An Interview with Kristi Hemmer

The March Final Thursday Reading Series featured reader is Kristi Hemmer. A UNI alum, Hemmer is the author of Quit Being So Good: Stories of an Unapologetic Woman (Wise Ink Creative Publishing) and the founder of the Academy for Women’s Empowerment. She is a social entrepreneur, and educator, and a world traveler. Hemmer’s visit is co-sponsored by the UNI Women’s and Gender Studies Program as part of Women’s History Month.

The Final Thursday Reading Series takes place at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. There will be an open mic at 7:00 p.m. (bring your best five minutes of original creative writing). Kristi Hemmer takes the stage at 7:30. The featured reading will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click HERE to register for a link.

Interview by Allyson Rafanello.

ALLISON RAFANELLO: You share in Quit Being So Good that you started off as a teacher. How did your role in education influence the work you do today?
KRISTI HEMMER: Once a teacher, always a teacher. I don’t call it teaching when I stand on stage in front of hundreds or thousands of people, because unfortunately not everyone had a good experience in school. But it’s what I do best—teach! From the PoWercourse I created to the keynote talks I give to the way I connect with people around the world—that comes from my time as an educator. Also, being in education for 20 years as a teacher, counselor, principal, coach, faculty development specialist, and substitute teacher gave me an understanding of the SYSTEM of education. And it gave me a lot of tools to be a social entrepreneur and start AWE INC (Academy for Women’s Empowerment). 

AR: Your college experience at UNI had an impact on Quit Being So Good. How did your time at UNI influence who you are today?
KH: UNI is an integral experience in my being. My education in education influenced how I taught for 20 years, and how I train/influence now as a social entrepreneur-11 years. Some of my favorite takeaways from UNI that I use today are…
1. I learned in my diversity class in 1991 that the word “sorry” means “I feel badly” to women and “I take blame” for men. I tested it out at The Stein that night, and it was true. It has shifted a little bit now, but not much. Language is powerful. I teach this and live by not saying “sorry” (except in great loss). Don’t get me wrong—I apologize. I just don’t use the word “sorry.”
2. Learning in Dr. May’s class that you can’t control a 3-year-old—only the environment. It’s true for a teenager or a fifty year old. I find this wisdom SO powerful not only for me, but for those I work with/influence.
3. UNI is the first place I didn’t have to show up as the “Smart, Nice” girl, because not everyone knew me. I’m so grateful my roomie was from a very small town in southeast Iowa. It gave me a chance to be me—she didn’t know any different. I loved the freedom to be me. Unapologetically. Don’t get me wrong, I was still on the Dean’s list every semester and ODK and KPD and on and on and on, but I also had so much fun meeting others and learning about myself. As I say in my book, I’m SO much more than a “smart, nice girl.” In addition, that’s what society wanted and benefitted from me—not how I wanted to be defined or remembered.
4. UNI gave me the opportunity to practice leadership. I headed the first Challenge of Teaching Conference. I was President of the NAEYC. I played a season on the Tennis Team (I didn’t make the top six but was on standby). I was Secretary of Kappa Delta Pi. I was a Desk Assistant. I taught tennis lessons for City Rec in Cedar Falls and the Wellness Program at UNI. It also gave me a safe space to start challenging authority and the limiting beliefs that I had and others had about me as a single woman in education. It also was a place that people saw my possible. Growing up, I was often encouraged to stay small—to shrink. My teachers/professors are the ones who saw my potential and showed me how to use it to get to something bigger than I knew about. I make sure I do the same now—wherever I go.
PS. In my book, chapter two takes place at The Stein and the friends I reference—we’re still friends today.

AR: In your travels to 75 countries and counting, what has been most surprising to you in terms of encouraging women to take up space?
KH: What surprises me the most is that once I say something, women share SO many stories. And once I show them how to take up more space, they do it for themselves and others! I call it #BeWhatSheCanSee. It’s powerful! Also, I get very frustrated and mad with how things are going for women in the USA right now. And then, I’m reminded by my friend from Indonesia who told me just this morning, “You know if you’re Indonesian and working in America, it’s like a dream of every citizen here.” After living in Indonesia for two years and returning every year since 2003 (except for COVID years), he’s right. I don’t worry about clean water. I do have the possibility of divorce. I do have the ability to raise my children without a man in my life (if I had children). And so much more. This doesn’t mean I will be blind to what’s going on in the world (I read Anne Frank). It’s just that I will pay attention AND use my power as an American to make the world better for everybody. 

