Tag: Ames Writers Collective

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Author

Paul Brooke

What’s your genre?
Poetry

Are you published?
Traditional publisher

What inspired you to become a writer?
Always nature has been at the forefront. My work focuses on the relationship of humans with the wild world. I am deeply interested in understanding why we mistreat the earth and how we can live in harmony with it.

What author do you admire and how have they inspired your writing?
There are so many that it is hard to boil it down. In terms of poetry, Gary Snyder was an inspiration early as he understood the complexities of the natural world and he integrated a Zen philosophy, which I found intriguing. Later, fiction writers like Toni Morrison blew my mind with their historical retellings and incredible imaginations. Her book, Beloved, is my absolute favorite. Today, there are so many talented authors that it is a joy to read and discover new voices.

Name three of your favorite books
As I mentioned earlier, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, then Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridan, and Sylvia Plath’s The Collected Poems.

What’s one thing readers should know about you?
I love to travel and that often fills my writing. Recently, I went to Chile and I just finished a collection that fuses nature photography and form poetry. My newest work explores the often unheard side of Antarctica and I plan to go there very soon. For me, it is necessary to have experiences that show me awe and wonder in order to find inspiration. Those moments are transcendent and illuminating. Always necessary to building the best work I can.

What’s one piece of advice you would give to a budding writer?
Revise. Revise. Revise. Be patient with your work and be patient if you send it out. There will be tons of rejections. And for most young writers those rejections can send them running away. Run into the rejection and then submit again somewhere else.

Author bio
Paul Brooke has five collections of photography and poetry including Light and Matter: Poems and Photographs of Iowa (2008) and Meditations on Egrets: Poems and Photographs of Sanibel Island (2010). Sirens and Seriemas: Photographs and Poems of the Amazon and Pantanal (2015) was published by Brambleby Books of London, England, while Finishing Line Press published Arm Wrestling at the Iowa State Fair (2018). Jaguars of the Northern Pantanal: Panthera onca at the Meeting of the Waters was published by Academic Press (2020), while The Skáld and the Drukkin Tröllaukin: Photographs and Poems of Iceland was released by Gold Wake (2022). Brooke recently was awarded both an Iowa Arts Fellowship and a grant for publishing a diversity of writers. Click here to visit Paul.

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Author

Jackie Haley

What’s your genre?
Fiction / Nonfiction

Are you published?
Indie press publisher

What inspired you to become a writer?
I’ve always enjoyed writing and I also had a great support system to continue my writing path.

What author do you admire and how have they inspired your writing?
Jane Austen is one of the great authors that gave me inspiration.

Name three of your favorite books and their authors
Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks
The Client by John Grisham

What’s one thing readers should know about you?
I founded Dream To Author to help people write, publish and market their first book.

What one piece of advice would you give to a budding writer?
Don’t quit. Keep going and set realistic goals for yourself. Get help from people that have the experience and can support you.

Author bio
Jackie Haley is a nationally recognized, award-winning author, speaker and entrepreneur. She’s appeared on CBS, NBC, among many other major media outlets and traveled the country representing her books.

Her novel, Crystal Beach (2012) is about a “girl next door that stumbles into a James Bond movie.” The anticipated sequel, Truce Island (2017) followed. Shortly after, she was approached by David Schmitz to write his family’s inspiring story about Brenda, his wife who passed from ovarian cancer. Two years after Brenda’s death, her family received a surprising gift from her. Brenda’s Wish (2020) won awards, received national endorsements and more. Now, Jackie helps people write, publish and market their first book at DreamToAuthor.com

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Author

Tom Geraty

What’s your genre?
Memoir

Are you published?
Indie press publisher

What inspired you to become a writer?
Writing, alongside acting and music, is simply (or at times not so simply) a way for me to reveal the extraordinary in the ordinary. I find that all forms of creative expression provide me a direct link to the deepest and most profound places in my heart.

What author do you admire and how have they inspired your writing?
I have a lot of respect and admiration for Colson Whitehead. He finds honest, creative, and compelling ways to tell stories I am familiar with in ways that bring my understanding to a deeper, further, and more personal level.

