BY KAREN BOSSICK

John Rember has the unique ability to wax eloquent about the sense of place that is the Wood River Valley and the Sawtooth Mountains, having been born in Sun Valley several decades ago.

He will read new essays recounting the meaning of place, growing up in Hailey, the impact of tourism on the West and a meditation on mortality at 5:30 p.m. tonight—Thursday, May 15, at Hailey Town Center West, 116 S. River St.

The essays he will read are from his new “Journals of the Plague Years” series.

Born in Sun Valley, Rember grew up in the Sawtooth Valley where he lives today. He began his education at Harvard University, earning an MFA at the University of Montana.

He has worked as a ski patrolman, wilderness ranger, technical writer, concrete and construction worker, high school teacher, bartender, journalist, and professor. He taught for many years at The College of Idaho in Caldwell and in the Pacific University MFA program in Forest Grove, Oregon.

Rember has published several books, including A Hundred Little Pieces on the End of the World (an Idaho Book of the Year 2020 Honorable Mention), MFA in a Box: A Why to Write Book, his memoir Traplines: Coming Home to Sawtooth Valley (Idaho Book of the Year 2004) and three short story collections: Sudden Death, Over Time; Cheerleaders from Gomorrah: Tales from the Lycra Archipelago and Coyote in the Mountains.