Tash Mahnokaren
Staff Writer
Idaho State University’s campus is teeming with talent. Each day we walk past individuals who have skills and talents that we don’t know about.
From musicians to painters and writers, the potential of our peers is something that doesn’t immediately surface in the daily happenings of university life.
David and Joseph Liljenquist are alumni of Idaho State University who just released their book “Swans and Swallows: A Comedy” through Amazon e-publishing that peaked at number 23 in its genre on Amazon’s e-publishing website.
The literary satire was also listed as a Hot New Release in literary satires on the website.
“We were very excited about that,” said David. “We like making people laugh. No matter how serious we start out on a product, we don’t get very far without automatically throwing jokes in.”
Both brothers obtained Bachelor’s degrees in English at ISU in 2011. Joseph is currently attending law school at the University of Alabama.
During their time at ISU, the pair were involved with writing groups where members would meet once a week to read their writing.
The first chapter of “Swans and Swallows: A Comedy” is actually a piece done by Joseph for the writing group in which the brothers participated in together over a year and a half.
The brothers finished the book in January this year and published the novel in August, according to David.
“We just both liked what he had written so much and the character Gregory Nightingale was so amusing to us that we felt like there was enough there to turn into a whole novel,” said David.
Being the two youngest of seven siblings, David jokingly expressed that he has heard of the youngest siblings of families being comedians.
David explained that the brothers have a rather scattered style of writing. During the writing process for the novel, David said they had “started a few projects all at once.”
“We would start and get about a quarter of a way through and say were sick of this and move on to something else and it just happened that this one was the one that we finally finished,” said David.
The brothers are currently working on a project on Bonnie Prince Charlie that they hope to finish by June.