AR: Quit Being So Good shares a mantra of Take Up Space, Be First, and Look for the Helpers. What's your advice to someone who feels they've tried and still haven't gotten there?
KH: Hmmm. This is a hard one. My belief is that when one uses the word “try,” it means “I think it’s a good idea, but I’m not going to do it (fully).” I’m not saying try harder—because try is still in there. I’d say choose one and do one thing every day to:
1. Take up space. Speaking up, standing taller/bigger, sitting at a table you usually don’t, raising your hard first, apply for a job, so so so many ways.
2. Be first. The first time you did… Or the first time a woman did…. Or be the first follower. The first one to show support of a group, individual, or idea.
3. Look for the Helpers. If you’re struggling to do #1 or #2—look for the Helpers. Ask for help. Or, if that feels too scary, hangout with people who are Helpers or Changemakers. Once I figure out that someone is not a Helper/Changemaker or doesn’t want to, I don’t spend time with them (or limit my time). 

AR: What advice would you give students today at UNI?
KH: 1. Do things alone. Especially travel. For me, experiencing things alone gives you an opportunity to see yourself deeply, see others (the same and different), and trust in both.
2. Connect with others—intentionally. If you do #1, you surely will do this naturally. For example, I’m in Aruba right now. When I first came here in 2021, I knew nobody. I searched for Social Entrepreneurs in Aruba. Anika’s name popped up. I messaged her on LinkedIn, we met up, she introduced me to Charisse, who introduced me to Deborah, and I did a presentation at the University of Aruba. I’m still friends with them today. And have expanded from there. It’s a fun game of Connect the Dots!
3. Take up space (and share space that you have). Be first (and be a first follower of others doing good work). Look for the helpers (and be a helper)! :)

An Interview with Laura Farmer

February’s Final Thursday Reading Series features short story writer and novelist Laura Farmer. Farmer is the author of Direct Connection: Stories and a Novella (Bridge Eight Press) and Catch and Release (North Dakota State University Press). A native of Cedar Falls, she currently directs the Dungy Writing Studio at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, where she helps students tell stories of their own. 

The Final Thursday Reading Series takes place at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. There will be an open mic at 7:00 p.m. (bring your best five minutes of original creative writing). Laura Farmer takes the stage at 7:30. The featured reading will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click HERE to register for a link. 

Interview by Olivia Brunsting. 

OLIVIA BRUNSTING: The theme of moving through a season of change is at the core of Direct Connection. Was there a season of change in your own life that inspired this collection?

LAURA FARMER: I was actually in the middle of a season of bad luck, writing-wise. I failed to find a home for my first novel, and I ended up selling my second novel three times in seven years – lots of bad luck with publishers folding, agents not working out, etc. When I wrote Direct Connection, I didn’t know if I would ever sell a novel. So I put together this collection as kind of a last-ditch effort to get something out there. Short stories are also my first love. Putting this collection together was actually fun because I wasn’t putting any kind of pressure on myself. I was just trying to reconnect with writing, to find some of the joy I was afraid I was losing while pursuing the hunt of publishing. 

OB: Many of the characters in this collection had left Iowa but then decided to come back. What do you think makes Iowa so magnetic?

LF: Home is home, right? I think there’s a common story in Iowa that when we’re young we can’t wait to get out and build a life somewhere else. And then, for many of us, there comes a time when we can’t wait to come back and build something here. For me, I lived out in New York state for a number of years, and after a while I wanted something different. To be closer to my family. A different pace of life. I love how strangers talk to each other out here, how the sky is enormous. Iowa’s just home. 

OB: “Record of Grief” is the lengthiest short story in this collection although it's not the title story. Why did you pick “Direct Connection” as your title story?

