BY KAREN BOSSICK

Idaho authors Kim Barnes and Robert Wrigley will kick off The Community Library’s fourth annual To Taste Life Twice seminar on Thursday.

The couple, who are married to each other, will discuss their work and their time teaching creative writing at the University of Idaho. And they will share why telling stories matters during a presentation titled “Making Meaning at the Edge of Knowing” at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, May 7, at The Community Library.

To reserve your seat, go to https://thecommunitylibrary.libcal.com/event/16356534.

Writing workshops open to all will follow on Friday and Saturday, May 8 and 9.

Kim Barnes was raised in the logging camps and small towns of Idaho's Clearwater National Forest. Her novels and memoirs have been named among the best books of the year by San Francisco Chronicle, The Seattle Times, The Washington Post, and The Kansas City Star.

Her novel A Country Called Home received the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Fiction, and she is a recipient of the PEN/Jerard Award for her first memoir, In the Wilderness, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, WSJ, The Georgia Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, and the Pushcart Prize anthology. Her work explores the American West, how landscapes influence identity, faith and the beliefs we inherit and the expectations we navigate in the roles we are given or invent.

Robert Wrigley has written 12 books of poetry and one book of essays, exploring human proximity to the natural world, especially where beauty, violence, humor, and grief collide. Wilderness is a place of wonder and danger in his works, and death is no abstraction. His most recent book is The True Account of Myself As a Bird.

“When I moved to Idaho in 2009, Kim’s novel A Country Called Home was one of the first books placed in my hand by a librarian in Stanley,” said Martha Williams, The Community Library’s program director. “The American West was new territory to this southerner, and Kim’s writing helped orient me to this landscape.

“A book of Robert’s poetry fell into my hands soon after, and I saw how poems can influence our lives and the way we see the world and make sense of it in the every day.”

The annual To Taste Life Twice Seminar brings together Idaho writers for three days of workshops, readings, and discussions on craft. The free event is a collaboration between The Community Library and Story Forward, a Boise-based organization that presents literary events throughout the year.

On Friday, May 8, two workshops are offered from 2 to 5 p.m.: “Love’s Labors: Turning Relationships into Literary Form” with Thomas Dai, author of the essay collection Take My Name but Say It Slow and an assistant professor of English at the University of Idaho; and “Beginning with the Thing” with Robert Wrigley, which will explore ways of getting started in writing.

Saturday, May 9, begins with a 10:30 a.m. Writers Roundtable, where all five writing instructors from the weekend will gather to discuss craft and take questions. Coffee and light pastries will be served.

In the afternoon, three more workshops are offered from 1 to 4 p.m.: “Object to Essay: Finding Your Master Narrative” with Kim Barnes; “Laughing Matters” with Tiffany Midge, a former humor columnist for Indian Country Today and author of several books of essays, including Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese’s; and “Openings That Hook & Endings That Crush in Literary Fiction” with Christian Winn, a former Idaho Writer in Residence and the co-founder and Director emeritus of Boise’s annual Storyfort event.

The weekend closes with an opportunity for workshop participants to share their work with each other and the public from 5 to 7 p.m. Light refreshments will be available.

"The three days and evenings of the To Taste Life Twice seminar have been really beautiful, artful, and fun these past three years, and I cannot wait for our fourth year to kick off in May," said Winn, Director of Story Forward and author of the story collection, NAKED ME. "The whole long weekend of generative workshops, literary conversations, and community building in one of the most stunning mountain settings in the West is wholly unique and really inspiring.”

The seminar takes its name from a quote by the writer Anaïs Nin, who reflected that: We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.

“I have long loved this quote from Nin’s diaries,” said Martha Williams, the Library’s director of programs and education. “She’s speaking to how writing offers opportunities for reflection, for discovery, for speaking with others and ourselves through the written word. People may be compelled to write for many reasons, but this is often at the heart of it: to make sense of the world and our place in it.”

All events are held at the Community Library. Workshops require registration at https://comlib.org/programs/to-taste-life-twice-2026-seminar/.

The opening keynote, roundtable panel and closing reading are open to all. Registration is requested for the Thursday keynote, while the roundtable and closing are walk-in events.