Catherine Jones
Margaret Marti
Chris Dempsey
Nicole LeFavour
Jerome Stenger
Dana Owen
The teaching writers for camp 2010 are Meghan Kenny, Catherine Jones, Chris Dempsey, and Nicole LeFavour. Students will have opportunities to work with all of the writers.
Meghan Kenny teaches writing for Gotham Writers’ Workshop online and at Towson University in Maryland. She held the 2008-2009 Tickner Writing Fellowship, was a 2008 Peter Taylor Fellow at the Kenyon Review Writers’ Workshop, and won the 2005 Iowa Review Award for Fiction. She will be a tuition scholar at Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in August 2010. Most recently her stories have appeared in Hobart, Pleiades, The Florida Review and The Kenyon Review. She holds a BA in English from Kenyon College and a MFA in fiction from Boise State University. She lives in Baltimore.
Meghan Kenny
"I grew up in New England, but I spent seven years during and after graduate school in Boise. I love Idaho. I can’t wait to come back to teach, write, and share ideas this summer."
Catherine Jones is a freelance writer from Missoula, Montana. She has worked most recently with Full Glass Films and director Danny Leiner, adapting the manuscript of her novel, The Ceremony, into a feature length screenplay. In 2010, she was a resident at the Millay Colony for the Arts and a recipient of a grant from the Montana Arts Council. She has taught writing for the 406 Writers' Workshop, Boise State University, and University of Montana. She received an MFA in creative writing from University of Montana.
Chris Dempsey, from Middleton, Idaho, is the author of Winter Horses, a book of poetry. He has been Idaho Council of Teachers of English Language Arts Teacher of the Year and Eagle High School Teacher of the Year, which is where he presently teaches eleventh grade English, honors English, American character, creative writing, and journalism. Chris also coaches track and football. He earned his master’s degree in Arts in Education from Boise State University.
Nicole LeFavour, has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Montana and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California Berkeley in the evolution of cognition. She lives in Boise and teaches creative writing at The Cabin, and has represented the state in the National Slam Poetry competition. She is the Idaho State Senator from District 19, and has a tireless record in striving for human rights through her work in the legislature and organizations to which she contributes her energy.
“As a young person, I lived on an Idaho ranch at the edge of the largest wilderness area in the lower 48 states. I grew up to work as a back country ranger there, where I walked solo in the wilderness for ten days at a time, checking trail conditions, documenting and photographing threatened and endangered species, monitoring water quality and checking remote hunting camps for the U.S. Forest Service for four years. I also worked as a fire lookout living in a small building on top of a peak in the middle of that wilderness for three years. What I learned about myself and about strength and the wild have stayed with me my whole life. In silence and solitude you cannot run away from your own voice. You have to get comfortable with it, your life, everything that haunts you. Nothing inspires me to write more than being in the wild. It is not only what is around me, the beauty, the unexpected detail, the intricate lives of the plants and animals, but what of myself I find there.”
In 2009, Writers @ Harriman had guest Cort Conley, a writer himself and exceptionally knowledgeable about Idaho’s mountains and rivers. Among Mr. Conley's many titles is Idaho for the Curious; he is director of literature for the Idaho Commission on the Arts.
Writing Assistant
Jerome Stenger was our writing assistant and boys proctor. Born and raised on the muddy banks of the Ohio River in Cincinnati, he now lives in Boise. An English and journalism major, he was the fiction editor of the Ohio Wesleyan Literary Magazine, studying under Robert Olmstead. While there, he was awarded the Ulle Lewes Prize for overall promise in creative non-fiction writing. Jerome is versed in all major forms of writing, even blogging!
“I believe that writing starts with a basic idea, and from there it's just a matter of sequestering yourself with a notepad or a computer.”
Naturalist
Dana Owen, our naturalist and girls proctor, is a graduate student at Boise State where she is studying human disturbance and American kestrels. While earning her BA in environmental studies and politics and government from Ohio Wesleyan University, Dana served as moderator of environmentally themed house of 12 students and VP of Environment and Wildlife Club. She has spent time in Honduras, Ecuador, and the Galapagos Islands volunteering with rural farmers, studying wildlife, and working as a naturalist guide. Dana has also served as conservation intern at Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania.
“I learned to love nature from a scientist dad and grandpa, growing up on a farm in southwestern Pennsylvania.”
Camp Director
Margaret Marti is the director of Writers @ Harriman, developing the writing workshop and managing the details. For some 20 years she worked in publishing before moving to Boise in 1999 where she was the managing director for The Cabin, Idaho’s literary center for more than 8 years. Margaret researches, edits, writes, and reviews grants for nonprofit and government organizations. Her passion for the arts and the outdoors, sometimes together, drive her. She is a life-long reader and writer. To relax, Margaret immerses herself in needlework and quilting.