LF: The themes in the story “Direct Connection” seemed to resonate throughout the whole collection: moving through a season of change, finding joy in small moments, searching for ways to be closer to something, be it another person, yourself, or the world around you. Plus, I liked the title. I thought it sounded pretty good. 

OB: Your novel Catch and Release was published this summer! Tell us a little about this book.

LF: Like Direct Connection, the novel is also set in Iowa, but on the other side of the state and at an earlier time. Here’s a brief description: Charles “Catch” Sherman has lived at the corner of Fourth and Lafayette, in the house his grandfather built, his entire life. While content with his small life in the river town of Beaumont, Iowa, he knows life will be much different for his eldest daughter Edie, a gifted physics student. Set in the late 1950s through the 1970s, and told in alternative voices between Catch and Edie, Catch and Release is the story about holding on, letting go, and the leaps we must take to become the people we are meant to be. 

OB: What would you say to other writers who are working on projects of their own?

LF: Writing is a long game, so do what you need to do to keep going. Take time off. Try something different. But do keep going. We’ve all got stories to tell.

An Interview with Gail Lynn

2025’s slate of FTRS featured readers begins on January 30 with Gail Lynn, author of the memoir Bell Bottom Blues. Gail grew up in Janesville in the 1970s during a tumultuous era when youth culture had disrupted conventions and redefined what growing up meant. It was an exciting and confusing time, and Gail captures it by documenting her 14th summer, a time when she was still a girl but experiencing all the complexities of adult life. Check out the Spotify playlist of music referenced in Bell Bottom Blues.

The Final Thursday Reading Series takes place at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. There will be an open mic at 7:00 p.m. (bring your best five minutes of original creative writing). Gail Lynn takes the stage at 7:30. The featured reading will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click HERE to register for a link.

Interview by Jim O’Loughlin. 

JIM O’LOUGHLIN: What initially led you to focus Bell Bottom Blues on the summer of 1972?

GAIL LYNN: Bell Bottom Blues exists BECAUSE of the summer of 1972. Initially, I thought that summer was significant because of the young hippie I had a crush on and the heartbreak that resulted. Although that is partly true, the more I wrote the more I realized there was much more to that summer. Yet Bell Bottom Blues would not exist without the heartbreak I experienced that summer. 

JO: The rock music of the era plays a big role in this book. Can you talk about its importance to you as a teenager?

GL: Music was a constant in my life, and still is today. I was a shy and lonely teenager and music, along with television and movies, were my companions. They comforted me. I could count on them when family and friends let me down. Music in particular is such an emotional experience and that emotion made me feel more connected to it. 

JO: What are the aspects of the 1970s that seem most different from today, and which seem most familiar?

GL: It was a simpler time in many ways. Of course, that wasn’t all good. I think parenting has changed for the better. People are generally more aware of what good parenting is. In the ‘70s we never used seatbelts or proper car seats. My father who suffered from PTSD would have been more likely today to get treatment, which may have resulted in being a more present father and husband. One thing I feel hasn’t changed is how teenagers respond to music. Although music is more varied today and is acquired differently, the emotional connection is still there. 

JO: One of the things that I most admire about this book is that you capture the perspective of “Gail at 14” and resist the temptation to look back with the hindsight of an adult to comment or correct. Was that something you did consciously, or did you find the process of writing just led to that?

GL: It was definitely a conscious effort on my part, and it wasn’t easy. Once I got into that mindset, it became easier.

Spring 2025 FTRS Poster!

 

An Interview with Paul Brooke

November’s Final Thursday Reading Series comes one week early (on November 21) due to Thanksgiving. The featured reader will be Paul Brooke, a Professor of English at Grand View University and editor of Cities of the Plains: An Anthology of Iowa Artists and Poets, which features 57 artists and poets and highlights the immense talent of the state. Brooke will be joined on stage by regional contributors to the collection. 

The Final Thursday Reading Series takes place (**don’t forget: one week early) at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. There will be an open mic at 7:00 p.m. (bring your best five minutes of original creative writing). Paul Brooke and friends take the stage at 7:30. The featured reading will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click HERE to register for a link. 

