Your Iowa Column Roundup
...for the week ending on September 11, 2022
Our bold experiment.
By linking readers directly to ad-free content, we believe we are stepping into a void that has been created due to the changing business model most legacy media companies are facing. We look at this as an additive to local newspapers and encourage you to support them and advertisers if you can.
Well-reported commentary can make us think and ask questions. It can hold our elected representatives accountable. Our group of writers includes members from across the state. We intend to add a ‘Washington Bureau,’ where DC-based writers will offer insider news about the Iowa Congressional Delegation and tell us about former Iowans embedded in jobs that also impact the state.
We also intend to add writers from around Iowa to provide context and connectedness
Please support our writers. It matters. And it’s how this experiment will work. Today’s Roundup includes introductory columns by two new members, an announcement of a new, fun feature for paid subscribers, and a poll to find out the best time to post our columns.
WELCOME DANA JAMES & DEBRA ENGLE
Our two newest columnists, Dana James, and Deb Engle, posted their first columns this week. By happenstance, you get a slice of life from the girlhood of two metro Des Moines women, one living on the city’s east side and the other from Beaverdale.
Columnist James talks about Black dads, especially hers, and shares how portrayed stereotypes of absent fathers are just not true. We will all learn from Dana. She’s an accomplished journalist who will take us into her world, growing up on Des Moines’ east side of town.
Engle teaches writing and memoir classes around the world. She said she often assigns writing exercise prompts but hasn’t taken the time to do them herself. The reader of Deb’s inaugural column can feel how much fun she will have writing these essays. In other words, this collaboration brings her a whole new world.
Please share Dana and Deb’s columns with your friends:
DANA JAMES
DEBRA LANDWEHR ENGLE
Back to Iowa Writers’ Collaborative alphabetical order:
LAURA BELIN
DOUG BURNS
DAVE BUSIEK
ART CULLEN
JULIE GAMMACK
BOB LEONARD
CHUCK OFFENBURGER
MARY SWANDER
ED TIBBETTS
ANNOUNCING: THE OFFICE LOUNGE
If you value this content and can afford to become a paid subscriber, please do. Pick a few of our members and join their paid subscribers roster. Our writers are getting a real kick out of your encouragement. An annual $75-$100, or $500 for ‘Founding Member’ status, can underwrite their work or support causes such as the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation, the Freedom of Information Council, and scholarships to the Okoboji Writers’ Retreat. Regardless of which of us you join in the paid category, you will be invited to a virtual party we call The Office Lounge Zoom.
We will ‘meet’ quarterly, on the last Friday of the month, over the noon hour. The calls are fun. We’ll talk about story ideas and column writing, just like in the old bar around the corner from the newsroom. Any newsroom. Anywhere.
Here’s our roster so far. Grow with us.
Laura Belin: Iowa Politics with Laura Belin
Doug Burns: The Iowa Mercury
Dave Busiek: Dave Busiek on Media
Debra Engle: A Whole New World
Art Cullen: Art Cullen’s Notebook
Julie Gammack: Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck
Beth Hoffman: In the Dirt
Dana James: New Black Iowa
Robert Leonard: Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture
Chuck Offenburger: Iowa Boy Chuck Offenburger
Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Buggy Land
Ed Tibbetts: Along the Mississippi
Iowa Writers Collaborative:
Quick subscriber research questions.
Any chance of joining your writer roster? I’ve been working on a series with stories from Iowa City in the mid-1980s. Reader input would be invaluable. Thank you!