What I'm reading: The Iowa Writers' Collaborative

Politics, personal essays, poetry, and more

Since Julie Gammack persuaded me to create a Substack newsletter as part of the Iowa Writers Collaborative, the project has grown to include a dozen authors, with more coming online soon.

Everyone’s newsletter is available for free, but if you have the capacity to become a paid subscriber, please consider supporting one or more of these writers financially.

Here’s a sampling of posts I’ve enjoyed reading recently from the group, in alphabetical order by author.

At The Iowa Mercury, Doug Burns wrote an essay called “President Nile Kinnick?”, inspired by a new documentary about the legendary Hawkeye football player.

At Dave Busiek on Media, Dave pondered changes that could make televised debates less “stale.”

The latest post on Art Cullen’s Notebook made the case for Iowa to legalize marijuana. (Iowa House Democrats recently became our state’s first legislative caucus to endorse that idea.)

I’ve known Suzanna de Baca for years, but until she launched Dispatches from the Heartland, I had no idea she wrote poetry. Here’s “Pasture Thistles: My Hometown Poem #49.”

On A Whole New World, Debra Engle’s essay “Remembering My Younger Self” gripped me from the opening lines.

Many, many years ago, at the ripe old age of 29, I had an enviable job in publishing and a marriage that was falling apart. Well, falling apart implies that it was whole at one point. And to be honest, it never was.

At Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck, Julie posted the incredible tale she shared with a live audience as part of The Des Moines Register’s Storyteller Project. In keeping with the theme (“bad advice”), Julie described her decision 30 years ago to walk away from “one of the best jobs in the world as a columnist for The Des Moines Register.”

Beth Hoffman reflected on “the trash that has been dumped on the farm by humans over the past many decades.” Her newsletter is called In the Dirt.

Dana James explained “What white people get wrong about Black dads” at New Black Iowa.

Robert Leonard wrote a lovely thank-you note to Julie Gammack for last week’s Okoboji Writers’ Retreat at Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture.

Iowa Boy Chuck Offenburger recently married Mary Riche and wrote about her stunning dress, as well as the trend away from wearing nylon hose.

Bonus content on Chuck’s own website: an essay by Mary about her decades-long friendship with the late, great Joy Corning.

I used to buy vegetables from Angela Tedesco’s Turtle Farm from time to time, but I lost track of Angela after she retired. What a treat to find Mary Swander’s interview with Angela about her adventures with community-supported agriculture. The newsletter is called Mary Swander’s Buggy Land.

Finally, Ed Tibbetts is providing great political coverage at Along the Mississippi. Two recent posts focused on how Iowa dropped in national rankings on ease of voting, and how Senator Joni Ernst “targets IRS workers while big-money tax cheats get away with it.”

Happy reading!

P.S.—If you subscribe to The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, you will receive a roundup every Sunday linking to recent posts by all of us.