Protests, Solar, Mother's Day, and a few Road Trips
...plus a few laughs, tears, and outrages other fun stuff
Milestone Event
This week, we reached a new milestone in the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative's young life by topping the 4,000 subscriber number. As a member of our readership club, you have helped to make this happen. Folks are starting to pay attention. Watch out, world, here we come.
If you want to support the IWC further, we are providing a way to make a one-time contribution: Make a Donation. By doing so, you are supporting the ongoing professional development of our writers.
Here’s a lyrical piece to start our Sunday Roundup, along with a road trip of a different kind with .
celebrates rural America in The Iowa Mercury with a column on "stolen nights and places in between" — the places along the journey to celebrated destinations.
Art Cullen took a road trip adventure in an electric vehicle and turned it into a story.
Politics
writes the protests on college campuses have unleashed a wave of anti-semitism. Iowa loses out on major federal grant for residential solar. reminds us the 1st Amendment applies to ideas you might not like. put together a riveting podcast on the issues fueling college protests nationwide. Included on the panel is , Corrine Whitlatch, and Admiral Michael Franken. There is also a discussion transcript if you don’t listen to podcasts.
Media
on Media has an opinion on state funding of local news outlets.
Around Iowa
Mother’s Day
shares the kitchen secrets she learned from her mom and grandma, and suggests that an unexpected recipe for wisdom and understanding may emerge from their hidden life lessons.
Paragraph Stacker marks his first Mother's Day without a mother to visit.
Before heading to a kid's softball game, Steph Copley dashed off a few thoughts about Mother’s Day.
offers a story about her mother on this Mother’s Day.
I have been taught that if you turn your inner and outer world into a garden, people will come and sit with you there. Deb Engle
Iowa Boy has been traveling southwest Iowa in the past week and said there are two certainties about doing that – you’ll probably cross the Nishnabotna River up to a half-dozen times, and you’ll likely drive through little Tenville, too – and when you do, they want you to honk!
lives in Amish country. She has a car, and her neighbors know where morel mushrooms are. It’s a fruitful alliance.
had two columns this week: one about a colleague and the Pope (an international focus) and one about his church getting a new keyboard (a “just-down-the-road” focus). Both are worth reading.
attended the open house for Garfield and Arthur elementary schools in Cedar Rapids, which will close at the end of the school year.
Steve Semken, our resident book publisher, reports on three books he’s excited about releasing worldwide. : Monkeys, Croweded Farmhouses, & Great Reads
turns up stories wherever he goes, including when being stopped by a hunky-looking ‘flagman’ holding up traffic on an Iowa highway.
in his “View from the Cedar Valley” column, family and friends pay final tribute to a Vietnam veteran from Cedar Falls at the Iowa Veterans Cemetery near Adel.
Food
turns his thoughts to fish and how to prepare them.
Our food critic,
has a personal announcement in her column this week.Black Iowa News
Dana James,
, reports on Iowa Legislative candidates discussing priorities before the June 4 primaryEntertainment
writes about a nonprofit organization growing the film culture in Des Moines.
scored several concert tickets for about $25 apiece. He'll see artists like Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Styx, and Luke Bryan. Will you be joining him? Find out Concert Week details.
uses music to tell a story about his brother, Don. It’s a lovely story and sound. Check it out.
Humor
Fern wished she could be on the Trump jury.
Sports
At The Crossover, Jane Burns looks at how the seismic changes college conferences made for football will impact women's sports.
Grit over Glamour writes
in his column Gray Area, about Lolo Jones coming home.Poetry
shared that two of her poems, “How to Care” and “Should Nothing Matter,” were featured in the April issue of The Coalition. You can read them here.
The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative
As a group, we have decided to work with a consultant to help us utilize the tools provided by the Substack platform to become even better storytellers. We will learn to use audio and video to enhance our offerings and serve you, the reader, in an even more appealing way.
The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative is pioneering a fresh model for delivering commentary, and thanks to you, who are paid subscribers, we have the resources for real-time gatherings that have become important, inspirational, and empowering.
We hope to raise $6000 to fund the one-year project with a consultant so that any of our members who want to participate can have most of their fees paid. We have many ideas and are excited about what can be accomplished through a collaborative process and learning to harness technology creatively.
We invest subscription funds and now offer a donation link for those who would like to further this mission in other ways: DONATE TO IOWA WRITERS' COLLABORATIVE.
If you agree that we have a crisis due to the erosion of traditional news and information sources and think the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative offers one antidote, please do. Please do if you have a few extra bucks to support what we’re doing. If not, no worries. We’re here, clicking away, grateful for your readership.
Julie can be very proud of creating and building the Iowa Writers Collaborative. 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