Interview by Tomiisin Ilesanmi.

TOMIISIN ILESANMI: “The Cities of the Plains” is a symbolic title. What was the inspiration behind this choice, and what do you intend to convey with this introduction?
PAUL BROOKE: It comes from a poem from Mona Van Duyn and, of course, it relates to Cormac McCarthy as well. But in the poem she writes of "fabulous bouquets of persons" and I immediately thought about the talent pool of artists and poets in the state. It also suggests that we meld the urban and the rural throughout our work. Notice that the cover is the capital with the prairie underneath showing both aspects of the title. 

TI: This anthology portrays diverse artistic expressions across Iowa. Was this an intentional setup, or did you experience an organic shift while compiling the project?
PB: It was all very intentional as we have a diverse group of artists/poets and I wanted it to show the cross section of folks who are doing this good work. This also makes the anthology very surprising and gives a wonderful selection of art and poems. 

TI: The early poems in this collection challenged my preconceived perception of an “Americanized and stereotypical” Iowan depiction. Can you explain how you addressed those expectations and provided a more nuanced perspective on these themes?
PB: That was purposeful as I wanted the anthology to be multicultural, leaning into interdisciplinary connections. This meant that writers like Vi Khi Noa needed to set the stage. Also, the artwork really helped to explode that "Americanized and stereotypical" label. So many artists are doing ground breaking work that the old convention seems wrecked. 

TI: Why are Iowa poets and artists often disregarded or dismissed?
PB: I think there is a stereotype about Iowa that we are all farmers or some such nonsense. But there is this amazing pool of talent which I believe flourishes in Iowa because Iowa gives us the time and space to be super creative and innovative. 

TI: What makes the artistic community of Iowa distinct and why do you think it was important to showcase these artists in this collection?
PB: There had not been a poetry anthology like this done since 1996 and it was high time to showcase these artists and poets. It gives all of them a publication, a place to read/present their work, and a way to connect. I have been mentoring many of the poets in this collection and try to invite them to read when the opportunity arises. 

TI: As both a contributor and the editor of this project, what did you take away from the experience? What are the benefits of taking on a collaborative project?
PB: I have worked on more massive projects but this is the most rewarding for me since I have helped many young artists and poets. For some of them, this was a first publication. For others, it reinforced their skill/talent. We need more of this in Iowa. We must celebrate each other and support our artists and writers in every way possible. 

An Interview with Brooke Wonders

 
For this special Halloween FTRS event, “A Night of Monsters,” the inmates take over the asylum. UNI’s Brooke Wonders, alongside students in her horror literature course, will be reading new stories of terror and dread. Dr. Wonders’s scary stories have appeared in Black Warrior Review, The Rupture, and The Dark, among others. She is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Northern Iowa and editor of literary horror magazine Grimoire. 

 

The Final Thursday Reading Series takes place on October 31 at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. NOTE: this special event will begin at 7:15. There will be no open mic tonight, but the open mic will return in November. The event will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click HERE to register for a link.

 

Interview conducted by Jim O’Loughlin 

 

JIM O’LOUGHLIN: Let me start with a big picture question. Instinctively, it would seem like getting scared is something we all would want to avoid, but many readers are drawn to horror and suspense fiction precisely to get scared. How do you understand that draw for readers?
BROOKE WONDERS: Do people enjoy the fear, or moving through fear--or both? I'm in the "both" category. I like how horror values intensity of sensation, an aesthetic predilection that has a long literary history: the Gothic influences sensationalist literature which influences pulp fiction. At a psychological level, horror ends. In films and novels, there's a finite point at which the terror is over. That doesn't always happen in real life. Horror consoles us with the illusion of control, and I am a control freak at heart. 

JO: As a writer, what has drawn you to writing horror fiction? What does that genre allow you to do that draws you to it?
BW: I love how horror is rooted in the senses and resists intellectualization. Great horror, if you're open to it, circumvents the rational mind; it lives in the nervous system. My writing process focuses on image and emotion. An image comes to me via observation or epiphany, sometimes with an emotion attached. Answering the question, "why and how does this image haunt me?" is how the story comes into being. Horror is particularly well-suited to this process. 

