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​Matthew Kelly Melton is a Boise-based actor, improviser, and podcaster. As a studio guide for Story Story Night, he has conducted storytelling workshops for organizations such as the Idaho Laugh Fest, YSEALI, the Idaho Office of Refugees, and the Sun Valley Center for the Arts. He also coaches actors in the Treasure Valley with the Actors Workout and the Boise Acting Studio. Recent favorite roles include Deep Blue (Chris) with the Boise Little Theater, Avenue Q (Bad Idea Bear) at Stage Coach Theater, and Antony and Cleopatra (Mark Antony) with the Boise Bard Players. You can see him this year around the Northwest with his improv troupe, the U.S. Average, and hear him in your earbuds as host of the That Baseball Show podcast and cast member of Play Around and Find Out, an actual-play RPG podcast.

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Guest Artists

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​Daniel Hidalgo is the educational director of the Idaho Art Lab in St. Anthony where he teaches ceramics, pottery, sculpture, painting and drawing. He is also a painting instructor for the Yellowstone Association Institute and one of the artists behind Dung and Dunger Paper Art Studios. Growing up in Pocatello, Idaho Falls and Blackfoot, Daniel’s inspiration for his work comes from his surroundings in Eastern Idaho.

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​Kara Hidalgo has her degree in marketing from BSU and is the co-founder of the not-for-profit makerspace, Idaho Art Lab. She and her husband, Daniel, also lead field trips around the region and in Yellowstone National Park for photographers and painters. At the Lab she teaches art, lapidary, animation, digital photography and photo editing as well as large format photography and how to use the photography darkroom. Kara's lifelong adventure of taking pictures, painting and writing poetry began in junior high. She was a member of Boise's "Between the Lines Poetry Society", has had photography published in Sunset Magazine and trade magazines and her paintings have exhibited at the Art Museum of Eastern Idaho and at Yellowstone Teton Gallery of Art.

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Camp Naturalist

​Allen Dale graduated from Northwest Nazarene College (now University) in 1987. He taught biology in and out of the classroom since that time. The phrase that best describes him is, if it starts with a “B” and flies he is passionate about it. Allen will be leading nature hikes and looking for bats, birds, and butterflies.

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Camp Proctors

​Tristan Arnold, Lead Proctor, attended Writers at Harriman for two summers before becoming a proctor. He will graduate in the spring from Dickinson College in Pennsylvania where he will receive a degree in international studies. He was a student delegate at the 2017 Air Force Academy Assembly and will be a delegate at the 2018 Naval Academy Foreign Affairs Conference. Tristan is a graduate of Boise High School and enjoys all manner of learning, as well as hiking and backpacking in his beloved Idaho mountains.

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Calvin Udall attended Writers at Harriman for two summers before becoming a proctor in 2022. He is currently enrolled at Boise State University as a sociology major. As a lover of all things natural, he is the co-founder and social media manager for Idaho Young Birders Club, and has spent many summers surveying Western Rattlesnakes in Idaho. He has served as an intern for the Youth Advocates Network, and is an employee of the Boise State Uniting for Inclusive Leadership in Diversity (BUILD) Program on campus. As a lover of all things natural, he has spent many summers surveying Western Rattlesnakes in Idaho, and has a small menagerie of reptiles and invertebrates in his apartment. When he isn’t cleaning fish tanks, Calvin likes writing poetry and prose, and playing Dungeons and Dragons.

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​ Lumi Messenger attended Writers at Harriman for three summers before becoming a proctor in 2024. Lumi is a an alumni of New Meadows School, McCall-Donnelly High School, and the North Fork School. She plans to work towards a dual major in Theatre Performance and Theater Education at Boise State University. She also plans to study several foreign languages there, being an enormous, unabashed linguistics and conlanging nerd. Lumi’s love of performance only feeds her love of writing. She is a passionate creator, currently working on a fantasy novel set in a magical underground realm. Lumi is also an avid role-player at the Dungeons and Dragons table.

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Director

A film buff and unapologetic believer in ghosts, Sherry Briscoe writes paranormal suspense and cozy mysteries where the dead don’t always stay quiet and the living often wish they had. Her stories blend myth, magic, and monsters—sometimes all before breakfast.
As a kid, Sherry’s bedtime heroes were Alfred Hitchcock and Edgar Allan Poe, and she’s still convinced The Twilight Zone made excellent bedtime reading. (Her parents may disagree.)
Armed with degrees in Journalism, Photography, and Adult Education, Sherry found a way to merge all her creative obsessions—writing, teaching, and telling stories that make you sleep with one eye open.
She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her very patient husband—provider of chai tea lattes and lemon drop martinis—and a Burmese cat who insists on sharing her popcorn, pizza, and the occasional beer.
A world traveler, U.S. Army veteran, and tireless writing advocate, Sherry has taught at Writers at Harriman, where she now serves as Director of the summer writing camp for high school students. She’s also the founder of the Idaho Screenwriters Association, and has been active in the Idaho Writers Guild, Romance Writers of America, and Idaho Sisters in Crime, and is also a professional speaker and workshop facilitator.
Follow her for book news, writing tips, and the occasional ghost sighting at www.sherrybriscoe.com.   https://www.facebook.com/SherryBriscoeAuthor

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​Writers at Harriman is an educational program of Friends of Idaho State Parks

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