The Wayfare Festival 2026
Join Kristine Haglund, Thomas McConkie, Mallory Everton and more on July 11th
The quality of attention that we bring to the world changes what we find. In our time of mass distraction, artifice, and vice, we need to develop our capacities for spiritual discernment more than ever.
Join Wayfare for our third annual summer festival on Saturday, July 11th in beautiful Heber Valley. Featuring music, presentations, conversation, food, and contemplation, the Wayfare Festival provides space for imaginative expansion and spiritual transformation.
This year, some of the themes we’ll explore include:
Spiritual depth perception
Attentional resilience in the age of AI
Authentic identity amid conformity and coercion
Mormon utopias and Latter-day renaissances
SPEAKERS
ELLE GRIFFIN
Elle Griffin is a writer and essayist whose work explores utopian futures and the reimagining of economic and social systems. She is the author of the gothic novel Obscurity, serialized on Substack, and is at work on a second novel, Oblivion, as well as a forthcoming book titled We Should Own the Economy. A former editor at Utah Business, Forbes, and The Muse, she has bylines at Esquire, Insider, Fast Company, and others. She has been named a Roots of Progress Fellow, a Substack Fellow, and a Center for Land Economics Fellow.
Kristine Haglund
Kristine Haglund is a Senior Editor at Wayfare, the author of Eugene England: A Mormon Liberal and a past editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. She should have been a music major, but holds degrees in German Studies from Harvard and the University of Michigan.
Luke Burgis
Luke Burgis is the director of The Cluny Institute and a professor at The Catholic University of America, where he studies the invisible forces that shape human behavior. He is the author of The One and the Ninety-Nine: Forging Identity in the Age of Social Contagion and Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life. He lives in Washington, D.C., and Michigan with his wife, Claire, and their children.
Mallory Everton
Mallory is a Portland, OR native who has been writing and performing comedy for over ten years. She is best known for her roles in the popular sketch comedy show Studio C, which has over 1 billion views on YouTube, and as the face of the viral Purple Mattress “Raw Egg Test” ad. She is also in love with Jackie Chan. But don’t tell him, she’d be so embarrassed.
Rachel Jardine
Rachel Jardine is Deputy Editor at Wayfare magazine, where her writing explores the hidden abundance within everyday life. Her essays have appeared across issues of Wayfare, drawing on themes of motherhood, spiritual perception, and the luminous within the ordinary.
THOMAS MCCONKIE
Thomas Wirthlin McConkie is an author, meditation teacher and researcher in adult stages of development. He has been in meditative practice for nearly 30 years within the traditions of Sufism, Buddhism and Christian contemplation. He is the founder of Lower Lights School of Wisdom, a non-profit dedicated to sharing teachings from the world’s wisdom traditions, and holds a master’s degree from Harvard Divinity School, specializing in transformative spiritual practice. He lives with his wife, two children, and a rescue dog in Salt Lake City.
ZACHARY DAVIS
Zachary Davis is the Executive Director of Faith Matters, the Editor of Wayfare Magazine, and a co-founder and director at Organized Intelligence. He is also the host of the podcasts Article 13, Writ Large, and Ministry of Ideas. He is the recipient of two John Templeton Foundation grants. He is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and Brigham Young University.
KATHRYN KNIGHT SONNTAG
Kathryn Knight Sonntag is the Poetry Editor of Wayfare and author of The Mother Tree: Discovering the Love and Wisdom of Our Divine Mother (Faith Matters Publishing, 2022), winner of the 2022 BIBA Literary Award in Non-Fiction: Religion, and The Tree at the Center (BCC Press, 2019), a 2019 Association for Mormon Letters Awards finalist in Poetry and Criticism. Her poetry has appeared in Sugar House Review, Image Journal, Colorado Review, Four Way Review, Psaltery & Lyre, Rock & Sling, Blossom as the Cliffrose: Mormon Legacies and the Beckoning Wild (Torrey House Press, 2021), and others.
WHAT IS THE WAYFARE FESTIVAL LIKE?
The Wayfare Festival is a place for joyful explorations, new friendships, imagination expansion, and deep spiritual nourishment.
AGENDA
SATURDAY JULY 11TH
8:15am Doors Open
9:00am Opening Remarks: Rachel Jardine
9:10am Musical Performance
9:15am Invocation
9:20am Poetry Reading: Kathryn Knight Sonntag
9:25am Keynote Address: Luke Burgis
10:00am Conversation with Luke Burgis and Zachary Davis
10:25am Break
10:40am Story: Mallory Everton
11:00am Presentation: Thomas McConkie
12:00pm-1:00pm Lunch Break
1:00pm-2:00pm Breakout Sessions
2:05pm Musical Performance
2:10pm Mormon Utopianism
2:10-2:25 Elle Griffin
2:25-2:40 Kristine Haglund
2:40-3:00 Conversation
3:00pm Break
3:15pm Poetry Reading
3:20pm Closing Remarks: Zachary Davis
3:45pm Prayer
3:50pm Musical Performance
VENUE: UVU WASATCH CAMPUS
We’ll be gathering in the UVU Wasatch Campus in beautiful Heber Valley.
TESTIMONIALS
“The Wayfare Festival was an incredibly inspirational experience. I loved being able to meet some of my favorite writers in such an intimate setting. I had so many good conversations!” —Jenna N.
“I love Wayfare and Faith Matters and it was a blessing to gather together with others who love them too.” —Chris L.
DETAILS
WHEN: SATURDAY, JULY 11TH, 2026 (9AM-5PM)
WHERE: UVU Wasatch Campus, 3111 N College Wy, Heber City, Utah
TICKET PRICE (INCLUDES CATERED LUNCH):
$95 - General Admission
$45 - Students, adults under 30, and anyone facing financial hardship
$145 - Supporters (help to cover our reduced price tickets!)
EARLY BIRD OFFER
The first 150 registrants will receive a free copy of our keynote speaker Luke Burgis’ new book The One and the Ninety-Nine: Forging Identity in the Age of Social Contagion. Tickets will sell out soon, so get yours today!
