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Writer-in-Residence Program

Kim Cross and Don Zancanella Named 2025-2026 Boise City Writers-in-Residence

Together with The Cabin and Boise Public Library, the Boise City Department of Arts & History is thrilled to announce that writers Kim Cross and Don Zancanella have been selected as the 2025-2026 Boise City Writers-in-Residence.

Resident writers were selected through a competitive application process, which included review by a selection panel consisting of members representing the Arts & History Commission, Boise Public Library, and The Cabin, all with backgrounds in literary arts. Applicants were evaluated on their responses to application questions, writing samples, and programming proposals. While 25 applications were received, only two spots are awarded each year.

Kim Cross
Writer-in-Residence October 2025 – March 2026

Kim Cross is a New York Times best-selling author, journalist, and historian known for cinematic scenes, page-turning narratives, and character-driven stories that guide readers through some complex, nuanced issue. Her first book, What Stands in a Storm, was one of Amazon’s Best Books of 2015 and a finalist in the GoodReads Choice Awards. Her most recent book, In Light of All Darkness, was an Edgar Award finalist and winner of the Truman Capote Prize for Distinguished Work of Non-Fiction. Cross teaches feature writing for Harvard Extension School’s graduate program in journalism, the Larry McMurtry Literary Center in Archer City, Texas, and the Sawtooth Writing Retreat in Idaho. Find her at kimhcross.com, @kimhcross, or writing at Oldspeak in Garden City.

Don Zancanella
Writer-in-Residence April 2026 – September 2026

Don Zancanella is the author of three novels: CONCORD, A STORM IN THE STARS, and ANIMALS OF THE ALPINE FRONT. He received the John S. Simmons/Iowa Short Fiction Award for his book WESTERN ELECTRIC and has won an O.Henry Prize. Zancanella was born in Laramie, Wyoming, and has lived in Virginia, Colorado, Missouri, and New Mexico, where he taught at the University of New Mexico for nearly three decades. He lives in southeast Boise with his wife and their dogs.

The selected residents will be responsible for developing and facilitating free public programs at all Boise Library branches and the Erma Hayman House in downtown Boise. The Writers-in-Residence will also receive a one-time $5,000.00 stipend to support their creative work and time to develop these programs, which may be themed or open writing workshops, reading series, writing explorations, or other literary experiences. Program details are forthcoming.

About the Boise City Writer-in-Residence Program

Founded in 2023, the Boise City Writer-in-Residence is a collaborative program between the Boise City Department of Arts & History, Boise Public Library, and The Cabin. Funded by the City of Boise, these six-month residencies offer local writers dedicated time and stipend to support their creative practice and connect them to the community through free monthly literary public programs and events. The Boise City Writer-in-Residence call for applications opens annually in the summer.

About the Boise City Department of Arts & History

The Department of Arts & History is Boise’s local cultural agency dedicated to fostering a sense of belonging through accessible and place-based arts and history. Our mission is to cultivate a distinct sense of place which reflects Boise’s rich past, diverse communities, and unique natural setting. Our operations empower and serve Boise residents as we create opportunities that nurture and sustain Boise’s past and its creative economy. More information: boiseartsandhistory.org

About the Boise Public Library

The Boise Public Library’s mission is to provide access and opportunity for everyone by connecting people to ideas, information, and community. We welcome and serve everyone by providing information, services, and programs that are free and open to all. More information: boisepubliclibrary.org

About The Cabin

The Cabin is a literary arts nonprofit organization in Boise, Idaho. We forge community through the voices of all readers, writers, and learners. Our workshops, readings, lectures, camps, and other literary programs provoke creativity and experimentation, foster literary excellence, and inspire a love of reading and writing in children and adults alike across the Treasure Valley and beyond. More information: thecabinidaho.org

2024/2025 Writers-in-Residence

Alan Heathcock headshot

Alan Heathcock, award-winning author of VOLT and 40, shares "The Five Tenets of Literary Potency", a workshop series that distills everything Heathcock has learned during 30 years of writing/editing/publishing/teaching. Over the years, Heathcock studied ways in which he could qualitatively evaluate his own work and the work of the writers he mentored. Through trial and error, inflation and conflation, he arrived at five conceptual truths that apply to all genres and styles of writing and can be used by any writer to evaluate and optimize their work. In this workshop, Heathcock will teach the five tenets he believes are absolutes in powerful storytelling. He’ll deliver his findings in a series of interactive workshops open to writers of all levels and genres.

