What makes someone an "Illinois Author"? What role do these writers play in American literature? How has Illinois been presented as a setting in literature? These were a few of the questions prominent on a promotional brochure last Spring semester for a new course the author would be offering in the Fall. Now that the course has been successfully completed, the author would like to share why developing a course on state literature is valuable, and how to go about doing so. Thus this article is structured around answering questions that she had. While this essay is specific to a course on Illinois, the author believes that useful information can be extrapolated to other situations and may help the reader to develop a course on the literature of their own state.