Join Sundance, Utah artists Jay Jay and Megan to make your own handmade journal to launch your summer naturalist season. This session will be limited in space and will include a required fee for materials.

Isaac Hayden nationally acclaimed singer and songwriter. Isaac Hayden finds inspiration in his surroundings after being raised on the San Juan Islands in Washington State and Jackson, Wyoming.

Winds in the Breeze, hosted by Meaghan Heinrich.  

Experience the contemplative setting of the Murie Ranch while being serenaded by music for woodwind quintet. Education Curator Meaghan Heinrich joins Festival Orchestra musicians to weave the program together with poetry and prose, and you’ll get an official kickoff to this year’s GTMF opera with music from Mozart’s Magic Flute!

Katherine E. Standefer‘s debut book Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life was a Finalist for the Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction, a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice/Staff Pick, and shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Prize from Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Lightning Flowers was also selected as the Common Read at Colorado College in ’22-’23, featured on NPR’s Fresh Air, and named one of O, The Oprah Magazine‘s Best Books of Fall 2020. Standefer earned her MFA in Creative Nonfiction at the University of Arizona. She has been a Logan Nonfiction Fellow at the Carey Institute for Global Good and a Marion Weber Healing Arts Fellow at the Mesa Refuge. Her work was included in The Best American Essays 2016. Standefer began spending summers in Jackson Hole in 2000. She was a Murie Center intern in 2006 and helped steward the ranch during an organizational transition in 2008 She currently lives in a cabin in Alpine, Wyoming.

Sara Flitner has more than 25 years of experience in organizational strategy, leadership innovation, and authentic communication. As a trained and certified mediator, she built Flitner Strategies, Inc. to help people solve hard problems. Using science-backed tools that build focus and resilience, Flitner is known for getting results. After serving as mayor of Jackson, Wyoming, she founded Becoming Jackson Whole, a nonprofit centered on mindfulness tools to reduce stress, increase resilience, and facilitate more compassionate dialogue in an effort to create positive change on a community-wide scale. She has served on many local and regional boards, including the Community Foundation of Jackson Hole, the Environmental Quality Council, First Interstate Bank Foundation, CLIMB Wyoming, and Center for the Arts.  In 2021 the Wyoming Women’s Council recognized her as “Entrepreneur of the Year.” A native of Shell, Sara’s two college-aged sons are five generations deep in Wyoming. Sara spends her free time with them, or in the mountains – on skis, a mountain bike, or with dogs.

Driggs, ID-based folk duo Jack & Kia consists of Coloradan Jack Tolan and New Hampshire native Kia Mosenthal. The duo’s intimate, acoustic style is inspired by their mutual love of wild spaces and organic soundscapes. Tolan’s heartfelt songwriting is complemented by Mosenthal’s harmonies to produce a honeyed, down-to-earth sound. Multi-instrumentalist Tolan is also a member of the Telluride, CO-based Americana quartet Birds of Play. Jack released his first solo EP Snacks in January 2020 which features Kia’s distinctive vocal harmonies.

The Power of the People, hosted by Meaghan Heinrich

Can a conversation spark a revolution? Can music really change the world? Hear bold selections from string quartets by Beethoven and Shostakovich interspersed with stories from Olaus and Mardie Murie’s tireless efforts to save the integrity of their beloved wilderness.

Stay tuned!

Evan Griffith is the author of the middle-grade novels Manatee Summer and The Strange Wonders of Roots (both Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selections) and the picture book biographies Secrets of the Sea: The Story of Jeanne Power, Revolutionary Marine Scientist and Wild at Heart: The Story of Olaus and Mardy Murie, Defenders of Nature. His books have received multiple starred reviews and been recognized as Bank Street’s Best Children’s Books of the Year, National Science Teachers Association Best Stem Books, and Chicago Public Library’s Best Informational Books for Younger Readers. Evan studied creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received his MFA in Writing for Children at the Vermont College of Fine Arts where he now serves as faculty. He worked for several years as an editor at Workman Publishing in New York City, where he specialized in non-fiction for children and adults, and he continues to take on select editorial projects. He often teaches online writing classes and enjoys mentoring writers of all ages. He lives in Austin, Texas with a mischievous tuxedo cat and several overflowing bookshelves.

Mardy and Olaus Murie fell in love in–and with–Alaska. Then set out on an adventure across the Arctic for Olaus’s work as a biologist, encountering the beauty and danger of the wilds along the way. They learned from Indigenous communities to appreciate the interconnectedness of all living creatures and understood that the way humans were moving in on wild land was threatening the natural world. So they shifted the focus of their work to conservation, fighting to protect the land and animals–and lobbying for the creation of what finally became the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, nine thousand square miles of protected land! Mardy and Olaus’s story of passion and hard work will inspire all readers to fan their spark of purpose into flame. Backmatter includes additional information on Mardy and Olaus, their legacy, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and more.