Beginning this summer, the Modern Hotel and RadioBoise will host Modern Campfire Stories, produced by Christian Winn. On Monday nights throughout the summer and fall, hear the best writers Idaho has to offer.

June 16, 2014 features J. Reuben Appelman and Matthew R.K. Haynes

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Matthew R. K. Haynes
is an assistant professor of English at College of Western Idaho. He was a State of Idaho Writing Fellow in 2010, named Honors Professor of the Year in 2005 and 2011. He earned his M.A. in Fiction and M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction from Boise State University. His first novel, Moving Towards Home, was published 1999. Subsequently, his work has appeared in several anthologies and journals including SOMA Literary Journal, O’iwi, Native Literatures, Fringe and Yellow Medicine Review. He was been a finalist for the Faulkner Award in Nonfiction and Writer’s Digest Award in Fiction. His collection of multi-genre writing, titled Shall We Not Go Missing, has been chosen for the Wayne Kaumuali’i Westlake Monograph Series, and is forthcoming from Kuleana Press.

READING:
I will be reading short short fiction for a new working collection, which are in, or about, Hawai'i. The collection began with the idea: why do we go to Hawai'i? The genesis story attempts to answer this question when a couple leave for Kona to celebrate their second honeymoon after a renewal of vows. Maybe people go to Hawai'i to see a new version of their lover, or a better version of themselves. But, can that version/illusion maintain beyond the "power" of the islands? Is Hawai'i the geographical version of buying a dog, buying a house, having a kid, renewing a vow? Each story connects to the next, by character.

For the Modern, I'll be reading a batch that address what it means to want, and how that might be different than what it means to desire, and how, if at all, either can lead to a state of receiving, having, accepting.

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J. Reuben Appelman
has spent the past ten years working as a film writer, scripting and producing documentaries such as Jens Pulver: Driven (Warner Bros.) and Playground, a film about the child sex trade, Executive Produced by George Clooney. All of last year he hosted The Writers Block radio show on Boise’s KRBX, interviewing writers, artists, politicians, reporters, ex porn stars, and other manner of people with a story to tell. His writing projects and research, focused on issues related to commercial sexual exploitation, child endangerment, and related law enforcement issues, have earned him a spot as a guest lecturer on the issue of Human Trafficking for the Honor’s College at Boise State University. His work has been featured by National Public Radio literary reviewer, Andrei Codrescu, American Public Media’s “The Story, with Dick Gordon,” and by the glossy arts quarterly, BOMB Magazine, which featured Appelman’s poetry collection, Make Loneliness, as an international Editor’s Pick. He has received multiple writing grants, including a prestigious State of Idaho Writing Fellowship for Investigative Writing. He currently works full time as a fraud investigator for the medical insurance industry.

Project Description:
In 1977, a man fitting the description of a suspected serial killer tried to abduct Appelman from a shopping mall outside of Detroit. He fled and told no one. In his late thirties, the memory of that near abduction sent him on a five-year mission to solve a decades-old cold case whose police files told the story of ongoing cover-ups, moneyed confidence men, child pornography rings, and high-level corruption. He worked with surviving family members, original task force cops from the 1970s, and a variety of anonymous sources who came out of the shadows. The deeper he dug into the case, the closer it hit to home. At some point, he looked around the casket of a failed marriage and there was nothing left on its walls but the photos of four dead kids nobody but Appelman seemed to be thinking about anymore. 37 Winters is the story of his hunt for their killer.

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About The Series:
Produced by Christian Winn, who also produces Storyfort, the literary add-on to this year’s Treefort Music Fest, who invites writers from around Idaho to read their work. Original fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, screenplays and more will be offered from Boise's rich literary community.

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