The Boise City Department of Arts and History, in partnership with the Boise Public Library and The Cabin, named writers Matthew Denton-Edmundson and Natanya Biskar as Boise City 2026-2027 Writers-in-Residence. Biskar graduated from the Boise State Creative Writing MFA Program in 2022, and currently serves as academic programs coordinator for the Department of Theatre, Film and Creative Writing. Denton-Edmundson, a lecturer in the creative writing program, recently sold his debut novel for publication.
Denton-Edmundson and Biskar will serve as Residents for six months. Selected through a competitive application process, the Residents will each receive a $5,000 stipend to support their creative work and to develop free public programs for the community at all Boise Library branches and the Erma Hayman House in downtown Boise.
Matthew Denton-Edmundson, Writer-in-Residence October 2026 – March 2027
Matthew Denton-Edmundson is a visiting assistant professor of creative writing at Boise State. He grew up in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, where much of his writing takes place. He was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, and got a degree from Florida State University, before he moved to Boise. His debut novel, Reclamation is forthcoming from Doubleday and will also be released in the United Kingdom and France. Denton-Edmundson’s writing has been published in The New York Times, The Missouri Review, The Massachusetts Review, The American Scholar, The Hedgehog Review, Raritan and Hobart. He was the winner of the 2024 Jeffery E. Smith Editors’ prize and his essay, “How to Love Animals,” was anthologized in the 2025 Best American Essays.
Natanya Biskar, Writer-in-Residence April 2027 – September 2027
Natanya Biskar is a fiction writer based in Boise, Idaho. She earned her MFA in fiction from Boise State University, where she served as associate editor for The Idaho Review. Her work has appeared in Subtropics, The Indiana Review and SELF. Born and raised in San Francisco, Natanya taught elementary school for more than ten years across the Pacific Northwest. She is currently at work on her first novel.
About the Boise City Writer-in-Residence Program
A collaborative program between the Boise City Department of Arts & History, the Boise Public Library and The Cabin, the Boise City Writer-in-Residence program offers local writers dedicated time and a stipend to support their creative practice and connect them to the community through free monthly literary public programs and events. Funded by the City of Boise, these six-month residencies open for applications annually in the summer.