RIGBY, Idaho (KIFI) — For a long time, many writers in East Idaho felt they lacked a local community to connect, learn, and share their work. That all changed last weekend. Saturday, the first-ever Idaho Storytellers Summit brought together writers of all ages at Rigby High School, offering a much-needed venue for connection and creative exchange.
The summit showcased strong ties to the region, featuring two high-profile keynote speakers who call eastern Idaho home.
Cynthia Hand, New York Times bestselling author of the Lady Jane series, currently lives in Boise, but grew up in Idaho Falls.
Hand’s connection to the area is so deep that she set her book, The How and the Why, in Idaho Falls, telling the fictional story of a Bonneville High School student searching for answers about her birth mother.
“I grew up in Idaho Falls so I wanted to write a story that explored that place,” Hand said. “So I had to research how Idaho Falls has changed and it has a lot since I was a teenager, but I really was writing about places that I knew. And I went to Bonneville High School , so I wrote about Bonneville High School and about the theater department there. I knew what that looked like without having to research it again.”
Hand was joined by Jeff Wheeler, a Wall Street Journal bestselling author of over thirty epic fantasy novels, who lives just up the road in Sugar City.
But they weren’t the only authors channeling love for the Gem State into novels. Bonnie Jo Pierson, a romance writer, has set two of her books—What Happens in Idaho and Extreme Romancing in Idaho—in the Gem State.
“I actually decided to write the Idaho setting because I moved away to St. Louis and then we were in Florida and Virginia, and I was homesick for Idaho,” Pierson said. “The time I spent in my novel writing it, I would go home.”
Often attending writing conferences down in Utah, Pierson was thrilled to join in a writing conference closer to home.
“I’m hoping that we keep doing this because there’s a lot of talent in Idaho,” Pierson said. “There’s a lot of creativity here. It’s a beautiful place with a lot of wonderful people, and I love seeing, especially the creatives of Idaho, gathering in one place and seeing how many of us there actually are.”
That excitement extended to Brecky Young, one of the many aspiring authors who attended. “It’s fun to come together and see people in my community who are also really interested in this and that there’s people who are successful that are in my community that can come and share, they’re kind of my neighbors,” said Young.
Beyond networking and learning, the summit also served to pave the road ahead for multiple young authors attending. Attendees could purchase book-themed t-shirts and sweatshirts to help Rigby High School raise money to send students to Story Con, a writing conference in Salt Lake City next February.
Organizers hope to hold the event again next year to amplify East Idaho’s voice and open the way for more stories based in the region to be heard around the world.
