THE CABIN IN THE COMMUNITY I remember exactly where I was when I first heard about The Cabin. I was stuck in traffic, when a BSU radio announcement came on to say that Andrei Codrescu was coming to Boise to speak at the Egyptian Theatre. As an avid NPR listener, I’d long been a fan of Codrescu. His was the Eastern European accented voice I loved to listen to on the radio. I bought my tickets as soon as I got home. At the Egyptian, it was exciting to see the man behind the radio voice I knew, and then to actually meet him as he signed my books. I became an immediate fan of The Cabin’s Readings and Conversations lecture series. That was in 2007. Yet beyond Readers and Conversations, I knew little else about The Cabin. As the years went by I began to hear about other activities sponsored by The Cabin, among them, summer writing camps for kids and drop-in writing workshops for adults. Then, a little over a year ago a friend of mine invited me to an event where he would be reading from a short story he’d had published. It was in the Writers in the Attic anthology, a publication sponsored by The Cabin to celebrate the work of local writers. It was his first short story to be published, and I’m sure it won’t be his last. The thing is, I’d had no idea The Cabin was so involved in supporting the work of local writers. For anyone who’s been involved with The Cabin over the years, these activities will likely come as no surprise. Yet since it’s inception in 1996 the Cabin has grown and evolved. The intention of this special print
issue of CABIN is to both celebrate and inform readers of where The Cabin has been and of how The Cabin will continue to meet the needs of Boise’s growing literary community in the future.
Why The Cabin? In the inaugural edition of its newsletter, founder Alan Minskoff wrote that he believed The Cabin would combine “two endeavors that define the character of a city: preserving old buildings and encouraging the literary arts.” While it’s clear that The Cabin’s activities are dedicated to promoting Boise’s literary culture, some readers may not be aware of the history of The Cabin’s role in preserving an historic architectural landmark. Located just south of the Boise Public Library and within a stone’s throw of the Boise River, The Cabin is located in the heart of Boise’s cultural center, making it a convenient site for hosting its many literary activities. Yet it should come as no surprise that the builders of the log cabin structure that today houses Boise’s literary center did not originally intend for it to serve this function. The Cabin edifice was originally designed to serve as an office for the Forest Service. In part, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Idaho’s statehood, it was decided that it should be constructed of native woods. To that end, Hans Hulbe of the Boise Payette Lumber Company designed The Cabin with its characteristic log exterior of Idaho Engleman Spruce and used a mix of yellow and white pines, red cedar,
and Idaho Red Fir for its interior spaces. Although the building also functioned as an office for the Department of Lands for a short time afterwards, the City of Boise purchased the building from the state in 1992 for $20,000. In need of a building, in 1996 the board of the newly formed literary organization that has since become know as The Cabin, contracted a 30 year lease from the city with the intention to preserve the historical structure. Since then, not only has The Cabin made good on its founding vision to create a literary center in Boise, but according to Preservation Idaho, The Cabin’s members and supporters have raised over half a million dollars to support building renovations, so that it is now on the national register of historic places. While the log exterior of The Cabin is symbolic of the interdependent relationships that have historically existed between wood, paper, and print in the literary arts, recent technological innovations may sometimes make it seem as though words and the content it carries are somehow spontaneously generated, right out of thin air. Yet despite the internet, the creation of original written content in the form of one word that is painstakingly placed beside another requires labor. Original writing is still created by human beings, people of real flesh and blood, that occupy space. It is for that reason that Boise writers need a place like The Cabin, a tangible site where local writers can gather to meet for readings, workshops, and support. – Carmen Morawski
JOHN GREEN TO MARK TWAIN Frances Shafer-Coffey Grade 8 (2015) You wrote of nature and the west. You wrote of rivers and the truth. Before you wrote, writing was a formal thing, but you changed that like I changed the love story. We’ve created a world for readers like so many others that tells them of life blunt and beautiful as it is from your baby’s first breath to the epitaph on your gravestone, with all the in-between from a temple to a shrine.
The Cabin’s mission is to inspire a love of reading, writing and discourse.To encourage a robust reading and writing community, The Cabin offers a wide variety of programming accessible to all ages.
