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.