Idaho's Literary Landscape

BY HEATHER HAMILTON-POST

Boise’s literary scene is, like most things Idaho, one of a kind. Revered for its relative accessibility, this rich community of readers, writers, and spectators offers a wide variety of writing with none of the pretentiousness you might expect, despite some of the biggest names in the industry.

If you’re looking to broaden your horizons by picking up a new book or exploring a completely new genre, the Treasure Valley offers plenty of chances to experience the power of language in person.

Immerse yourself in literature

Reading series abound, and there are few better venues than the Idaho Botanical Garden, renowned for its multi-season beauty and stimulating events. From summer concerts to the Bloom: A Reading Series, now in its second season, you’re sure to find a home amidst the lush landscape that seeks to challenge your notions of what art in Idaho can look like. The series, which features fiction writers, playwrights, poets, creative nonfiction writers, and even podcasters, takes place in the Meditation Garden, and brings you a two-hour event that will surely spark your creative mind. Hungry? Feel free to bring whatever you’re craving and your beverage of choice in your favorite picnic basket along with your folding chair and enjoy a full season of Idaho’s most invigorating minds. See IBG’s website for details and schedule.

If you’re in the mood for something slightly more formal, check out Boise State University’s MFA in Creative Writing Reading Series, which brings in poets, fiction writers, and even screenwriters from across the world, and which Program Director Martin Corless-Smith calls one of the best MFA reading series in the country. He estimates that, over the last 22 years, they’ve hosted over 200 poets like Cole Swenson, internationally known for her poetry and translation work.

The readings largely take place at the Morrison Center, offering established and emerging writers the chance to read on the stage. “It’s a stellar series,” says Corless-Smith, who notes that visiting writers always enjoy their time here because of Boise’s relaxed atmosphere. Hosts from the MFA program make sure writers get the full Idaho experience, taking them to favorite local places like Kirkham Hot Springs.

It is free to attend the readings, which are always fun and typically offer opportunities to interact with some of your favorite writers afterwards. Whether you’re a reader, writer, or generally curious, these programs are worth checking out. For more information, follow Boise State MFA in Creative Writing on Facebook!

Go where the writers go

If you’ve ever fallen asleep on a book and woken up smarter, you know that proximity is sometimes enough. If you’re looking to simply bask in the presence of creative people, follow your favorite writers on Instagram and see where they hang out. Goldy’s Corner and Java (both Boise locations) are popular hangouts for local writers who are more than willing to chat for a few minutes.

Lifelong Idahoan Randall Post has experienced this firsthand—a few years ago, he recalls approaching writer J. Reuben Appelman at Java to discuss his (at the time) upcoming book. “He was really nice and seemed happy to discuss the book. It was pretty cool!” Post says.

Get to know an author

Idaho is home to a vast array of writers who draw from rich literary traditions that dot the West, in ways both visible and not. From first books to bestsellers, Idaho’s authors enliven the literary landscape known as home or at the very least, as inspiration, for some of history’s most significant voices.

➤Patricia Marcantonio

Writer Patricia Marcantonio is one of Idaho’s most versatile writers. From novels to short stories to screenplays, her characters run the gambit too, and, though she says she also loves writing about Victorian England, she can’t outrun the West.

“It’s in my DNA. Much of my writing reflects that. The people, the landscape, the culture,” she says.

It’s easy to spot the West at work. In Marcantonio’s Verdict in the Desert, which she identifies as her favorite book she’s written, Marcantonio’s characters allow her to reflect on her own experiences growing up Mexican-American.

“I partly wrote it as homage to my father. When he passed away I missed saying goodbye to him by mere minutes and it tore my heart out. In the

Pulitzer Prize Winner, Anthony Doerr lives in Boise with his family. / Anthony Doerr

book, I wrote a character very much like my father and his daughter gets to say goodbye to him when he dies. It was very cathartic,” she says.

These days, she’s excited for the August publication of Under the Blood Moon, a horror mystery set in New Mexico in which bizarre murders and supernatural scares rock a small town. In fall of 2023, Best Amigas releases, a young adult novel Marcantonio describes as heartbreaking and funny, chronicling the experience of growing up through the lens of a powerful friendship.

➤Alan Heathcock

If there’s a Boise writer who looks the part, it’s probably Alan Heathcock. Though he hails from the great state of Illinois, he’s got that Idaho “cool”— outdoorsy, laid back, vaguely western in some way that’s hard to identify. This place has its way of influencing a person, and Heathcock is no exception.

“Boise is a great place to be an artist, in that it takes its artists and the art they produce seriously. Many of my closest friends are authors and painters and sculptors and musicians, and the joy of living here is that it’s quiet enough to be able to do the work without distraction, but vibrant enough to feel the crackling energy of inspiration on its streets,” he says.

Heathcock’s new novel, 40, which he describes as a speculative thriller set in the year 2040, debuts after nearly a decade of work, during which time Heathcock says he restarted six times. “The initial impulse—the feeling that America was on a troublesome trajectory—has remained the same; the novel, like the country, has drastically changed since the first draft,” he says. The book, which Heathcock thinks of as American mythology and a war story about the dangerous potentials in America’s future, comes out in August of 2022.

➤Bethany Maile

“After high school I started college in Boston, but back East my Western-ness felt large and fundamental. I dropped out and flew back to Idaho, and in that return, I needed to understand how this place had shaped me. I immersed myself in a specific version of Idaho, the one I knew was mostly memory and myth but that I reached for anyway,” says Bethany Maile, whose debut memoir, Anything Will Be Easy After This, came out in September of 2020. Location acts as a kind of character in her work, and she says she’s drawn to her personal evolution alongside Idaho’s—the two are inseparable.

Maile is also a parent to two young children, which has changed the way she writes. She jokes that it is neither easy nor fast, but that she’s much better at utilizing her time, in any amount, even if she doesn’t feel in the zone.

“Outside of the logistics, what I write about—or maybe how I approach my ideas—has changed, too,” Maile says, “Parenthood broadens everything about us. It can expand our understanding of the world and ourselves and each other. Now I have a deeper well to think and feel from.”

Now, she’s working on a memoir about becoming a mother in Alaska, which she says is stylistically different from her first book. “Instead of playful cultural critique or energetic reportage, it’s ruminative. Where Anything considers how place and self are connected, this book maps the connections between generations. It’s more concerned with what gets passed down and how to like it,” she says.

Allen Heathcock is an award-winning fiction writer whose stories have appeared in GQ and Salon. / FINCH 111

Mystery she wrote. / Patricia Marcantonio

Bethany Maile’s writing has earned three Pushcart Prize nominations. / Bethany Maile

…the joy of living here is that it’s quiet enough to be able to do the work without distraction, but vibrant enough to feel the crackling energy of inspiration on its streets.