West of Paris

Yes, Ketchum Idaho is a bit west of Paris and so are most of us dear readers!  I wanted to invite you all to the Hemingway symposium in Ketchum, Idaho in late October. It should be a fun conference and here is what I am going to talk about:

West of Paris: Conversations about Ernest Hemingway

West of Paris and many decades later, Ernest Hemingway’s first wife Hadley sat with her friend Alice Sokoloff sipping sherry and reminiscing about her life as a new bride in 1921. Hadley was 80 years old and her friend of 15 years, Alice, was 59.

These two women began a conversation that became the basis of Alice’s 1973 biography, Hadley: The First Mrs. Hemingway. These conversations gave Hadley, late in her life, the opportunity to talk about the wonder and pain of events that happened fifty years earlier in Paris. Alice was the first person to consider Hadley worthy of a biography, but much of the material they discussed on the Hadley Tapes was too intimate to be published in Hadley’s lifetime.

The fascinating and poignantly honest conversation on the Hadley Tapes is the centerpiece of West of Paris, alternating with my own equally interesting interviews with Hemingway readers and scholars. Together they create a portrait of Ernest Hemingway, the Lost Generation, and Hadley and Ernest’s bittersweet five year marriage. I have wonderful stories to tell about Hemingway’s contemporary fans, who are as varied, quirky, intelligent, opinionated, and ultimately loveable as Ernest Hemingway himself.

Allie Baker is a freelance writer and author of the popular blog, The Hemingway Project. Her writing has been published in travel magazines, literary journals and poetry anthologies. Allie has worked in bookstores and both public and academic libraries, adding to her already long list of books to read. Her belief that the books we love add to our own evolving story is reflected in the compelling interviews she’s published on The Hemingway Project.

In recent years, Allie has traveled throughout South America and will be spending the coming summer in Spain, following the story of Ernest and Hadley’s poignant years togther. The research gathered this summer will be used in her upcoming book about the Hemingways’ bittersweet, adventurous marriage; five brief years that were lived with intensity.

Allie is married and has two sons. When she is not traveling, she lives in the Pacific Northwest.

Here is the link to the conference: Ernest Hemingway Symposium, 2011
And here is a link to my most recent travel writing about Spain:  Favorite Planet