 

JO: You are also a memoirist, and I wonder if you feel more connection or distance when working in those two genres.
BW: I love this question. It makes the choice of fiction or nonfiction into something spatial (distance) and relational (connection). I’m a kinetic writer; I'll go on walks or make faces in the mirror while working on a piece. I feel connected to my unconscious when I write. If I had to describe writer's block, I'd say it feels like disconnection or distance. I begin from image and emotion whether I'm writing fiction or nonfiction; the only difference is, for nonfiction I'm not allowed to make stuff up. But both require me to go to difficult places psychologically, and for the sensations I'm evoking to feel real, they have come from lived experience. If there's any difference between nonfiction and horror, for me personally, I'd say horror feels safer to write than nonfiction because I can conceal more of myself without breaking the reader's trust. 

 

JO: So, you’ve got a plan for Halloween and FTRS! We’ve never done a special event exactly like this before. Without giving away any surprises, can you talk about what your class will be doing and what attendees should expect?

BW: Audiences should expect a phantasmagorical display of the subterranean recesses of the mind. This is an 18-and-over event, or 13+ for mature teens who attend with an adult. There will be Halloween treats and decor, and costumes are welcome. Hope to see you there!

An Interview with Marc Dickinson

 

September brings UNI English alumni Marc Dickinson back to the Cedar Valley. Dickinson is the author of the new short story collection, Replacement Parts (Atmosphere Press). A UNI English alumni, he teaches creative writing at Des Moines Area Community College and coordinates the Celebration of the Literary Arts reading series.

The Final Thursday Reading Series takes place on September 26 at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. There will be an open mic at 7:00 p.m. (bring your best five minutes of original creative writing). Marc Dickinson takes the stage at 7:30. The featured reading will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click HERE to register for a link.

Interview by Grant Tracey.

GRANT TRACEY: Love the new book, by the way, the grime and grit of hard scrabble, working people in small Iowa towns along Highway 20. I wonder if you might comment on what town(s) triggered your versions of “Dexton” and “Bridger” and how these settings fire up your artistic imagination?
MARC DICKINSON: The setting is definitely a character in the book, informing the lives of its inhabitants. The fictional town of Dexton is a conflation of several small places in Iowa, but it was particularly influenced by my first teaching position in town whose factory—and main employer—had been shut down. Many laid-off employees came back to college and were in my classroom, and these ex-assembly-line workers—who were replaced by exported labor, who could’ve been bitter about the raw deal—were the most inspiring students I’ve ever had the privilege to teach. They taught me so much through their stories they graciously shared with me. 

But the town was hit, economically, which inspired the fictional town of Bridger—a neighboring town with a similar status, until a new highway is built—and all the money, infrastructure, and jobs funnel from Dexton to Bridger. It’s a common kind of rural gentrification, wherein a seemingly small town gets absorbed by urban sprawl. A place that once had a single gas station becomes an affluent city that no native citizen can afford—while other small towns bear the brunt of being left behind. 

GT: I’ve known you for over twenty years. You’re a well-read, articulate man. A champion of the humanities and profoundly aware of the human condition. But, what I admire about your characters is the dignity with which you present vulnerable, somewhat lost souls. What is it that compels you to tell the stories of those who can’t fully understand or act upon the forces that shape their lives?
MD: Once again, it’s partly due to my experience teaching with working class students, a community that often gets overlooked, made to felt replaceable/expendable—or they’re turned into stereotypes. But all I saw was some of the best of humanity in them. Despite hardships, they never saw themselves as victims. Yet, whenever I read about “lost souls,” especially in blue collar culture, they’re often presented as angry, ignorant, or even extremist. 

 

So, the goal in all my writing, but especially marginalized communities such as the working class, is to simply present them as people who suffer and struggle the same as anyone. Who have the same existential questions we all share. Maybe they don’t always have access to the language that can articulate these complex issues, and as a result their trauma may express itself in unforeseen ways, but I try to always honor the rich interior life of all—at all times. 

