Wednesday, March 10th (7:00PM)

PORTNEUF VALLEY BREWING

Host: Cathy Peppers
Readers: Margaret Aho, Jen Hawkins, Leslie Leek, Will Peterson, Bob Picard, Amil Quayle, Susan Swetnam, Harald Wyndham, and Angier Wills

Margaret Aho lives and writes in Pocatello. Limberlost press has published two of her chapbooks, and Blue Scarab press has published one.

Leslie Leek is proud to have been a part of the Rocky Mountain Writers' Festival since its fabled beginning at the Walrus and Carpenter when she was unfortunately trapped inside the book store during the infamous erotic rambling of the ex-priest from Idaho Falls while many of her compatriots escaped to drink beer and smoke outside. She attended the disputed "Festival genesis" at the Standrod Mansion and has missed perhaps two nights of festival readings over the years. She and Steven Puglisi were the M.Cs of several of the Saturday night readings at the Warehouse. Leslie continues to explore the writing of fiction.

Will Peterson is owner of the Walrus and the Carpenter bookstore.

Bob Picard -- musician since 12 years old (at least 20 years now). Rock and jazz drummer through high school and college. During that time also played percussion for symphonies and musicals. Started writing and playing guitar about 13 years ago. Produced the Snowbird Song School with successful writers from the Nashville market in 2001 and 2002. Current band Steelhead Redd, founded in 1998, continues to record and perform. You can hear SHR’s music at steelheadredd.com

Amil Quayle was born in St.Anthony, Idaho and lives there today in the same house he grew up in. He is a river guide and spent many summers hidden in the Grand Canyon. He has two sons who are also river guides and two out of seven grandchildren are river guides. He has a PH.D. He has a couple of books and flipped in a boat in the Grand Canyon summer before last and realized that is not as much fun as it once was. He taught some for Idaho State, mostly in Idaho Falls, and three years for Utah State. He rides a motorcycle once-in-awhile but his girlfriend doesn't like it. He would like to ride that Goldwing across Southern Missouri on the winding highway 160 through the Ozark Mountains once before he dies but probably never will.

Susan Swetnam has been teaching English at Idaho State University and writing for almost thirty years. She’s published four books (with another one currently in press) and many articles and essays. Her essay collection, Home Mountains (Washington State University Press, 2000), won an Idaho Library Association prize in 2000, and on her last sabbatical she was awarded an Espy Foundation Writer-in-Residence Fellowship in Washington State. She is currently a nominee for ISU’s Distinguished Researcher Award, and for a Fulbright Fellowship in Italy. Her newest book is a collection of personal essays about teaching, titled My Best Teachers Were Saints (Loyola Press, 2007).

Harald Wyndham is the owner of Blue Scarab Press, founded in 1984, which has also published various of his own books as well as books by Idaho writers and several anthologies of Idaho writing including Famous Potatoes (1986). His most recent book is Sarajevo -- a poem for voices.

Angier Wills -- a plastic surgeon from Atlanta by way of Nashville, he writes and plays original songs with the band Elvis has left the Building. ELB was born at the Backstage Bar in Pocatello, Idaho on Wednesday, March 6, 1996. Despite their initial (and lingering) reservations regarding each other’s various character flaws, the music works well enough that Angier Wills and Greg Mladenka remain with ELB. Today, they are joined by Bill Chalmers and, whenever he can arrange to be in the same time zone, Richard Inouye. You can hear ELB’s music at elbinfo.com