Rehearsals | The EcoTheatre Lab

The EcoTheatre Lab Presents—In Our Backyard Rehearsals

Rehearsals for The EcoTheatre Lab’s new eco-play festival, In Our Backyard. Rehearsals are reserved only for participating artists. The festival is May 1st-3rd and is free and open to the public! Check out ecotheatrelab.com for more information!

Rehearsals | The EcoTheatre Lab

The EcoTheatre Lab Presents—In Our Backyard Rehearsals

Rehearsals for The EcoTheatre Lab’s new eco-play festival, In Our Backyard. Rehearsals are reserved only for participating artists. The festival is May 1st-3rd and is free and open to the public! Check out ecotheatrelab.com for more information!

Rehearsals | The EcoTheatre Lab

The EcoTheatre Lab Presents—In Our Backyard Rehearsals

Rehearsals for The EcoTheatre Lab’s new eco-play festival, In Our Backyard. Rehearsals are reserved only for participating artists. The festival is May 1st-3rd and is free and open to the public! Check out ecotheatrelab.com for more information!

CRAFT WORKSHOP | defiant forms: A generative cross-genre workshop

CRAFT WORKSHOP
defiant forms: A generative cross-genre workshop
with Matty Layne Glasgow
Friday, April 24 | 10 AM – 12 PM
Ames Writers Collective, Fifth Street Writers (612 Fifth Street)

In this generative workshop, we’ll consider and draw inspiration from approaches that delight in the blending and blurring of genre and tradition. Bring a draft of a piece in any genre that feels stuck for one reason or another, and we’ll try our hand at creating our own novel forms that play with mimetic representation of the systems our work engages with and, potentially, seeks to deconstruct. Pearl Hogrefe Visiting Writer Series Event.

This event is FREE and open to all writers and non-writers. For more information, click here.

Matty Layne Glasgow is the author of the award-winning poetry collection deciduous qween, published by Red Hen Press in 2019. He is an Assistant Professor of English at the College of Charleston where he teaches poetry and nonfiction. A 2022-2025 Black Earth Institute Fellow, Glasgow co-edited the About Place Journal’s “Strange Wests” and served as Editor of Quarterly West, as well as the coordinator of the Wasatch Writers in the Schools program in Salt Lake City.

A graduate of the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment at Iowa State, Glasgow also received a PhD in Creative Writing & English Literature from the University of Utah where he was awarded a Vice Presidential Fellowship, a Jeff Metcalf Humanities in the Community Fellowship, and a Fellowship from the Tanner Humanities Center. Matty’s poems and essays have appeared in or are forthcoming from Crazyhorse, Copper Nickel, Denver Quarterly, Ecotone, Gulf Coast, Houston Public Media, Kenyon Review, the Missouri Review, Pleiades, Poetry Daily, Third Coast, and elsewhere.

This program is sponsored by the Pearl Hogrefe Fund, Department of English, MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment, Ames Writers Collective, Fifth Street Writers, Iowa State University Committee on Lectures (funded by GSB).

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Blog In The Media News

Beyond the Summit┃Above+Beyond Cancer Conference

Join Founder Ana McCracken at the upcoming “Beyond the Summit” conference, June 11, 2026.

Beyond the Summit is a one-day conference created for cancer survivors and caregivers seeking practical tools, inspiration, and connection during and after the cancer journey. Through expert-led sessions, attendees will explore whole-person approaches to healing that support the body, mind, and spirit.

Ana McCracken will speak on a panel with Dr. Richard Deming and Jana West during Session One: The Arts as Medicine. Discover how creative expression can support emotional healing, reduce stress, and foster meaning and connection. Dr. Richard Deming is Founder of Above+Beyond Cancer and Medical Director at the Richard Deming Cancer Center. Jana West is a singer/songwriter.

The conference will take place on Thursday, June 11, 2026, with sessions taking place from 9:00am – 4:00pm in West Des Moines. Click here for more information and to register.

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In The Media News

Publication of Writing Circle Mondays

Hot off the presses: Writing Circle Mondays Reflections on Life & Cancer. This anthology co-edited by Ames Writers Collective founder, Ana McCracken and Terri Dorothy, a John Stoddard Cancer Center patient, gathers together heartfelt stories from women who found strength, hope, and healing through writing.

Every author wants you to buy their book. Know that when you purchase Writing Circle Mondays Reflections on Life & Cancer, all royalties support the Charlie Cutler Healing and Wellness Program at John Stoddard Cancer Center. This program funds Writing Circle Mondays—a FREE resource for individuals living with cancer. Books can be purchased through your local independent bookstores such as Dog-Eared Books in Ames, Iowa, Beaverdale Books in Des Moines, Barnes & Noble, and off Amazon if no other resource is available for you.

This anthology would not have made it to publication without Ana’s co-editor Terri Dorothy, who writes with her and others on Mondays. Additionally this book was published with the assistance of Polly Letofsky of #mywordpublishing. Ana met Polly at the Okoboji Writers’ Conference (#okobojiwriters) in 2023, kept in touch and Polly shepherded Ana through the process of publishing this collection of stories and poetry. A resounding thank you to Terri, Polly, all those who contributed to the anthology, and the John Stoddard Cancer Center.

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In The Media News

Auditions | The EcoTheatre Lab

EcoTheatre Lab’s PresentsIn Our Backyard Auditions

March 29th and 31st—6 to 9 PM

Auditions for The EcoTheatre Lab’s new eco-play festival, In Our Backyard. Auditions are open to the public, ages 18+. Please see ecotheatrelab.com for more information, and email [email protected] with questions.

Click here to check our calendar for specific times!

Rehearsals | The EcoTheatre Lab

The EcoTheatre Lab Presents—In Our Backyard Rehearsals

Rehearsals for The EcoTheatre Lab’s new eco-play festival, In Our Backyard. Rehearsals are reserved only for participating artists. The festival is May 1st-3rd and is free and open to the public! Check out ecotheatrelab.com for more information!

Rehearsals | The EcoTheatre Lab

The EcoTheatre Lab Presents—In Our Backyard Rehearsals

Rehearsals for The EcoTheatre Lab’s new eco-play festival, In Our Backyard. Rehearsals are reserved only for participating artists. The festival is May 1st-3rd and is free and open to the public! Check out ecotheatrelab.com for more information!

Rehearsals | The EcoTheatre Lab

The EcoTheatre Lab Presents—In Our Backyard Rehearsals

Rehearsals for The EcoTheatre Lab’s new eco-play festival, In Our Backyard. Rehearsals are reserved only for participating artists. The festival is May 1st-3rd and is free and open to the public! Check out ecotheatrelab.com for more information!