This interview has been edited for length and clarity. – Ed.
Sophia Boyd-Fliegel: Conferences in America, I’ve learned, have been around since the late 19th century, and they’ve been places for writers to kind of come out of their hovels and talk about their craft and get critiqued. Can you tell me if that’s still the main theme of the Jackson Hole Writers Conference?
Matt Daly: I think it really is, in a way, building community. I think most of the writers I know who have a fulfilling, lively writing life, which is a little different [from] publishing success, but even people who have publishing success. How do you keep going as a writer? It’s about building community, and about living with the community.
SBF: People end up being influenced by each other and inspired by each other. They’re not just always up with ideas out of the sky.
MD: I think that mix of experience levels and kind of styles also is a big help. And that’s something that we’re really trying to focus on at the conference. We try to bring in as many different kinds of people as we can, so that writers learn a lot from each other. Yes, from our faculty, but also from each other in the conference, right? Everyone’s in a slightly different place in their writing journey. And how does being in conversation with each other and in community give you a sense of what else is possible?
SBF: The Jackson Hole Conference has been around for 35 years. You took it over from writer Tim Sandlin when he was still in Jackson. Now he’s in Seattle, I understand. Can you tell me how you have put your mark on it and what you’ve kept the same?
MD: I’m really thrilled to be working with this organization that Tim built. I think the writers and the conference had a big impact on my own writing life.
SBF: Oh really?
MD: Yeah, I attended the conference. I know firsthand that the conference can have an impact. I kept coming every year, I was volunteering, then I worked for the [Jackson Hole] Writers in a part-time way, then I published a book, so I ended up being on the poetry faculty. All these steps toward taking the thing [on]. I really felt the sense of community that was there, felt the balance of both craft time and as well as publishing experience that we can bring to the conference. And so that felt like there was a really strong foundation to build from. And then also thinking, you know, the publishing world, the writing world is really different now, especially in the last couple of years with the ongoing expansion of the digital world and the AI world. That feels like we’re in a very different space for writers and in the publishing world. [Adapting] to fit the needs of writers in 2025 has been a lot of fun.
SBF: Registration is now closed, but there are some awesome [free] events that will pull people in. Friday night is the keynote address [from] Camille Dungy. She’s a Denver-born poet. I think our audience here would love to hear more about her book: “Soil, The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden.” She writes about trying to diversify her garden in Fort Collins, Colorado, which is a predominantly white community, but I know it’s about so much more.
MD: It’s very much on theme in the West, and thinking about diversity in a lot of different ways, “Soil” is this extraordinary exploration of living in a community where ecological diversity has been minimized in the lawn life in the suburbs. There’s a vegetable garden there, there is a pollinator garden there. There’s a short grass prairie revitalization, all of the layers that they’re trying to figure out around their home, how to bring more life there. The book also takes place during the COVID pandemic. It’s about relocating a family to a place [then] you can’t connect with people. You’re literally trying to make this garden space to connect with your environment. Camille’s also this brilliant academic. And so there’s a lot about the literary history of the U.S. and the voices that are marginalized in that history and the literary voices that are marginalized when talking about land.