Name three of your favorite books and their authors
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Twenty Years A-Growing by Maurice O’Sullivan

What’s one thing readers should know about you?
Being a stay-at-home dad was the greatest gig of my life. So great that, although my sons live over a thousand miles from home, the “nest” will always feel full.

What one piece of advice would you give to a budding writer?
My one bit of advice is threefold: don’t listen to naysayers, read the masters, and trust your vision and your voice.

Author bio
Tom Geraty was born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa. He attended Dowling Catholic High School in the late 70s and Drake University in the early 80s, where he played football for the then Division One Bulldogs and graduated with a degree in Education with a minor in Theater. Tom acted professionally in Chicago for several years before moving back to his hometown in 2002 with his wife, Katie, to raise their two young sons. He was a stay-at-home dad, continues to perform with local theaters, plays bass guitar, bakes pies, has two new knees, and holds dual citizenship with the United States and Ireland. Since the publication of his memoir, When The Trees Dance, he has learned that he has a younger half-sister he hopes to connect with soon…if he can find her. Click here to visit Tom.

Celebrating Willa Cather 150 – Wednesday, Feb 28

Produced in association with the National Willa Cather Center, the Ames Writers Collective and the Ames Public Library will host a sesquicentennial celebration of Willa Cather, one of the most significant and treasured American writers of the 20th century. Cather crystallized the spirit of the American West with a singular voice in her body of poems, essays, short stories, and the critically acclaimed novels One of Ours, O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, and My Ántonia.

Featuring Rachel Olsen, Director of Education & Engagement at the National Willa Cather Center, Olsen will discuss the importance of Cather’s work in today’s world. Additionally, Olsen and Ana McCracken, founder of the Ames Writers Collective, will read excerpts from Cather’s books and short stories to reacquaint Cather enthusiasts and introduce new readers to Cather’s body of work.

Birthday goodies will be served as well as a book drawing. Willa Cather’s 150th birthday was celebrated on December 7th, 2023.

For more information about the National Willa Cather Center located in Red Cloud, NE, visit their website here.

About Rachel Olsen, Director of Education & Engagement

Rachel Olsen joined the Willa Cather Foundation as a tour guide in October 2017 and has since worked in a variety of educational roles before becoming the Director of Education and Engagement in 2022. A former college English teacher, she enjoys developing activities and content designed to preserve Cather’s rich literary history.

In addition to supervising a team of programming and visitor services staff, Rachel organizes the Teacher Institute and Author Series programs, oversees Opera House seasons of events, plans conferences and seminars, and fosters relationships with educators from area schools, colleges, and universities. Rachel has a Master’s degree in English from Kansas State University with a certificate in Women’s Studies and was a full-time faculty member and writing center director at Oklahoma City Community College before moving to Red Cloud. When she is not getting to know visitors or working on educator resources, Rachel serves on The Valley Child Development Center Board of Directors as secretary. Rachel loves cooking and going to the movies, but she is happiest spending time with her husband and daughter.


Thank you, Ames Public Library
for partnering with the Ames Writers Collective.

Categories
Author

Patricia Kimle

What’s your genre?
Historical fiction

Are you published?
Self published

What inspired you to become a writer?
Long ago, we followed the Underground Railroad trail from Nebraska City, NE through western Iowa to West Des Moines and Grinnell as a short family vacation when our children were grade school age. My husband developed a story line based on the history, but a job change meant the project fell by the wayside. When said children had all left me with an empty nest, I decided to pick up the story. We say now that I was research and writing and my husband “story consultant.” I had always wanted to try writing fiction and it was an easier start since the basic idea was ready for me to take on.

What author do you admire and how have they inspired your writing?
I grew up not far from the home of Willa Cather in south central Nebraska. I’ve read O Pioneers! and My Ántonia many times from high school to now. In grade school, I loved and read Laura Ingalls Wilder as a child. I’ve always loved prairie stories. Actually any historical fiction with a good heroine will do.

