Tag: 3rd Annual Swift Literary Festival

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2024 Swift Literary Festival Author Spotlights

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Follow us on social media to meet our authors who participated in our 3rd Annual Swift Literary Festival held at the annual Octagon Art Festival on September 22nd. Our weekly Author Spotlight will feature author tid-bits, their book titles, and direct you to their websites to learn more about them.

3rd Annual Swift Literary Festival
Authors, Poets & Indie press

Marilyn Baszczynski – poet
William Bortz – poet
Stephen L. Brayton – mystery & horror
Paul Brooke – poet
Shannon K. Evans – spiritual nonfiction
Deb Kline – memoir
Charles R. Kniker – nonfiction
Jennifer L. Knox – poet
Kim Mosiman – nonfiction – poet
Eva Newcastle – magical realism
Charlie R. North – poet
Steve Semken & Ice Cube Press – indie press
Dawn Terpstra – poet
Pat Underwood – poet

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Author

Pat Underwood

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What’s your genre?
Poetry

Are you published?
Traditional publisher

What inspired you to become a writer?
My cousin, a gifted English teacher and writer, gave me one of his collections of free verse years ago that at first I didn’t understand. After rereading it several times and soaking in the meaning, I learned how stunning poetry can be. He inspired me.

What author do you admire and how have they inspired your writing?
I especially like Galway Kinnell’s excellent work. He had so much to teach us about living life to its fullest.

Name three of your favorite books and their authors
Thirst by Mary Oliver
Everything’s A Verb by Deb Marquart
Dubious Angels by Keith Ratzlaff

What’s one thing readers should know about you?
It’s important to me to share poetry, whether it’s something written by yourself or someone else. Support is important. I look forward to meeting in groups both to critique each other’s work and to educate.

What one piece of advice would you give to a budding writer?
Trust in yourself and the value of what you have to say. Know that you are a beautiful person with words that can reach others in meaningful ways.

Author Bio
Pat Underwood married her high school sweetheart, and they raised two sons on a country hillside north of Colfax, Iowa where the wildlife inspires her writing. She is the author of three poetry collections and received a 2001 Pushcart Prize Nomination. One of Pat’s favorite honors is being a contributor to Voices on the Landscape; Contemporary Iowa Poets edited by Michael Carey.

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In The Media News

Swift Literary Festival | Sunday, Sept 22nd | 10 to 4

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Join the us this Sunday, September 22nd from 10 to 4 at the Octagon Art Festival for our 3rd Annual Swift Literary Festival in Ames, Iowa. Meet our authors, and learn about Ames Writers Collective exciting upcoming news. Look for our tent on the corner of Douglas Avenue and Main Street in front of AVEC Design+Build.
Featured Authors & Poets
10 to 11:30
Marilyn J Baszczynski—Poetry
Paul Brooke—Poetry
Charlie R. North—Poetry
Dawn Terpstra—Poetry
Pat Underwood—Poetry
11:30 to 1
Paul Brooke—Poetry
Charlie R. North—Poetry
Dawn Terpstra—Poetry
Pat Underwood—Poetry
Deb Kline—Memoir
1 to 2:30
Stephen L. Brayton—Mystery & horror
Shannon K. Evans—Spiritual nonfiction
Kim Mosiman—Christian nonfiction
Ice Cube Press
2:30 to 4
William Bortz—Poetry
Charles R. Kniker—Nonfiction
Jennifer L. Knox—Poetry
Eva Newcastle—Magical realism
Ice Cube Press
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Author

Shannon Evans

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What’s your genre?
Spiritual nonfiction

Are you published?
Traditional publisher

What inspire you to become a writer?
I started writing as a little girl and just never stopped!

What author do you admire and how have they inspired your writing?
It’s hard to name just a few, but as a child I was enamored by the work of Lois Lowry, Madeleine L’Engle, and Louisa May Alcott. As a nonfiction writer, Mirabai Starr, Terry Tempest Williams, and Sue Monk Kidd were the ones who gave me permission to trust my intuition and my voice. I love the modern fiction of Jessamyn Ward and Celeste Ng.

Name three of your favorite books and their authors
When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill
The Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd
11.22.63 by Stephen King

What’s one thing readers should know about you?
I’m a liberal Catholic feminist who predominately writes for women but welcomes male readers too.

What one piece of advice would you give to a budding writer?
Sit under as many editors as you can!

Author Bio
Shannon K. Evans is the author of The Mystics Would Like a Word, Feminist Prayers for My Daughter, and Rewilding Motherhood. By day, she serves as the spirituality and culture editor at the National Catholic Reporter. She and her family make their home in Ames, Iowa. Click here to visit Shannon.

