Beyond the Page: The Best of the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference
Episodes
Doris Kearns Goodwin: “An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s”
15 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
BEYOND THE PAGE Doris Kearns Goodwin: “An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s” In this episode – recorded live at the 2025 ...
Ocean Vuong "The Emperor of Gladness"
11 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode – recorded live at the 2025 Writers Conference – I have an intimate conversation, in front of 1500 people, with the novelist and p...
Dr. Vivek Murphy, From the Heart
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
During his tenure as the Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Vivek Murthy became, in effect, our national healer. In a soft but strong voice, he...
Margaret Atwood
09 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Margaret Atwood—author of more than 60 books in almost every conceivable genre, recipient of more than 100 literary prizes—is a global icon. Like ...
Niall Ferguson and Evan Osnos on Kissinger
18 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
No U.S. secretary of state ever achieved such celebrity while in office as Henry Kissinger; immersed in the philosophy of Kant and the diplomacy of Me...
Jonathan Eig on Martin Luther King, Jr.
03 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, recorded live at the 2024 conference, biographer Jonathan Eig talks about his book on Martin Luther King, Jr., the first major biogra...
The Radical Honesty of Judy Blume
11 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Beyond the Page, lucky listener, you get to hear the great Judy Blume, the author of twenty-five books for young readers and four n...
Dennis Lehane: Confessions of a Novelist Turned TV Showrunner
06 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, recorded live at the 2024 Writers Conference, I sit down with bestselling crime novelist and TV writer/producer DENNIS LEHANE for a l...
John Vaillant: Fire Weather
22 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We were already editing this episode when the L.A. fires broke out on January 7, 2025. In fact, our editor Dean Grinsfelder had to evacuate as the fla...
Kristin Hannah in conversation with Jenny Emery Davidson
13 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, recorded live at the 2024 Sun Valley Writers' Conference, novelist Kristin Hannah talks to Jenny Emery Davidson, the executive direct...
Ancient Wisdom and the Enduring Power of Community
02 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In a time of loneliness and isolation, social rupture and alienation, what will it take to mend our broken hearts and rebuild our society? In this epi...
Putin, Ukraine, and the Future of Russia
07 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The author of a seminal book on Putin, All The Kremlin’s Men, and the founding editor-in-chief of what was Russia’s most truth-telling opposition...
Patrick Radden Keefe
16 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, recorded live at the 2023 Sun Valley Writers’ Conference, New Yorker Staff Writer Patrick Radden Keefe, who has garnered prizes ran...
Curtis Sittenfeld
17 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In bestselling author Curtis Sittenfeld’s much-loved new novel, she explores—with her typically keen observations and trademark ability to bring c...
Javier Zamora in conversation with Mitchell Kaplan
24 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Beyond the Page, recorded live at the 2023 conference, poet and memoirist Javier Zamora talks to legendary bookseller Mitchell Kapl...
Swamp Story: Dave Barry's Florida
18 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Recorded at the closing of the 2023 Sun Valley Writers' Conference, Pulitzer Prize-winning humor writer (and one of the funniest people alive) Dave Ba...
Andrea Elliott in conversation with Ayad Akhtar
15 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist Andrea Elliot sits down with another Pulitzer winner, novelist and playwright Ayad Akhtar, at the 202...
Abraham Verghese: Writer in the World
09 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode, author and physician Abraham Verghese – who received the 2023 Sun Valley Writers’ Conference WRITER IN THE WORLD prize – bring...
Will Democracy Survive?
27 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, three of our most cogent and influential writers on global affairs and history – Anne Applebaum, Robert Kagan, and Evan Osnos – d...
Endangered Species: Tad Friend and the Art of Long-Form Journalism
01 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Beyond the Page host John Burnham Schwartz talks with New Yorker staff writer Tad Friend, a longtime contributor to the magazine’s Letter from Calif...
From Streaming Wars to Star Wars with Erich Schwartzel
26 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Beyond the Page, SVWC Literary Director John Burnham Schwartz and writer Eric Schwartzel go Hollywood. Schwartzel covers the film ...
Louise Dennys: Stories from a Publishing Legend
19 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Beyond the Page, host John Burnham Schwartz talks with editor and Canadian publishing titan Louise Dennys about her extraordinary c...
Aleksandra Crapanzano on Her Dual Passions For Cooking and Writing
20 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Beyond the Page, Anne Taylor Fleming talks with award-winning food writer Aleksandra Crapanzano about her delightful and accessib...
Jennifer Egan: There's No Way Out From the Collective Consciousness
21 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to Beyond the Page: The Best of the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference. Over the past 25 years, SVWC has become the gold standard of American...
Being American in the World We've Made: Ben Rhodes in Conversation with Ayad Akhtar
21 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Beyond the Page, BEN RHODES, Barack Obama’s former Deputy National Security Advisor, sits down at the Sun Valley Writers’ Conf...
Rebecca Donner on “All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days”
02 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Beyond the Page, host John Burnham Schwartz talks with Rebecca Donner, winner of the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award for ...
The Last Days of Roger Federer – And Other Endings
17 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When artists and athletes age, what happens to their work? Does it ripen or rot? As our bodies decay, how – and why – do we keep going? In this ep...
Behind the Scenes: Programming the 2022 Sun Valley Writers' Conference
05 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Beyond the Page, we offer something fun and different, a lively conversation between SVWC Literary Director John Burnham Schwartz a...
Susan Orlean Is a Really Serious Chicken Lady
16 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode, John Burnham Schwartz talks with SUSAN ORLEAN, whose New Yorker articles across the last 30 years, along with books such as The Orch...
