Summer is a perfect time to get outside, relax and enjoy a campfire (event)! Councils across the country are offering new programs specifically geared toward the warm weather months in honor of the Pulitzer 100th Anniversary and as part of The Prizes’ Campfires Initiative. In addition to public lectures, councils are hosting hikes, kid’s programs, lectures and conference focused on topics ranging from food safety and the environment to politics, journalism, and social media – and that’s just the beginning! Vacationing out of state or looking for local enrichment activities? Check out the events located on your travel route and locally through the council Campfires schedule.

CAMPFIRES ON THE EAST:

This summer, Humanities DC is launching a Pulitzer-inspired version of its popular Soul of the City youth leadership program. Participants use humanities disciplines as lenses to learn about DC and gain new practical skills in media, communication, leadership and critical thinking – and this year, students will be introduced and trained in fundamental skills used by journalists, including interviewing, writing op-eds, researching, and adapting journalism to social media and new media.

Moving north, Delaware Humanities Forum is continuing its Pulitzer-centered creative writing workshops, as well as its reading and discussion groups.

In Rhode Island, the council is supporting the Ocean State Writer’s Conference which will feature Margo Jefferson as part of the council’s Pulitzer series.

The New York Council for the Humanities is partnering with the Museum of Food and Drink to examine food safety and the science of food production in an event featuring Michael Moss, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for his 2009 project on food safety that revealed the defects in local and federal regulation. The event is part of the New York Council for the Humanities’ Pulitzer Campfires Initiative, “The Anatomy of Change: Journalism and Justice,” a series exploring the role of journalism in American society.

And, in Massachusetts, the council is continuing its Common Good Discussion series, which allows participants to engage in constructive dialogue on topics ranging from cultural diversity to immigration through the reading of Pulitzer Prize-winning novels and articles.

IN THE MIDWEST:

Join Indiana Humanities as they launch Next Indiana Campfires, a program that takes participants through national and state parks for a “trek and talk” with a humanities scholar who will stop periodically to read words from important Hoosier authors, like Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Edwin Way Teale. Following the hike, participants will gather around a campfire to discuss the connection between literature, nature and place. Read more about the events here.

Next, stop by Millennium Park in Chicago for a conversation on the history and resonances of jazz, featuring a jazz musician, a Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic and Walter Massey, a jazz super fan and President of The School of the Art Institute. This event is hosted by Illinois Humanities.

DOWN SOUTH:

Come to Texas and listen to Pulitzer Prize-winning historians discuss the transformation of America, from Europeans’ first encounters with Native Americans to the changes in American life and culture in the decades following World War II. The public lecture series includes three different lectures by three different award-winning historians in June.

From history to fiction, the Arkansas Humanities Council is hosting an Ernest Hemingway Lecture at Arkansas State University-Jonesboro about this 1953 Pulitzer Prize-winner of fiction.

IN THE WEST:

The New Mexico Humanities Council is continuing its Read 5 Pulitzer Fiction Winners (and Finalists) in 5 Months program that celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the Prizes through a partnership with six libraries across the state. Learn more here.

And in California, a panel of renowned journalists and authors will explore the future of journalism in the midst of the information revolution of apps and social media, including how investigative, government and cultural reporting is evolving in Journalism and Democracy in California.