Cole LeFavour

Cole Nicole LeFavour writes about conscience and the wild from deep in Idaho. An activist, award-winning journalist and writer, in 2004 Cole became the first openly LGBTQ+ lawmaker, elected four times, serving as an Idaho State Senator and eventually leading multiple acts of civil disobedience in Idaho’s increasingly hostile State Capitol. Cole’s stories and essays have appeared in The North American Review, Sawtooth-White Cloud, and a fourthcoming book In the Arms of Mountains: A memoir of Land Love and Queer Resistance in Red America.

Bits of Cole’s life and work have appeared in the documentary films Breaking Through, The Legislature, and Private Idaho. Civil disobedience that Cole organized is the subject of the documentary Add the Words, and the art film Mercury.

For forty years, Cole has taught writing to writers and non-writers of all ages and backgrounds, in schools, at camps, colleges, and writing programs. An experienced speaker, debater, and story writer, their TEDx Talk on emotion and politics is titled, “Fear, Anger and the Manipulation of the Human Mind.” It has over 100K views. Cole has spoken to audiences about activism, politics, happiness, and queer equality for over three decades.

Through it all, LeFavour’s optimism has been fed by wins, losses, unlikely friendships, and by the beauty of those who also work for social change.

Cole Writes about conscience and nature from the wilds of Idaho.
In The Arms of Mountains: A Memoir of Land, Love & Queer Resistance in Red America
Publication date: May 2026 from Beacon Press.

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