FIRST DAY Our first day was a fine hot day beside the river with the crows shouting and sun pouring through the cottonwoods. By two-thirty we had learned each other’s names, done a bit of warm-up writing, talked about stories and taken a restroom break. Already the young writers seemed comfortable–comfortable with each other, with this odd mix of school and camp. Emily, to my right, a quiet writer with a purple Band-Aid on her ankle, was drawing spirals on a sheet of paper. Amber lay in a dirty patch of lawn in her flower-print dress, smearing a floppy ham sandwich into her mouth, chewing loudly, smacking her lips. Holly stared into the trees, the schools of drifting cottonseed. Moments before each writer had held out a folded sheet of paper and I splashed a bit of ink onto it. Then they folded their sheets so the ink would dry in a fairly symmetrical blotch, a kind of do-it-yourself Rorsach drawing. The ink was dry now, and I explained that I would like each writer to name his or her inkblotch and imagine it into a character, with a gender and an age and a job and a host of characteristics. What does your character do at night? What is in your character’s garbage? What kind of things does your character carry in her pockets? How would your character ask someone on a date? The exercise, I hoped, would be an imaginative calisthenic, a way to show the writers that characters could come from anything, that everything and anything was worthy of attention. At the end of the exercise, when they would bring two characters together, they might see that narrative generated naturally from character, that making a story was simply a matter of introducing conflict into a character’s life. Fundamentally, it was designed, like any creative exercise, to flex the imagination. The kids opened their notebooks and scribbled away. Jessica drew her character before writing about her: a stout lady in black pumps. Doug had faded behind us and wrote diligently about a well-paid gravedigger. Katie folded her knees to her chin and wrote secretively, as she would all week, filling page after page with faint cursive. Jason guffawed about his character, a reggae instructor named Charles Barkley who made a million dollars a minute cleaning a workout gym after hours. Megan imagined a butterfly named Skyla and Holly imagined a ladybug. Thomas created a detective named Colonel Mustard with a sidekick pooch named Major Ketchup. Amber declared that she was done writing, that she only wrote during
Every summer The Cabin hosts kids in grades 3-12 for week-long, half-day WRITING CAMPS. Led by a professional writer, campers can learn about songwriting, how to write a play, become a journalist or write while hiking in the Foothills.
the mornings, and that she had never lost an argument in her life. To verify this, she said, I could ask her mother or her sister. She sat a while with her arms crossed over her chest, then began to draw. After a while I noticed that Kylie, a tall sixth-grader who sat away from the group in a patch of sun, had written nothing. She stared at her ink-blotch, then looked away, towards the road. Her face was pinched, her cheeks were almost over her eyes, there was sweat on the back of her neck. Writing is a terrifying thing. It can freeze you, it can ruin your day; if it overcomes you it can infect your day with guilt and weakness. It is a frigid black lake you have to jump into, each time, a system shock, a freezing dark water, a fear, a dreadful plague. There are times when you would rather have a gun to your head than confront another awful expanse of blank paper. But this, this ink-splash exercise, was supposed to be as free as writing gets. This was by the Boise River, on a perfect day, for no grade, with no threat of criticism, for nobody but yourself, with a bluebird sky overhead and soft grass under you. What was there to be afraid of? Plenty.
I squatted beside Kylie and told her those things. I turned her inkblot upside-down. It looked like a fierce moose to me, so I told her that, and I told her it looked now like a fierce moose-hunter, and could she write about him? A fierce moose-hunter named Tyrell who wore a mask when he hunted moose. What did Tyrell look like under his mask, Kylie? She didn’t–couldn’t–answer. She didn’t even nod. A droplet of sweat hung from the tip of her nose. I scrapped the moose-hunter. What does the inkblot look like to you, Kylie? Does it look like a monster or a ballerina? Do you want to get out of the hot sun, Kylie? She said nothing. Her face was badly pinched and I couldn’t bear it. I urged her to abandon the inkblot, that it was only useful if it proved itself useful, and it clearly wasn’t proving itself useful. She could write about whatever and whomever she pleased. She didn’t have to write at all. She sat rigid. When I came back fifteen minutes later Kylie had printed, thinly, in the top corner of the page,
“John Smith” and “bum.” I applauded this small start– would she tell me more about John Smith? How did he become a bum? Kylie started to cry. She said she didn’t understand what was happening, that she just couldn’t write, that she didn’t want to be at Writing Camp. Creation is scary, no matter what age you are, no matter where you are, no matter what stakes you find yourself creating for. Already, at ages eleven or nine or eight, the writers in our group exhibited real fear, in a thousand disguises, when asked to put pencil to paper. Creation is elusive, it is magic, it lives on the outskirts of our understanding. It is rarely something that comes when called. For Kylie, it turns out, creation comes unbidden in the night. Three days after our first day, on Thursday, Kylie sat in our circle and read three poems she’d written the night before, carefully revised poems that spoke truly and without cliché. She was beaming. She was a new person. – Anthony Doerr, 1999
PONYTAIL GIRL Esperance Marian Pritchett High School (2012) In Africa I did have hair until my dad cut it short like a baby’s. In school in Africa, boys and girls had to have short hair, we all looked like little soldiers, same hair, same clothes.
WRITERS IN THE SCHOOLS (WITS) supports creative writing enrichment in 3rd-12th grade classrooms throughout the Treasure Valley. During the school year, The Cabin employs professional local writers—poets, novelists, playwrights, and journalists—to teach semester- or school-year-long writing residencies in schools, juvenile detention centers, and community learning centers.
I came to America at fourteen. I saw girls’ hair, soft, long, colors of the rainbow. I was jealous. I put stinky chemicals on my hair to make it straight, for two months my hair looked like a black waterfall. My hair, now, is a little longer straight from the metal jaws I use to keep it down My mom’s hair was curly. I want to put my hands in her hair and roll her curls around my fingers. Do you think she has curly hair in heaven?
