Even the most qualified and experienced writers can get butterflies in their stomachs when preparing to share their latest drafts.

Professors from the University of Idaho’s English department plan to open up about their novels in progress today at the university’s event called Sneak Peeks.

Sneak Peeks serves as a preview event for the University of Idaho’s Hemingway Festival that will take place in March. Of the 10 professors who will read from their work at Sneak Peeks, many are fans of Hemingway and have studied his work. UI professor Kim Barnes said Hemingway guided her through her studies when she was a graduate student at WSU.

“Sneak Peeks seemed like a great way to get the amazing creative writing faculty all together in the same place, which I don’t think has ever happened before,” Barnes said. “We pride ourselves on being a faculty of working writers. We are teachers but also actively working through the creative writing process.”

Barnes said Sneak Peeks will be a great way for the public and students to hear what the professors are working on, what is in progress, and what is not yet perfect.

“It’s really just as terrifying for established writers to read their work; you never know the outcome,” Barnes said. “But we can talk to our students writer to writer about the problems we encounter and how we work through them.”

Professor Ron McFarland teaches Hemingway courses at UI and recently published a book, “Appropriating Hemingway: Using Him as a Fictional Character.” McFarland said he plans to read from his latest novel as well as unpublished poems that exemplify how to appropriate a writer.

“I love reading my work that hasn’t been published, partly because when I hear myself doing it, I sometimes make discoveries I’d probably not have made otherwise, even when mumbling the lines over in the privacy of my office,” McFarland said. “In a poem particularly, altering just a word or two can be a big deal.”

McFarland said he wants to be a part of his colleagues writing and publishing both creative and scholarly work.

“As writers and teachers we’re all riding in the same boat, and I like to think we have mutual respect— sometimes even admiration— for each other’s writing,” McFarland said. “We have something we want to say, and we have a way of saying it that we think is uniquely our own. It gets a tad egoistic in many ways, but that is part of the fun.”

McFarland’s colleague, professor Mary Clearman Blew, said she is excited to read from a novel she has been working on since her memoir was published in 2011.

“I’m excited to read excerpts from something new,” Blew said. “I will be reading something about a young man who flunked out of college in Montana.”

Barnes, Blew, and McFarland will also be attending the Hemingway Festival later this semester in March. The Hemingway Festival will include a catered dinner, various stage productions, an appearance by the Hemingway Fellow and readings from related novels.

“Sneak Peek and the Hemingway Festival are great ways to celebrate Hemingway’s love of words, food and wine,” Barnes said.

Sneak Peek will take place at 4 p.m. today at BookPeople of Moscow. Tickets for the dinner event, taking place during the Hemingway Festival, will also be available for purchase at the event. BookPeople employee Jamaica Ritcher said the dinner event is called “A Moveable Feast,” which includes a three-course dinner menu, designed by chef Eric Conte.

“The creative writing program’s Hemingway Fellow will be at the dinner,” Ritcher said. “It’s a nice event bringing together the English department and for people in the community to come together.”