Not all of you follow Twitter, but if you did, during November, you would see it dominated by the topic: #NaNoWriMo, which is short for National November Writing Month.
Grant Faulkner is the executive director of NaNoWriMo and grew up in Oskaloosa, graduating from Grinnell College. Like so many talented Iowans, he now lives in California.
He’ll be speaking and holding small group workshops during the Okoboji Writers’ Retreat and was my guest last Monday for our Zoom Lunch segment.
As the leader of an explosive new movement - and the traditional publishing house gatekeepers don’t know what to make of all of this - writers from around the globe meet the challenge to write 50,000 words (the size of a small novel) in 30 days. I am told that NaNoWriMo communities are popping up all over, including in Iowa, and there seems to be no end.
No plot? No problem is their motto.
“A goal and a deadline is a creative midwife,” said Faulkner (no known relation to William Faulkner, although he hasn’t done a DNA test).
Listen to this fascinating conversation, including the start of a fictional essay on the topic of detasseling corn.
Watch the video.
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Thanks for considering being a supporter.
Julie
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Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Columnists
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Dave Busiek: Dave Busiek on Media, Des Moines
Art Cullen: Art Cullen’s Notebook, Storm Lake
Suzanna de Baca Dispatches from the Heartland, Huxley
Debra Engle: A Whole New World, Madison County
Julie Gammack: Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck, Des Moines and Okoboji
Joe Geha: Fern and Joe, Ames
Jody Gifford: Benign Inspiration, West Des Moines
Beth Hoffman: In the Dirt, Lovilla
Dana James: New Black Iowa, Des Moines
Pat Kinney: View from Cedar Valley, Waterloo
Fern Kupfer: Fern and Joe, Ames
Robert Leonard: Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture, Bussey
Tar Macias: Hola Iowa, Iowa
Kurt Meyer, Showing Up, St. Ansgar
Kyle Munson, Kyle Munson’s Main Street, Des Moines
Jane Nguyen, The Asian Iowan, West Des Moines
John Naughton: My Life, in Color, Des Moines
Chuck Offenburger: Iowa Boy Chuck Offenburger, Jefferson and Des Moines
Barry Piatt: Piatt on Politics: Behind the Curtain, Washington, D.C.
Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Buggy Land, Kalona
Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Emerging Voices, Kalona
Cheryl Tevis: Unfinished Business, Boone County
Ed Tibbetts: Along the Mississippi, Davenport
Teresa Zilk: Talking Good, Des Moines
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