 

GT: Heath, the county sheriff in “Jurisdiction” says, “Doing the job, I’ve learned not to judge people too fast. They may just surprise you.” This edict could stand in for all your stories which, in some ways echo Grace Paley’s open destiny of life or “enormous changes at the last minute.” Several of your endings are truly surprising and full of little miracles. I have the feeling that you are as surprised as we are when we reach these dramatic turns. I’m thinking of the stunning endings to “Smoked” and “Vanishing Points.” Perhaps you could comment on this and suggest what young writers should look for in an ending that works. 

MD: Endings are tough because it’s the one thing you can’t teach yourself beforehand—only the story itself can tell you where it ends. I know writers who know the ending before they write the first word—but they always admit that just because they know the action, or line, or image they want to end on, they have to write the story to understand what it means. I’m on the other end—I have no idea where I’m going when I start, so it takes forever to find the ending. Yes, surprise is key, but it also goes back to that old line about endings have to be “unexpected yet feel inevitable.” Which really requires you to listen to your story, allow it to teach you what it wants to say, and the only way to do this is through (tons of) revision. 

Also, we often talk about change or transformation when it comes to a character’s climax. And I think that is necessary—everything should head toward change since it’s what gives the story its stakes. But how this manifests itself is complicated. I tell my students to think more along the lines of turn or shift, as opposed to change—a word that’s always too big to hold onto when drafting. And sometimes what manifests is no change at all—but this can be equally unexpected, full of an urgency that can feel transformative in its own way.

GT: I’m impressed with the authentic inner lives of your stories: from the sensibilities of army veterans and reflections on their time in the Suck to an old man working an assembly line to adolescents holed up in a group home to a county sheriff working the first watch in a small town. Tell us a bit about your research process.
MD: I love research, but it’s also dangerous because not everything can go in the story—otherwise it’ll feel like a Wikipedia page. I have to have a bit of a blind spot when I do formal research—I want information but only the right information that moves me. I want to get the details right, but insignificant details clutter up a story. I always look for a detail with a story buried in it.

Often talking (or rather, listening) to people is the best form of research, because when they talk about their jobs, for instance, they always tell it in the context of a story. For instance, when I talked to my neighbor who’s a cop, he’d begin with “One time on patrol…” and then a story is presented to me, full of only significant details that inform, enhance, or maybe even become the essence/point of the story itself. It’s about finding the right detail that reveals.

GT: Your title story, “Replacement Parts,” has faint echoes of Charles Baxter’s “Gryphon.” Maybe, I’m wrong about that, but I wonder if you might talk about ways in which a writer can use scaffolding from other stories to take things in bold, new directions. Your sentences and stories are so well-crafted. Pick a favorite story in Replacement Parts and share with us revision strategies (macro and micro) you used to get the story to the point where you could let it go into the world.
MD: Revision is my entire writing life. For me, drafting is quick, skeletal, full of wrong notes and turns. clutter and cliche—I’m just trying to survive the story, trying to find the spark. And sometimes I never do, which means no amount of revision will help, either it doesn’t speak to me, is just an interesting premise and nothing more—or maybe it just isn’t my story to tell.

But if there is a spark, fanning the flames takes months, if not years, of steady revision. For instance, the title story (which had a different title until the last minute, speaking of non-stop revision), I started years ago, in my MFA (the only story to survive the program). Then I revised it for years and got it published. But if you put it next to the draft in the book, the bones are there but it’s almost an entirely different story, even after I placed it in a magazine.

I love the voice of the young narrator so much—it’s probably my favorite story in the book (which is why it was got the title), but it never felt fully realized because the two main characters, both in elementary school, never interacted beyond Q&A, or exposition, or small talk. There were so many flat moments, no energy, and as you say, I was probably copying too much Baxter for my own good.

So, I cut it in half and made the kids interact more, telling their stories through play, wherein our narrator starts to learn things, make choices, question authority. Soon, there was more urgency, more action, more at stake. Their conversations became mysterious but more meaningful as the relationship grew. As a result, the ending—which never changed—held more resonance. And our narrator, who now had more agency, does transform—even if the last image shows him doing the opposite.