Arts-Entertainment
Elk River Arts & Lectures presents a first-ever, four-day festival running concurrently with the 2026 Elk River Writers Workshop, October 18th-23rd. Each evening, community members are invited to join workshop participants at Chico Hot Springs in Pray, Montana, for a series of free salons and panels featuring faculty, regional ecologists and naturalists, and legendary advocates, culminating in a keynote address.
Panel topics are designed to encourage participants to think about the greater Yellowstone landscape in the context of America’s 250th year. Topics include Civic Storytelling & The Living Land, The Wilderness Idea & Deep Time, The Writer as Witness: Ecology and Narrative, ending with a keynote that explores the notion of refugia—finding sanctuary as marginalized people, protecting the wild, and how we build an American landscape that acts as a refuge for the next 250 years.
“To truly understand this landscape in the context of America's 250th year, we must first recognize the deep time of the Yellowstone ecosystem and the Indigenous peoples who have stewarded it since long before the United States existed,” notes workshop director CMarie Fuhrman. “By rooting our conversations in these ancient and enduring narratives, we are asking how we can write a new story forward—one that honors the land and creates a lasting refuge for all beings in the centuries to come.”
Established in 2015, the program has served more than 400 students and nearly 1,500 community members over the course of eight workshops. A handful of seats remain open for workshop classes, taught by Jamie Ford, Chris La Tray, Deobrah Miranda and Diane Wilson. In addition, this year’s classes will also enjoy a guided trip to Yellowstone. More information and application materials can be found at elkriverwriters.org.
The final schedule will be announced later this summer.