Mitch Wieland, professor of creative writing and co-founder of the Boise State MFA creative writing program, received a prestigious Kirkus starred review for his forthcoming novel, “The Ghosts of Okuma.”
“Whether depicting the memories of a mother and son in California or staging an eerie conclusion set against a ‘rain-drenched radioactive forest,’ Wieland finds something fascinating and engrossing in every twist of the tale,” the reviewer writes. “A strange, beautiful, and unexpected exploration of the fallout of family tragedy.”
Kirkus Reviews gives a Star to only 10% of the 8,000-10,000 books reviewed each year by the magazine. “One of the most coveted designations in the book industry, the Kirkus Star marks books of exceptional merit,” the Kirkus website notes.
About “Ghosts of Okuma”
Wieland’s novel centers on two teenagers, both marked by tragedy and loss, who form an unlikely friendship in Tokyo, Japan.
The novel received much advanced praise from writers, including Anthony Doerr, best-selling author of “All the Light We Cannot See” and winner of the Pulitzer Prize. “By turns comic and tragic, Mitch Wieland’s “The Ghosts of Okuma” is a sharply-written and brilliantly-paced novel that manages to become both a satisfying love story and a devastating look at the lives of one family shattered by suicide and another displaced by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster,” Doerr wrote. “It’s so funny, charming, and infused with tenderness that it’s a pure pleasure to read […]”
You can pre-order the novel here.
About Mitch Wieland
Professor Mitch Wieland, a teacher for nearly three decades, co-founded Boise State University’s MFA Program in Creative Writing. During his time at Boise State, Wieland also founded The Idaho Review, an award-winning literary journal edited and published by the MFA Program. Wieland authored two acclaimed novels: “Willy Slater’s Lane” and “God’s Dogs,” winner of the Idaho Book of the Year Award and finalist for the John Gardner Fiction Book Prize. Regal House Publishing will publish his third novel, “The Ghosts of Okuma,” in 2026. Wieland’s short fiction appears in The Missouri Review, The Southern Review, The Kenyon Review, The Yale Review, and numerous anthologies, including Best of the West. Wieland received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, the Idaho Commission on the Arts, and the Alexa Rose Foundation. Wieland has also served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and received Boise State’s Excellence in Graduate Mentoring Award in 2024. The Idaho Commission on the Arts (Arts Idaho) appointed
Professor Mitch Wieland as the 2026–2027 Idaho Writer in Residence, the state’s highest literary honor.