Soon after Ron McFarland began teaching at the University of Idaho in 1970, he not only produced the scholarship expected of a young professor intent on gaining tenure but sent out, as well, poetry and fiction to a variety of periodicals. Not surprisingly, in addition to courses and seminars in seventeenth-century and modern British poetry, contemporary Northwest writers, and Ernest Hemingway, McFarland has taught classes in creative writing for many years at the university. McFarland also played a role in the literary renaissance that has evolved in recent years in Idaho. Many Idaho-born writers and educators have joined forces with writers and educators who grew up outside the state but now consider Idaho their home, developing and modernizing a community of writers that is also nationally renowned. This community includes such authors as Kim Barnes, Mary Blew, Claire Davis, Gary Gildner, and Robert Wrigley as well as Kent Anderson...