Cedar Falls, Iowa: A City of Writers

Post date: Aug 6, 2017 10:36:12 PM

Reflections on our Birthday Party for the Cedar Falls Authors Festival

Cedar Falls, Iowa: A City of Writers

Yesterday was a busy day: we were at the Cedar Falls Public Library for the Cedar Falls Authors Festival Birthday party, so we arrived shortly before 9 am until not quite 5. A number of people from our Umbrella Committee were there and helped as well.

We honored our three authors with August birthdays (Robert James Waller, born August 1; Ruth Suckow, born August 6; and James Hearst, born August 8) and introduced our 6^th best-selling author with a Cedar Falls Connection, Rev. Charlie Shedd, born August 8. We also did some readings for Bess Aldrich and Nancy Price—and Nancy Price attended that session and signed some books. People came and went; we gave breaks between sessions. I saw a lot of familiar faces and quite a few new ones as well. We had upwards of 30-35 people.

Rosemary started the day by reading excerpts from the classic Aldrich book Song of the Years, explaining that the book helps us to understand our local history, because even if the names have been changed, the events all happened.

Next we honored Robert Waller with several people reading selections. Mary Taylor read a piece about his basketball career at college (Jump Shot). Barbara and Rosemary read a piece about one of Waller’s favorite cats that left several of us looking for a Kleenex. We had so hoped to have him come to Cedar Falls in May to kick off our Authors Festival; his death in March was devastating.

Barbara presented on Ruth Suckow and asked Mike and I to reprise our roles with a reading that we first did back in 2007: the presentation takes snippets of one of Suckow’s stories (“A Rural Community”) and gives it more of a Readers’ Theater flair. Written in 1923, it is one of my favorite Suckow stories because it showcases Suckow’s realistic and rich description of the Iowa countryside as well as her ability to capture the dialogue and characters.

I had a lot of fun researching Charlie Shedd and presenting about him yesterday: I had first read his books as a young college student in the early 1970s. He’s famous for Letters to Karen and later Letters to Philip, a series of letters to his daughter and son about marriage and relationships. They sold an estimated 8 million copies. He went on to write 40 more books on an astonishing variety of subjects including dieting, telling stories to grandchildren, marriage and sexuality, as well as topics relating to churches. I read four more of his books over the past two months and enjoyed them tremendously: he was a very wise, practical man with a wonderful sense of humor, humility, and someone I would have enjoyed getting to know. Mike and Barb read a few of his stories from the book about Letters to his grandchildren and then an audience member came up and read another selection.

Mike took some pictures and decided to do some Facebook live streaming: what fun. Please don’t be offended if you saw the videos and realized that I was discussing Charlie Shedd’s candid attitudes about marriage and sex with teenagers and couples coming for counseling. He was ahead of his time. I’m still cracking up at the comment he made on his Radio Devotions program about a friend having cataloged over 737 sins, and having people contact him for the list! (One man wrote, “You see, Rev., I’m wondering if I missed something?”)

Soon it was time to move on to James Hearst. Scott Cawelti sang some of the songs he’s written based on the poetry of James Hearst and Barbara discussed the way that events in his life influenced his topics: after diving into the river he became a paraplegic, and Hearst’s life was never the same. Barbara reflected on some of our conversations early on: what is there about Cedar Falls that has produced so many fine writers? She had done research and found few other Iowa towns with as many famous authors. Scott joked that it is something in the water. Gary Kelley’s festival poster features a writer sitting in the grass by the river, with a quote from each author appearing on the surface of the water. Barb said that we should begin to think of Cedar Falls as the City of Writers! I agree.

At the end of the day, we had Diana Turnage (born August 18), an aspiring children’s book author, tell us about her story and then read her draft: it was good. Finally, we enjoyed some storytelling by Gail Froyen (born August 1).

Back in October when we first began to plan these events and discovered that three of the five authors were born in August, we decided to celebrate their birthdays with a party and cake. However, it takes a lot of work to pull together a full day of programming: to plan it, to recruit volunteers, to promote it, and to actually pull it off. I am very proud to be part of the group of people who have accomplished so much. While several of us are “retired,” many of our hard working committee members such as Mary Taylor and Kim Manning are juggling work with the festival. Others of us, like Mary Brammer, Jan Anderson, Scott Cawelti, Barbara Lounsberry and Rosemary Beach are working hard at volunteering! We have become a team and rely on each other’s strengths, sense of humor, and networking skills.

Thank you to the Waterloo Courier for helping us to get the word out to the community, as well as to the Cedar Falls Tourism and Visitors Bureau for their help with promoting events. The Hearst Center and the Cedar Falls Public Library have been extremely helpful as well. Cedar Falls Library Director Sheryl McGovern arranged for the cake, tea and lemonade and had a volunteer lined up to help serve the treats (thanks, Sheryl and Christine--and Ambri!).

Last Updated August 6, 2017