Name three of your favorite books and their authors
My favorites are always changing. I read a lot of books about creativity and recently loved Adorning the Dark, by Andrew Peterson. He is a singer/songwriter and story teller. I’ve loved every Charles Martin book I’ve read. And Susan May Warren is an incredible writer, mentor and businesswoman.

What’s one thing readers should know about you?
I have been an artist for 30 years. As a freelance designer, I published how-to articles and books in the craft industry before craft publishing went the way of the dodo. Next I had a wholesale jewelry business selling silver and clay jewelry until I retired the business during covid. For the last 5 years, I have been painting in oils. I have 5 paintings that were inspired by scenes from my book, The Only Free Road: An Underground Railroad Saga Unveiled, including the cover art.

What one piece of advice would you give a budding writer?
Research can draw you down lots of rabbit holes, and if you are inclined, like me, to keep digging, remember to ask yourself occasionally if you’re coming up with details that actually contribute to the story or take your reader into the weeds. Sometimes its better to make something up and keep moving on.

Author bio
Patricia Kimle is an artist and lover of history. After 30 years in the craft and jewelry industry, she has turned her attention to painting and writing. Historical fiction is her favorite genre to read, so it was fun to make up a story with her husband and work together. Working on The Only Free Road, Patricia indulged her love of research in order to try to get lots of details to enrich the story.

She and Kevin have three grown children and live in Ames, Iowa. Visit Patricia here.

On Sunday, September 24th, Patricia will be a featured author at the 2nd Annual Ames Writers Collective Swift Literary Festival to be held during the Annual Octagon Art Festival. Check our calendar for details.

Categories
Author

Joe Geha

What’s your genre?
Memoir, fiction and drama

Are you published?
Traditional publisher

What inspired you to become a writer?
A teacher in college recognized something in me and encouraged it. That “something” I consider to be a gift as well as an obligation.

What author do you admire and how have they inspired your writing?
I consider Richard Yates a “writers’ writer,” that is, someone a beginner can learn from. Yates is known for the deceptively simple directness of his prose style, the precision of his descriptions, the way he can pierce the reader with a character’s slightest gesture.

Name three of your favorite books and their authors
Eleven Kinds of Loneliness by Richard Yates
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan

What’s one thing readers should know about you?
I use poker to inform my work as an artist. In poker it’s particularly evident that nothing risked equals nothing gained. Therefore, a regular dose of low stakes poker is enough for me to keep in mind the need I have to continue taking artistic risks.

What one piece of advice would you give to a budding writer?
Read, and read, and read. Beyond reading, I would encourage the fledgling writer to approach their work as a child approaches a sandbox—ready to play. For the moment, pay no attention to that killjoy grownup, your internal editor. Instead build and tear down and see what turns up. You’ll need that editor, but not till later, while the child’s enjoying a well-earned nap.

And read.

Author bio
Joe Geha, Professor Emeritus at Iowa State University, is also the author of Through and Through: Toledo Stories, and Lebanese Blonde. His poems, plays, essays and short stories have appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies. His work was granted an NEA award, Pushcart Prize, and the Arab American Book Award. Read about Joe’s lastest book, Kitchen Arabic How My Family Came to America and the Recipes We Brought With Us, here.

Categories
Author

Tom Montgomery Fate

What’s your genre?
Creative nonfiction / memoir / essays

Are you published?
Traditional Publisher

What inspired you to become a writer?
My 7th grade English teacher, Miss Herman, asked us to write about “a walk in the woods” we had taken, and then read/record (interpret) it on a cassette recorder. Then we listened to the reading together, while looking at the print, and discussed it. It blew my 13 year old mind.

What author do you admire and how have they inspired your writing?
I read ten of Scott Russell Sanders books while in a writing residency, and learned that my seemingly boring, humdrum life was interesting enough to write about. It was not about WHAT I saw but HOW I saw.

Name three of your favorite books and their authors
My Ántonia by Willa Cather
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Dakota by Kathleen Norris

What’s one thing readers should know about you?
Beauty is defined by flaw not perfection. It is uniqueness and difference that defines beauty, not societal expectation.

