If you have seen the film "Field of Dreams" you probably know that Iowa is a beautiful place. The farm house and field used in the film are near Iowa City where the University of Iowa is located and where the writer W. P. Kinsella (author of Shoeless Joe on which the movie was based) studied at the Iowa Writer's Workshop.
One of the signature phrases in that film is the line: "If you build it they will come." Connie and I have been lured to Iowa City by the potentiality and substance of that phrase. I will be joining the faculty of the University of Iowa's graduate program in creative nonfiction next fall and I will also be working with the Carver Center for Macular Degeneration at the UI's health clinic as their first ever "poet in residence" at the medical college.
Connie can speak for herself of course, but I can say that we both have made good friends in Ohio and we are not leaving Columbus and the land of the Buckeyes without sincere feelings of loss. But we hope to carry with us some deep and lasting friendships from our 7 years in Ohio.
We can't promise to wear Buckeye regalia in Iowa City. That would probably be a monumental blunder. The only thing worse would be to wear a Michigan shirt.
Our blog will of course continue without interruption and we look forward to attracting new friends to the Planet.
Steve
P.S. Visit SawxBlog.com for this review of Shoeless Joe
Big move! Best of luck.
Posted by: Janet | May 02, 2007 at 01:25 PM
And a hearty congratulations, also!
Posted by: Janet | May 02, 2007 at 01:27 PM
Best wishes on the move. Go Hawkeyes!
Posted by: David | May 02, 2007 at 02:32 PM
Congratulations! Best of luck to you guys!
Are you gonna dump Kaleidoscope Ohio now? Or are you just gonna add a Kaleidoscope Iowa? I'll have to "introduce" you to a blogging couple I know who live out there. They are both writers "in real life." (Not just the bloggy kind) I'll email you their links.
Shoot, Connie! Guess that dinner party's gonna be *really* hard to plan now...
:)
or
:(
Posted by: blue girl | May 02, 2007 at 04:53 PM
BG, If you're asking me,
:) or :( varies from day to day.
As for the dinner party, now we NEED to make this happen, sooner rather than later. And we will!
Posted by: Connie | May 02, 2007 at 06:12 PM
Congratulations to you both! Excellent news!
I'll resume my postings in a week or so -- now that I've finished my thesis I'm off to sunny Fresno for a week with my daughter and her family.
Georgia
Posted by: Georgia Whitney | May 03, 2007 at 07:26 AM
Congratulations on both of your new positions. btw just finished reading your book Eavesdropping over at bookshare.org and it was so good I'm keeping a cyber "copy" on my laptop so I can do a second read. I did some vicarious traveling to places I've never been-thank you!
Posted by: Ruth | May 03, 2007 at 09:43 AM