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Dawn Terpstra

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What’s your genre?
Poetry

Are you published?
Traditional publisher

What inspired you to become a writer?
As a family growing up on a teacher’s salary, entertainment for the week was found at the public library on Saturday mornings. I would stock up, checking out as many books as I was allowed, and then spend hours lost in the lush imaginations and language of storytellers. I knew from the time I was a second grader, when I wrote a twenty-page story, “Hanky and the Giant,” that writing was my true calling. Thankfully, I have built a career writing radio commercials, political ads, corporate marketing and communications and teaching high school English. Writing poetry has always been a therapeutic guilty pleasure.

What author do you admire and how have the inspired your writing?
My answer to the question about an influential author is often “the one I’m reading now.” There are too many choices! In poetry, early influences were the Romantic poets, Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron and Keats. I loved the landscapes and characters in novels by John Steinbeck and William Faulkner. In college, the quirky ingenuity of e.e. cummings was an obsession. In graduate school, I find myself returning to an interest in form and meter influenced by the work of A.E. Stallings, Marilyn Hacker, and Annie Finch. Combining form with poetry of place and the environment is currently where my interest and work resides.

Name three of your favorite books and their authors
Modern Poetry and frank: sonnets by Diane Seuss
Swift: New and Selected Poems by David Baker
Shirt in Heaven by Jean Valentine

What’s one thing readers should know about you?
My husband and I live on 15 acres in rural Jasper county, where our hives of bees and two corgis are usually happy. I am an avid birder. I have no fingerprints. I defer to our granddaughters to touch everything and leave a mark.

What one piece of advice would you give to a budding writer?
One is never too old (or too anything) to set and realize one’s truest, wildest writing goals. Ignore the naysayers. Believe in the (im)possibilities of your writing. You can always learn process. You can’t learn the desire and passion for your art. Own it.

Author Bio
Dawn Terpstra is a poet, writer and beekeeper living in rural Iowa. Her poetry appears in publications and anthologies including Verse Daily, Midwest Quarterly, Quartet, The Grist, Cities of the Plains, and others. She is the author of a chapbook, Songs from the Summer Kitchen. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She is currently the Poetry Editor for River Heron Review. She is a graduate of Iowa State University with an undergraduate degree and two masters degrees. She is currently pursuing an MFA in creative writing at Rainier Writing Workshop, Pacific Lutheran University.

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Author

Marilyn Baszczynski

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What’s your genre?
Poetry

Are you published?
Traditional publisher

What inspired you to become a writer?
I think my love of stories brought me to writing. Then, as I began writing my own stories, I felt myself connecting to poetry, exploring that condensed and intense form as a good vehicle for what I wanted to share.

What author do you admire and how have they inspired your writing?
Margaret Atwood and her relationships with nature and people would be first. But when we moved to Iowa, Ted Kooser and his work resonated very deeply. I love how his poems draw the reader down into the specific details of the experience without the poem drawing attention to itself.

Name three of your favorite books and their authors
I have far too many favorites to list, the three recent ones are: The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl
Gratitude with Dogs under Stars by Deb Marquart
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay

What’s one thing readers should know about you?
Living in a rural space informs much of what I write about. It feels like a liminal space. This contributes to my belief that we are all connected to each other in our emotional landscapes, as well as to everything in the physical and spiritual world around us. I find myself writing in this space at the present time.

What one piece of advice would you give to a budding writer?
I always recommend that writers read extensively, and outside of the genre that they intend to focus on. There is an abundance of literature, and life, to inspire us. I think we just need to keep still to listen and receive it.

Author Bio
Marilyn J Baszczynski is a retired French teacher, originally from Ontario, Canada, who lives and writes in rural Iowa. She has two chapbooks: Gyuri. A poem of wartime Hungary, and daughter, while i’m still here. Her poems appear in numerous journals and anthologies including Abaton, Aurorean, Backchannels, Conestoga Zen, Gyroscope, Half-Way Down the Stairs, Healing Muse, Last Stanza, Midwest Poetry, Scapegoat, Shot Glass Journal, Star82 Review, Slippery Elm, and others. Marilyn is past-president of Iowa Poetry Association and editor-in-chief of their annual anthology, Lyrical Iowa, since 2017. Click here to visit Marilyn.

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Author

Charlie R. North

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What’s your genre?
Poetry

Are you published?
Traditional publisher

What inspired you to become a writer?
During my first year of high school, I found the magic of poetry. It works as the thread that stitches together emotion, experience, time, and place, connecting the writer with the reader. Who wouldn’t want to share a magic like that?

What author do you admire and how have they inspired your writing?
Naming a favorite author feels impossible, as l appreciate so many of them. However, when I first read Sylvia Plath’s Ariel, I was captivated. How Plath used imagery, metaphor, and symbolism in her poems mesmerized me. She was mysterious and yet transparent, complex, and yet she confessed everything. Her work required abstract thinking and pushed me as both reader and writer. Because of her work, I now research words, places, anatomy, nature, and everything in between until I find the best artifacts for my writing. My curiosity about the world grew, and with it, so did my poems.

Name three of your favorite books and their authors
Ariel by Sylvia Plath
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Wintering by Katherine May

What’s one thing readers should know about you?
I hope I never stop wanting to learn or that I lose the desire to submerge myself in experience.