What one piece of advice would you give to a budding writer?
There are two things you need to be a writer: passion and patience. These two words share the same Latin root—pati—which means “to suffer.”

Author bio
Tom Montgomery Fate is a professor emeritus at College DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, where he taught creative writing and literature courses for more than 30 years. He is the author of six books of creative nonfiction, including The Long Way Home: Detours and Discoveries, a travel memoir (Ice Cube Press, 2022), Cabin Fever, a nature memoir (Beacon Press), and Steady and Trembling, a spiritual memoir (Chalice Press). A regular contributor to the Chicago Tribune, his essays have appeared in the Boston Globe, Baltimore Sun, Orion, The Iowa Review, Christian Century, Fourth Genre, River Teeth, and many others. Dozens of his essays have also aired on NPR, PRI and Chicago Public Radio. Visit Tom here.

On September 27, Tom will teach a class titled, Writing A Life Into Memoir at the Ames Public Library from 6:30 to 8 PM. Check our calendar for further details.

John Stoddard Cancer Center | An Evening With the Ames Writers Collective

Writing Through Cancer with the
Ames Writers Collective

A safe space is created for attendees to write for timed intervals to writing prompts. Writing prompts inspire stories from our lives. After each timed-writing session, participants will have the opportunity to read their stories to the group, which is healing on many levels.

Facilitator: Ana McCracken, Founder of the Ames Writers Collective

Location: Smokey Row, 1910 Cottage Grove Ave, Des Moines; Off the menu ordering of food, snacks & coffee will be provided

This program is sponsored by
John Stoddard Cancer Center

Categories
In The Media

Founder Featured in Livability Ames “Cost of Living Diaries”

The Ames Writers Collective is proud to have founder, Ana McCracken featured in “Cost of Living Diaries” in the current issue of Livability Ames.

 

 

Click here to view the entire story and issue. Please note that our story begins on page 17 of the digital magazine!

Livability Ames is sponsored by the Ames Chamber of Commerce.

We are grateful for the opportunity to be featured among the awesome businesses and organizations that make living
in Story County, Iowa great.

Writing That Scary Thing—A Women’s Writing Retreat

Writing That Scary Thing—A Women’s Writing Retreat

at Prairiewoods Franciscan Spirituality Center
in Hiawatha, Iowa

Most of us give little thought to how we would like to be remembered in our obituaries. The thought of writing it may be scary. But writing your obituary does not signal the end of your life. Instead, it is a wonderful opportunity to reflect, receive feedback from others, and to plan how you wish to live the rest of your best life. And, wouldn’t you rather be the author of your obituary as opposed to leaving the writing of your life to someone else?

This two-and-a-half day workshop will help demystify writing about ourselves and explore the history of obituaries—both newspaper and online versions. Step-by-step exercises will help each of us gather our own anecdotal and biographical data, and easy writing exercises will produce draft obituaries, both online and newspaper versions. During our final-evening celebration, everyone will be invited to read their obituary to the group.

Join Mary Lou Nosco and Ana McCracken for a fun-filled and reflective writing retreat at Prairiewoods. You don’t have to be “a writer” to join us. During our time together, we will gather in community for walks, good food and conversation, and time to reflect and write. And, of course there will be wine!

Ana McCracken received her B.S and MFA in Creative Writing and Environment from Iowa State University, and she the founder of the Ames Writers Collective. Ana enjoys reading a well-written obituary, and wants to be the author of her own.

 

 

 

Mary Lou Nosco has a B.A. in history, an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership, and is a retired Army officer. While in the Army, Nosco wrote too many obituaries for soldiers. Additionally, she has written obituaries for five family members and would like to spare her own family that duty.

 

 

 

DATES
Arrival: October 16 (Noon)
Departure: October 18 (by 1 pm)

COST: $295 includes lodging (single rooms) and meals, materials and wine! Click here for payment instructions or to make inquiry. Pre-assignments and itinerary will be sent closer to the retreat date. Plan to bring a notebook and pen and/or your laptop for writing and taking notes.