Wieland featured on Kirkus’s ‘Best Indie Books’ list

Creative Writing Professor Mitch Wieland was featured on the "Best Indie Books of March" list from Kirkus Reviews for his forthcoming novel "The Ghosts of Okuma."

Kirkus Reviews wrote about "The Ghosts of Okuma" earlier this year, giving it one of their coveted star reviews. The magazine receives 10,000 submissions every year and only 10% of those earn prestigious star reviews. From star-reviewed books, only a select few are chosen for for the "Best Indie Books" list each month.

About 'The Ghosts of Okuma'

Wieland's novel centers on two teenagers, both marked by tragedy and loss, who form an unlikely friendship in Tokyo, Japan.

The novel received much advanced praise from writers, including Anthony Doerr, best-selling author of "All the Light We Cannot See" and winner of the Pulitzer Prize. "By turns comic and tragic, Mitch Wieland's 'The Ghosts of Okuma' is a sharply-written and brilliantly-paced novel that manages to become both a satisfying love story and a devastating look at the lives of one family shattered by suicide and another displaced by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster," Doerr wrote. "It's so funny, charming, and infused with tenderness that it's a pure pleasure to read."

About Mitch Wieland

The Idaho Commission on the Arts (Arts Idaho) appointed
Professor Wieland as the 2026-2027 Idaho Writer in Residence, the state's highest literary honor. As part of that role, he will speak at "In This Time: A Gathering of Poets Laureate from the West," hosted by the Nevada Arts Council alongside other prominent poets and authors from the American West.

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