Though attendees are encouraged to attend the entire series, there’s value to attending any of the workshops as single events. The schedule is as follows:


Tenet #1: Empathy
  • Saturday, April 19th, 10:30 a.m.–12:00 p.m. — Downtown Library, Marion Bingham Room

Tenet #2: Authenticity

  • Saturday, May 31st, 10:30 a.m.–12 p.m. — Library! at Cole & Ustick, Sagebrush Room

Tenet #3: Urgency

  • Saturday, June 21st, 10:30 a.m.–12 p.m. — Library! at Hillcrest, Butte Room

Tenet #4: Meaning

  • Saturday, July 19th, 10:30 a.m.–12 p.m. — Library! at Collister, Sycamore Room

Tenet #5: Originality

  • Saturday, August 16th, 10:30 a.m.–12 p.m. — Library! at Bown Crossing, Martie Brennan Room

Culminating Event: A Community Reading and Celebration of the Written Word

  • Saturday, September 20th, 10:30 a.m.–12 p.m. — Erma Hayman House

Susan Bruns

Susan Bruns is an Idaho-based writer whose essays and stories have appeared in The Sun, Creative Nonfiction, Brevity, LitHub, Under the Gum Tree, The Clackamas Literary Review, and elsewhere.

She is the recipient of grants from the Idaho Commission on the Arts, the Alexa Rose Foundation, and the City of Boise for her writing. In 2020, she was a Surel’s Place Artist in Residence, and she was named a 2021 finalist for the Richard J. Margolis nonfiction writing award for her essay about a sibling’s struggle with mental illness and addiction.

She has an MFA in creative writing from Boise State University and degrees from the University of Oxford and the University of Idaho. She has taught dozens of writing workshops to students of all ages and enjoys teaching the craft of writing and encouraging others to write their stories.  

Susan grew up on a farm next to the Snake River Canyon on Idaho’s high desert and writes about how her family battled the harsh conditions, beginning with her grandparents who were homesteaders. She is the mother of two adult children and works for Fahlgren Mortine, an integrated communications agency with offices in Boise. 

Susan Bruns Writer-in-Residence schedule 2024-2025
October 30th, 6 p.m.-8 p.m. — Erma Hayman House
November 9th, 12 p.m.-1:30 p.m. — Library! at Hillcrest, Canyon Room
December 11th, 6 p.m.-7:45 p.m. — Library! at Bown Crossing, Martie Brennan Room
January 22nd, 6 p.m.-7:45 p.m. — Library! at Collister, Sycamore Room
February 12th, 6 p.m.-7:45p.m. — Downtown Library, Marion Bingham Room
March 19th, 6 p.m.-7:45 p.m. — Library! at Cole & Ustick, Sagebrush Room (Culminating Event)



2023/2024 Writers-in-Residence

Natalie Disney

October 2023 - March 2024

Natalie Disney earned her MFA in creative writing from Boise State University, where she served as Associate Editor of The Idaho Review. Her work has been published in The Florida Review and The Mississippi Review and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the PEN America Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. She is a recipient of the 2017 Balch Award for fiction. Natalie teaches creative writing at Boise State University and The Cabin Center for Readers and Writers. She lives near the Boise foothills with her wife, where she is at work on her first novel.

Heidi Kraay

April - September 2024

Heidi Kraay is a playwright and writer across disciplines whose work collides myth, metaphor, and monsters to discover connections across differences. Her work has been presented locally, regionally, and internationally, including full-lengths, co-devised projects, one-acts, plays for young audiences, and shorts. Projects in other disciplines include 2 Lifetimes: A Century Cycle, a memoir-adjacent book of essays in the ancient century form forthcoming through Modern Mythographer, and Drown to Resurface, an album of poem-songs in collaboration with musician Thomas Paul. She holds an MFA in Creative Inquiry and Interdisciplinary Arts from the California Institute of Integral Studies, and is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America through which she is beginning the Dramatists Guild Institute’s Certificate Program. Learn more at heidikraay.com 

The Cabin, the Boise Public Library, and the Boise City Department of Arts & History invites emerging and mid-career writers to apply for a six-month residency in Boise. 

This program is designed to connect local writers to the community of Boise through literary public programming events hosted monthly at Boise Public Library branches and the Erma Hayman House.

The selected Residents are responsible for developing and facilitating a series of public programs and will receive a $5000 stipend to support their creative work, and to develop these programs. The public programs may included themed or open writing workshops, reading series, writing explorations or other literary experiences. 

The goal of this Residency is to:

  • Support local emerging and mid-career writers in their creative practice.
  • Provide free and accessible literary programs to the community.
  • Raise awareness of the services and programs of the Cabin, the Boise Public Library and the Boise City Department of Arts and History.

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