“Perhaps, above all, the Cabin has given our community a place where the written word is cherished, works of the imagination honored and the interaction among those developing their own voices is stimulated.” – Alan Minskoff, 1998
Established in 2003, READINGS & CONVERSATIONS brings internationally acclaimed thought leaders to our community. See the world through the eyes of bestselling authors, award winning writers, and literary movers and shakers.
STORYFORT is an annual event presented as part of the Treefort Music Festival. The Cabin partners with other word-centric organizations to propel and inspire litlove in Boise. Storyfort brings together an eclectic group of writers, readers, historians, musicians to plumb the depths of Boise’s stories — everything from its musical heritage to fiction it has inspired to its deepest, most personal secrets. “I just came from a great Artistic Advisors meeting at The Cabin and my brain’s on fire. They have so many bold and exciting things planned to help promote reading, writing, and discourse in Idaho. As it should be. These folks get it big time! Our great meeting lead me to thinking about how many discussions I’ve had over the years have in some way asserted that conversations and events about reading and writing need to be quiet and staid, like we’re still at the library and the librarian is shushing us. I think there are so many selfsame associations with books that hinder their proper place in our communities. I mean, I always hated to be shushed, and if libraries are quiet that’s not because books are inherently quiet. Books are loud and thrilling and angry and reckless and make me swoon and cheer and laugh till I’m crying, make me hate and contemplate this world and other worlds and fill me with tremendous hope. I’ve thrown books against the wall. I’ve held books close while sleeping. On at least one occasion, I thought a book was haunted. And...sometimes books make me want to be quiet and still, too. But even then I don’t feel like celebrating books quietly or daintily. So don’t let yourself be shushed, people! We think books are amazing and important and totally freaking cool and we need to shout that out so everyone can join in the fun or wonder why the hell we’re making so much noise.” – Alan Heathcock,2013
“New people will come and be part of this love of reading and writing. Together we are building something significant. I wasn’t joking the other day when I instructed my family to make certain that, when the time comes, my obituary mentions that I was a charter member of the Log Cabin Literary Center. That’s something of which to be proud.” – Jan Alden, 1999
TRUMPETER SWAN/BEAVER: 1/1/11 Matthew James Babcock Here is my confession. When I said I was leaving to run an errand I meant walking to the cottonwood stand behind the technical college to see how many twisted trunks beavers had toppled since last summer ground itself to sand. I’ve done this for years. Snow muted vacant lots. Ruts marred the place where bulldozers gouged up wild poppies we found. Cold spun breath to lace. Light grazed my face, cooled on cars. Ice burned. Fields and engineering offices blazed with frigid gold in thin galleries. The vivid always disappears. A sound turned me. Half honk, half manifesto. Seven swans, snowy flames from the river. Big as A-10s, they skimmed treetops, so low a man with a snow blower heard them carve the air. Into pale sun they veered at the velocity of white, through the sky’s cloudy gears. Every confession is an errand. I’ve tried to say this so you understand. The urge to believe is the speech of beavers perpetually unseen. Every year is a ritual of late arrivals, a futile reach for the beauty of the fallen, the crash that stills the thunder no one hears.
The Writers in the Attic Program, or WITA, is an annual publication contest for local writers, both emerging and established, to publish work related to a theme chosen by The Cabin. This publication is a stepping stone for new writers and a venue that showcases the talent in our community. Work is blind judged by a local literary notable and selected works are published as part of the Writers in the Attic anthology. 39 Idaho authors were chosen to be part of the fourth annual Writers in the Attic anthology book, ANIMAL, which will be released in September 2015.
INVEST IN THE CABIN’S FUTURE Donate to 20-for-20! $20,000 for 20 years of reading, writing and discourse. Every dollar donated will be MATCHED so your dollars can go even further in serving your community’s center for readers & writers! Kick us off toward another 20 years of Writers in the Schools, Readings & Conversations, Writing Camps, Storyfort, Writers in the Attic. workshops for adults, scholarship programs for young writers and countless free programs.
FOUNDING BOARD Jan Alden Kent Anderson Rick Ardinger Helen Copple Williamson Chuck Guilford Bev Harad Jyl Hoyt Steven Mayfield Mike Medberry Alan Minskoff Diane Josephy Peavey Rita Rodriguez Diane Ronayne Judith Root Gino Sky Judith Steele Ruth Wright Driek Zirinsky Amy Stahl Paul Shaffer Kris Tucker
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BOARD PRESIDENTS Alan Minskoff Jan Alden Kathy Barrett Vince Hannity Scott Gipson Karen Baker Michael Spink Jack Harty Russ Stoddard Patricia Johnson Byron Johnson Marsha Smith Scott Gill Karla Bodnar Karen Baerlocher
801 S. Capitol Blvd. Boise, ID 83702 (208) 331-8000 info@thecabinidaho.org www.thecabinidaho.org The Cabin is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. Federal Tax Identification Number: 82-0488067