Acclaimed Writer Bojan Louis to Visit ISU

Creative Writing at Idaho State University is pleased to announce that acclaimed writer Bojan Louis will visit ISU March 5-6, 2024, to hold a reading and additional events. Louis’s visit is sponsored by ISU’s Department of English and Philosophy and by Black Rock and Sage, ISU’s student journal of creative works.

On Wednesday, March 6th, at 5:30 p.m. in Historic Downtown Pocatello’s Valentine Ballroom (100 S. Arthur), Louis will read from his short story collection, Sinking Bell, followed by a Q&A session. The reading is free and public adult audiences are encouraged to attend. Book sales and signing will follow.

Set in or around Flagstaff, Arizona, the stories in Sinking Bell portray “violent collisions of love, cultures, and racism.” Its publisher, Graywolf, describes the stories as “gritty and searching [. . .] empathetic portraits of day laborers, metalheads, motel managers, aspiring writers and musicians, construction workers, people passing through with the hope of something better somewhere else.” Sinking Bell was named an NPR best book of 2022, and Publishers Weekly described it as “immersive and powerful.”

Bojan Louis is Diné of the Naakai dine’é, born for the Áshííhí. He is also the author of a book of poetry, Currents, which received an American Book Award. He has been a resident at MacDowell and is a 2023 recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts Poetry Fellowship. He teaches creative writing at the University of Arizona.

During his visit, Louis will also hold a class for ISU’s advanced creative writing students and will perform an outreach event at Pocatello High School.