Kurt Zwolfer

Executive Director

Kurt is the Executive Director of The Cabin and works closely with the Board of Directors to manage policy, personnel, and a healthy balance sheet so that The Cabin can continue to serve the community of readers and writers here in Idaho.

He has BA in Rhetoric (a fancy word for creative writing) from The University of Illinois and a master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction from Boise State University. On his path to managing a non-profit, Kurt did stints running an astronomy observatory, directing the education programs at the Idaho State Museum, and tracking and banding birds in Illinois, Hawaii, and the Owyhee desert.

In his spare time you can either find him in a Boise coffee shop reading a book or alternately getting lost on some Idaho back road on the way to explore an obscure canyon or mountain peak. His wife says that he has too many books and she’s probably right. The shelves of his upstairs office are triple stacked and the piles on the floor are almost waist deep. There is a chance he might be found one day crushed under a literary avalanche, a copy of Tristram Shandy in one hand, a glass of spilled port in the other. When you think about it, not a bad way to go.

Hillary Bilinski

Assistant Director

Hillary manages general operations and development at The Cabin, which includes fundraising campaign oversight, membership management, all financial systems including accounting, budgeting, and reporting, and serving as backup to the Executive Director. She holds a BA in English, a BS in Accounting, and an MFA in Writing.

In other news, Hillary momages two young busy bees (ages 2 and 4), with her husband, Kyle. When free time does open up, she enjoys quilting, reading, and biking. Hillary doesn’t believe in meeting your idols, so she would fastidiously avoid having a conversation with Charles Dickens, Agatha Christie, or Alan Bradley. Currently, she is pages-deep in Elly Griffiths’ Brighton Mysteries.

Hillary Colton

Education Programs Manager

Hillary manages The Cabin’s educational programs, from Writing Workshops to Writers in the Schools. She holds a BA in Rhetoric as well as an MFA in Creative Writing from Boise State University. 

Before joining The Cabin, Hillary taught fiction writing at Boise State University and was part of The Idaho Review’s editing staff. Hillary is currently working on her first novel, which she slowly picks at whenever she finds the time. 

Hillary is a proud parent of thirtyish houseplants and two human children. Aside from her kiddos, Hillary’s best friend is an eighty-pound husky mix who loves mealtime and ingesting socks. (And yes, she actually wants to see photos of your pets and children.) If writers always turned out to be as outstanding as their work, she’d love to chat with the late Raymond Carver.

Desmond Fuller

Education Programs Coordinator

Desmond assists Hillary Colton in educational programming at The Cabin. Their shared office is acknowledged as having the highest population of plant babies in the building.

Desmond holds a BA in English and Spanish, from Portland State University and an MFA in fiction from Boise State University. He was the associate editor of The Idaho Review and was a 2023 Sun Valley Writers Conference Fellow. Desmond has taught creative writing at Boise State and as a Cabin Teaching-Writer.

His fiction appears in various literary journals such as Grist, Indiana Review, Peauxdunque Review, Aquifer: The Florida Review online, Hawaii Pacific Review, West Trade Review, The Gravity of the Thing, and elsewhere.

When he’s not writing, Desmond enjoys playing music, hiking, bicycling, and catching a good movie at The Flicks. Some of his favorite books include Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson (or really anything and everything by Denis Johnson), The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, and The Quick and The Dead by Joy Williams.

Gen Emerson

Patron Services Manager

Gen handles front line customer service and sales, hires seasonal interns, proofs communications, secures supplies, coordinates building maintenance and schedules building use and rentals. She graduated from Boise State University with an Interdisciplinary degree in Field Sciences, Art & Creative Nonfiction Writing and spent a decade traveling, writing, and conducting wildlife research throughout Idaho before settling down in Boise.

Gen loves to swim, sing, and dance. She can be found reading in the evenings with her beau, talking to orchids, strolling with binoculars, creating colorful messes in the studio, and examining tiny flowers, bugs, and rocks wherever she roams. For Gen, sipping tea over a desert sunrise with the late Byrd Baylor, rubbing Jane Goodall’s tired feet or planting a tree with Wangari Maathai would be the ultimate.

Joel Wayne

Public Programs Manager

Joel is The Cabin’s public programs manager, helming Readings & Conversations, Ghosts & Projectors, and other Cabin productions.

With a background in content marketing and producing podcasts like You Know The Place and Reader’s Corner for NPR, Joel is a writer, first and foremost, whose work can be read in The Independent, The Moth, Salon, and elsewhere. While Judy Blume’s Then Again, Maybe I Won’t played a pivotal role in his younger years, if he could have dinner with any author, it’d have to be James Baldwin.

Jordyn Marcroft

Financial & Public Programs Coordinator

Jordyn is the Public Programs Assistant for The Cabin. She has a BFA in Publishing Arts from Lewis-Clark State College. She worked on the college’s literary journal, Talking River, where she acted as President her senior year.

When she isn’t at The Cabin, Jordyn is writing, reading, or baking. She loves exploring the mountains of Idaho with her husband and their three dogs. If given the opportunity to speak with any author, and in this hypothetical of speaking to dead artists, language barriers do not exist, she would have a conversation with Anna Akhmatova about everything from Imperial summers in Tsarskoye Selo to the thirty-year winter of Stalin’s rule. The book that launched her love of literature was Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, or maybe The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, but she didn’t want people to think she only reads Russian literature.

Chris DeVore

Grants Manager

Chris has been The Cabin's Grants Manager since 2021 and also serves as the Executive Director of the Mountain Home Arts Council. He is the Editor of The Whistle Pig literary journal and sits on the Board of Directors for Arts Northwest. Originally from Polson, Montana, Chris earned his literature degree from the University of Puget Sound. He resides in Mountain Home, Idaho, with his wife, Hannah, and their youngest daughter, Evelyn. Their son, Torrance, is pursuing a degree in Exercise Science at the University of Jamestown, and their middle daughter, Lillian, is studying Biology at the College of Idaho.

Chris finds it impossible to pick a favorite author or book. Still, he could imagine an ideal evening sitting around a table with Richard Hugo, Anne Lamott, Jess Walter, and Sherman Alexie. They've each written books that make him want to write and be a better person.

“In real life try to be nice. It will save you a hell of a lot of trouble and give you more time to write.” –Richard Hugo, The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing

Adie Bartron

Marketing & Communications Manager

Adie is The Cabin’s marketing and communications manager, handling marketing campaigns, digital strategy, and points of contact with both Cabin patrons and the community at large.

With an extensive background in marketing and project management, Adie earned her stripes working for a decade between Oliver Russell and Stoltz Marketing Group. In her non-Cabin hours, she’s an avid reader, baker, camper, podcast listener, and cat mom. The book(s) that sparked her love of reading would have to be the entire Baby-Sitters Club series. Or The Boxcar Children series. Or The Little House on the Prairie series.