Be sure to register for the preconference and join author Mitch Wieland for lunch on Wednesday, October 5th.  Mitch was born in Dover, Ohio. He has lived in Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego, Tuscaloosa, and Tokyo, Japan.  Wieland holds an MFA from The University of Alabama, and once served as fiction editor of Black Warrior Review. Wieland is currently a full professor at Boise State University, where he has taught for fifteen years. One of the founders of Boise State’s MFA program, he was its director for four years. Wieland founded The Idaho Review in 1998.  Wieland is the author of Willy Slater’s Lane and God’s Dogs. Willy Slater’s Lane received starred reviews in Publisher’s Weekly and Booklist, and was optioned for a film. The New York Times called the novel “immensely moving.” God’s Dogs was named Idaho Book of the Year for 2009. Featured in Best of the West, God’s Dogs was a finalist for the 2010 John Gardner Fiction Book Award. The novel was also cited as a Book of the Year by New West.com.