Iowa Writers' Collaborative meets in the Amanas
...for the purpose of serving you better
Picture, front row: Pat Kinney, Jane Nguyn, Cheryl Tevis, Joe Geha, Fern Kuper, Teresa Zilk, Jody Gifford, Beth Hoffman, Suzanna de Baca, and John Naughton. Back row: Julie Gammack, Ed Tibbetts, Kurt Meyer, Douglas Burns, Tar Marcias, Dave Busiek, Robert Leonard, Larry Stone, Barry Piatt, Kathie Obradovich, and Richard Gilbert. Not pictured: Dana James (who is distributing a new print newspaper, Black Iowa News, Deb Engle, Chuck Offenburger, Kyle Munson, Nik Heftman, Wini Moranville, Darcy Maulsby, and Art Cullen (whose son got married this weekend). Mary Swander was in the Amanas - and the reason we landed there - but tied up producing the play she wrote. Each person in the collaborative is committed to delivering original reporting and commentary for you, our Iowa audience.
What we’re up to…
Members of this collection of folks (11 not pictured) have launched an online column in less than a year. We refer to one another as collaborative. We provide a service to readers who can trust that if a writer is a part of this group, they have had some professional writing experience. Many names are familiar, and we want you to be introduced to all on the team by association. Also pictured with us is the editor of Iowa Capital Dispatch, Kathie Obradovich. We value our alliance.
By linking readers to writers—directly, we believe we are providing a service that is becoming more valuable as legacy media shrinks. There is a growing interest in trusted commentary and old-fashioned column writing.
Thanks to those who are paid subscribers for the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Roundup and this Potluck column, we have a budget to hold a gathering designed to better serve you by sharing best practices.
The T-shirt was a bonus. Want your own Iowa Writers’ Collaborative T-shirt while they last? Become a Founding Member by clicking here:
It’s all the “Iowa” I could love in one place! I wish I could read every column. I put Iowa on the same plane as Florida as to its nuances and richness that most outsiders will never have the benefit of seeing. I liken understanding Iowa to buying a mattress.
People lay on mattresses for three to five minutes before deciding to plop down a credit or debit card, thinking they’ve made an informed decision. What they really needed to do was spend an hour on each mattress, finding out if it has enough support, does it work well for their style of sleeping? Will it hold up long enough for what they want to pay? Will it accommodate two people comfortably? Three or four hours is needed to answer these questions.
Similarly visiting Iowa takes more than a drive through on an Interstate highway. It means exiting onto a county road and stopping in town for pie. It’s meeting a family selling their produce by the roadside and finding out about their farm history. It’s attending a community event such as a parade. It takes an investment of time.
Sadly it’s easier to talk most people into spending three hours trying mattresses than it is talking them into staying three days in small town Iowa. But when the kinds of articles shared by this group evolves as a united face of the Hawkeye State, I feel it carries an insightful, powerful, and positive picture of the true Iowa.