CEO Message: July 2026

Vicki Rosenberg, Former HGF Board Director and supporter; Erin White, CEO; Robin Eidsmo, Executive Director of the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference; and Annie Berlin, HGF Board Director (L-R) at the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference

“One need not be a chamber—to be haunted—”
—Emily Dickinson

Dear Friends,

I recently attended the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference, a three-day gathering of some of the best contemporary writers of our time and a dedicated community of readers. It’s taken some restraint on my part not to annoy nearly everyone around me with my excitement and the occasional “bolt of lightning” I experienced during my time there (though if you follow me on social media, you’ve had to endure a bit of that—my apologies).

My primary motivation for going was to see Atul Gawande, MD, whose 2014 book Being Mortal helped advance a national conversation about end-of-life care by recounting his own struggle, even as a surgeon, with his father’s dying process. He also examines what that experience revealed about our healthcare system. In many ways, we can credit Gawande’s book with increasing public awareness of palliative care and hospice throughout the country.

Atul Gawande, MD, in conversation with National Book Award-winning author, Evan Osnos

On a personal note, though, I was also going to explore what it even means to be a writer anymore.

Like a lot of us working in philanthropy, I often got ahead through writing. While I never had the discipline or attention span to become a serious writer, I could get a brief, a proposal, or a set of talking points on my boss’s desk in short order. They were usually in pretty good shape and sometimes downright compelling.

Writing was my superpower.

Then came AI.

I wondered whether this skill I had cultivated and obsessed over for most of my life even mattered anymore. Was this not the same as being good at doing math in your head in the age of the calculator?

What struck me about the Writers’ Conference was that, while there was much discussion of AI and its cultural and political implications, there was remarkably little said about its influence on the craft of writing.

At first, I found that surprising. Then it occurred to me that when you’re a serious writer, you have to write. It isn’t necessarily about performance or reception. It’s something that erupts out of you—almost involuntarily. And, as I was reminded throughout the conference, good writing, like most art, is often propelled by an experience of love, loss, or longing.

A “haunting,” as Emily Dickinson might call it.

Or at least that seemed to be the case for nearly every writer I met in Sun Valley. There was always a story of loss—and of aliveness.

Robert Macfarlane’s Is a River Alive? explores the history and animacy of rivers alongside scientists who are themselves carrying deep personal grief. Peter Godwin, the longtime journalist and former human rights lawyer, discussed Exit Wounds, his memoir chronicling a single year in which he lost his mother, his marriage, and watched his children leave for college. Susan Orlean reflected on loneliness, a theme that led her to write her first memoir, Joyride. And filmmaker Ken Burns said all 40 of his documentaries were made for his mother, who died of cancer when he was 11 years old.

Then there was Gawande.

Rather than beginning with disease, treatment, or prognosis, he reminded us of one of the central principles of palliative medicine and hospice care: Clinicians begin not with the illness, but with the person. The story.

“Let me understand your goals, your life, and what’s important to you,” they ask. “Then I’ll advise from there.”

Not directing. Not avoiding. But seeking first to understand.

As Orlean said at one point during the conference, “Writers gotta have swagger.”

Maybe that goes for us, too.

At Hospice Giving Foundation, we believe in “living fully and dying peacefully.” Part of that means helping our community talk more openly about mortality, prepare for end-of-life, and support the people and organizations that guide us through it. In doing so, we hope that each of us becomes just a little better at living.

So, with that, I wish you a full life today.

And plenty of reading material to get you started.

Warmly,

Erin White
President & CEO

P.S. My sincere thanks to Sun Valley Writers’ Conference Executive Director Robin Eidsmo, Hospice Giving Foundation Board Director Annie Berlin, and former Board Director and Foundation supporter Vicki Rosenberg for making such an extraordinary experience possible.