venter leads readers on a vivid journey through the many cases she tackled, often starting with little more than a DNA sample. From the first criminal case she ever solved to the search for the Golden State Killer, Rae-Venter shares haunting, often thrilling accounts of how she helped solve some of America’s most chilling cold cases in the span of just three years. “I Know Who You Are” captures both the exhilaration of the moment of discovery and the sheer depth of emotion that lingers around cold cases, informing Rae-Venter’s careful approach to her work. It is a story of relentless curiosity, of constant invention ...