Annette Gordon-Reed: Getting History Right
22 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Is Thomas Jefferson to be deplored as a slave-owner who had a family with a young woman he owned or is he to be celebrated as one of the country's mos...
Tobias Wolff: The Art of the Story
28 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Beyond the Page, John Burnham Schwartz speaks with author TOBIAS WOLFF, renowned for his classic memoirs and short stories, fo...
How Lincoln Broke the Constitution
15 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, John Burnham Schwartz speaks with Noah Feldman, Harvard Law professor and renowned Constitutional scholar, whose groundbreaking new ...
Elliot Ackerman on the End of the Forever War
20 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Beyond the Page, acclaimed novelist, journalist, and Marine Corps veteran ELLIOT ACKERMAN talks to former CBS News Vice President a...
Patrick Radden Keefe on the Relationship Between Reporting and Storytelling
17 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to Beyond the Page: The Best of the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference. Over the past 25 years, SVWC has become the gold standard of American li...
Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan on the Private Life of Francis Bacon
15 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of BEYOND THE PAGE, host John Burnham Schwartz talks with Pulitzer Prize-winning authors MARK STEVENS and ANNALYN SWAN about their lan...
The Education of an Idealist: U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power on Soft Power and Hard Lessons
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of BEYOND THE PAGE, former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, human rights activist, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author SA...
Francis Lam's Food For Thought
18 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, the host of American Public Media’s award-winning radio show The Splendid Table shares with us a few unforgettable food storie...
David Eagleman Gets In Your Head
10 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On today's episode of Beyond the Page, John Burnham Schwartz speaks with David Eagleman, who not only teaches neuroscience at Stanford University, but...
Barry Lopez: "Leaning Into the Light"
26 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On Christmas morning, 2020, the writer BARRY LOPEZ died in Eugene, Oregon, surrounded by his family, after a long battle with prostate cancer. Wide...
Madeline Miller on Why Homer’s Wisdom Has Never Been More Relevant
04 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of BEYOND THE PAGE, host John Burnham Schwartz talks with novelist and classicist MADELINE MILLER, author of THE SONG OF ACHILLES and ...
Roger McNamee on the Incompatibility of Social Media and Democracy
04 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Join us for a conversation with ROGER MCNAMEE, the noted tech venture capitalist, early mentor to Mark Zuckerberg, and Facebook investor, who went fr...
Isabel Allende on the Stories of Refugees Known and Imagined
07 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, internationally beloved author ISABEL ALLENDE, sits down virtually with her good friend, PBS/NewsHour’s Jeffrey Brown, to discuss h...
Ayad Akhtar: Finding a Voice to Address the American 'Us'
14 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Beyond the Page, host John Burnham Schwartz talks with Ayad Akhtar, the new president of PEN America and author of Homeland Elegie...
Susan Orlean: On the Eccentric Nature of Curiosity
20 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of BEYOND THE PAGE, host John Burnham Schwartz talks with SUSAN ORLEAN, longtime New Yorker staff writer and bestselling author of Th...
The Red Daughter: The Remarkable Life of Stalin’s Daughter
30 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In his sixth novel, The Red Daughter, novelist (and regular Beyond the Page host, JOHN BURNHAM SCHWARTZ imaginatively inhabits the life of Svetlana A...
Roger Wilkins: “Bearing Witness”
20 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 2002, the late civil rights champion Roger Wilkins gave one of the most memorable talks ever given at the Writers’ Conference. Roger’s great g...
George Packer: How Do We Wrap Our Arms Around America?
15 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As the country reeled under the weight of one shock after another—first the pandemic, then levels of mass unemployment not seen since the Great Depr...
Alexander Maksik on Caring For an Ill and Aging Parent From a Distance
30 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What happens, what emotional threads get pulled when halfway around the globe a father gets sick from Covid? In an evocative personal essay for The N...
The End of Secrets: Family History in the Age of Bio-Ethics
23 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the spring of 2016, author DANI SHAPIRO received the stunning news through a genealogy website that her father was not her biological father. Her...
Frank McCourt: The Underlying Story
17 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 1996, (a 66-year-old) retired New York City public school teacher named Frank McCourt published his first book, a memoir about his brutally impover...
2018: Literary Immigration: A Conversation with Edwidge Danticat
15 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In one way or another, from the moment she left Haiti to settle in Brooklyn, New York, at age 12, Edwidge Danticat has been writing stories (prize-wi...
Mitch Landrieu: A White Southerner Confronts History
16 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu addressed the people of his city in May, 2017 about his decision to take down four Confederate monuments, includ...
Alexandra Fuller: Memories of an African Childhood
15 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to Beyond the Page: The Best of the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference. Over the past 25 years, SVWC has become the gold standard of American li...
Ayad Akhtar: Muslims in America: A Playwright’s Compendium of Characters
15 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
No playwright has challenged our perceptions of Muslims in America as boldly, and with such dramatic vigor, as has AYAD AKHTAR, who won the 2013 Pulit...
Min Jin Lee: On Speaking and Power
01 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to Beyond the Page: The Best of the Sun Valley Writers' Conference. In this episode, we hear from the award-winning novelist Min Jin Lee. Spee...
David Grossman: Creating a Dialogue in Israel
01 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to Beyond the Page: The Best of the Sun Valley Writers' Conference. In this episode, we hear from the great Israeli novelist David Grossman, w...
Anthony Doerr: The Beautiful Art of Failure
17 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to Beyond the Page: The Best of the Sun Valley Writers' Conference. In a world obsessed with success, Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist ANTHONY ...