What one piece of advice would you give to a budding writer?
Everything I would tell a budding writer is cliché and would make every word-nerd reading this cringe (me included). I can’t give anyone advice, but what I can share is a sliver of my experience: always have something to write with.

Author Bio
Charlie R. North grew up in a small Montana town, discovering her love for poetry early on. Now living in Iowa, she and her husband have raised their family there. A graduate student at Iowa State University, Charlie is working toward a degree in English literature. Her poem “Battered Secrets” was a top finalist in Wingless Dreamer’s Calling the Beginning anthology. She has been published in Poet’s Choice, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, and won Lyrical Iowa’s 2022 First Time Entrant Award. Her work was also recently featured in The Cities of the Plains An Anthology of Iowa Artists and Poets, published by Grand View University.

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Author

Steve Semken | Ice Cube Press

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What’s your genre?
Publisher

Are you published?
Traditional publisher

What inspired you to become a publisher?
I founded Ice Cube Press in 1991 to use the literary arts to better understand how to live in the Midwest.

What author do you admire and how have the inspired your writing?
Jim Harrison, Terry Tempest Williams, Gary Snyder and so many authors over the years.

Name three of your favorite books and their authors
In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan
On The Road by Jack Kerouac
Any poetry with Mary Oliver

What one piece of advice would you give to a budding writer?
It’s hard to even be a bad writer once you decide you want to be writer. Write and read. And, treat other authors as you would like to be treated.

Author bio
Book Publisher since 1991, Writer since first grade. I’ve earned my 10,000 hours the old-fashioned way by fixing my mistakes. Where Smart Thinking and Creative Minds Commemorate Being Bold, Ferocious, and Brave. Check out my Substack. I’ve written a few books, but mainly I publish others. Click here to visit Ice Cube Press.

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Author

William Bortz

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What’s your genre?
Poetry

Are you published?
Traditional publisher

What inspire you to become a writer?
Growing up, I didn’t have anyone to talk to about what I was experiencing or feeling. Books, poetry, and music quickly became a way for me to understand the world around me and my place in it. I wanted to become a writer so I could be that safe haven for anyone needing one.

What author do you admire and how have they inspired your writing?
Hanif Abdurraqib. He writes with such great intention and appreciation. It makes me look closer at everything that I see.

Name three o four favorite books and their authors
Calling a Wolf a Wolf by Kaveh Akbar
They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib
The Wild Iris by Louise Glück

What’s one thing readers should know about you?
I believe that most often hope is a small light far away, and it is always worth moving toward that light.

What’s one piece of advice you would give a budding writer?
Read, read, read.

Author bio
William Bortz is a poet and editor from the Midwest. He is the author of Many Small Hungerings (Andrews McMeel, 2023) and The Grief We’re Given (Central Ave, 2021). You can find his work online and in print in Okay Donkey, Random Sample, Little Death Lit, Lyrical Iowa, and others. William lives with his wife and daughter. He will always be happy to talk about music or basketball. Click here to visit William.

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Author

Stephen Brayton

What’s your genre?
Mystery and horror

Are you published?
Indie press

What inspired you to become a writer?
I’ve been an avid reader since I was a child. At some point, I thought that I could write what I’ve been reading. I created a police detective. Years later, I changed the man to a woman, added in my martial arts experience, and created a heroine. Currently, I have eight books in the series in various stages of completion

What authors do you admire and how have they inspired your writing?
H. P. Lovecraft—The mythos he’s created has inspired writers for decades. I became a big fan of horror writing and keep him in mind whenever I write short horror. I even mentioned him in my novel, Night Shadows.

Franklin W. Dixon—While not a “real” person, this team of writers created The Hardy Boys (and Nancy Drew). I latched onto this series and became a mystery fan as a child. The two brothers who never age throughout the series have stayed with me, and I still read them.

Name three of your favorite books and their authors
At The Mountains Of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft
Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Killing Floor by Lee Child

What’s one thing readers should know about you?
I’m a Sixth Degree Black Belt and certified instructor in taekwondo with over 30 years experience.

What one piece of advice would you give to a budding writer?
You can do all the research and outlining and character profiling you want, but at some point, you have to turn off the distractions, put pen to paper or fingers on the keyboard and WRITE. If it’s important, you’ll make the time. If it’s not, you’ll make excuses.

Author Bio
Stephen L. Brayton is a Sixth Degree Black Belt in the American Taekwondo Association and a Marketing Associate for a software company.

He began writing as a child; his first short story concerned a true incident about his reactions to discipline. During high school, he wrote for the school newspaper and was a photographer for the yearbook. For a Mass Media class, he wrote and edited a video project.

Current publications include Alpha, the first of his Mallory Petersen action mystery series, and Night Shadows, the first in a supernatural series featuring a homicide detective and an FBI agent.

He is the editor and contributing author of The Peace Tree Mystery, a story set in the Knoxville, Iowa/Lake Red Rock area.