A Surprise in the Top 10 U.S. Bookstores List

So I was minding my own business this weekend when I see this list pop up on Yahoo! of The Top Ten Bookstores in the US. That sounded interesting and the usual suspects where there, a couple of stores in your typical East Coast West Coast settings— New York, LA, Seattle, Portland, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and a great and popular Denver store snuck in …leaving just one slot for the rest of fly-over country—The Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa City.

Of course, this list by Daniel McGillivray is a subjective one, but I enjoy seeing things from Iowa continue to pop up all over the place in regards to the arts. (Of course, to many of us in Iowa the fact he Prairie Lights is so highly regarded is not that much of a surprise.)  McGillivary writes of the bookstore near The Iowa Writer’s Workshop:

“Ahhh, Iowa. Lush fields of corn, flowing hills of grazing land, and the country’s most-famous writing program. The Prairie Lights Bookstore, though not associated with the University of Iowa’s Writer’s Workshop, seems to have benefited from its reputation. The store is filled with over 30 years of history and has hosted internationally bestselling authors, Nobel Prize winners, and nearly every presidential candidate of the past 20 years.”

Think about that a moment. The Prairie Lights Bookstore is small considered to The Tattered Cover (Denver) and Powell’s (Portland) and Iowa City is a considerably smaller than cities like Philadelphia, Boston, Atlanta, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Miami, Kansas City, San Diego, Baltimore, Nashville, Cleveland, etc., but there it is in the top ten list.

I don’t know how many writers who have had films made from their writing have wandered through the isles at The Prairie Lights Bookstore but I’m sure there have been a few. The odds are pretty good that screenwriter Diablo Cody spent a little time and money there while a student at the University of Iowa —and before she won an Oscar for Juno. (The Juno—Iowa Connection.)

The last time I was at The Prairie Lights Bookstore I picked up Ethan Canin’s short story collection The Palace Thief.  (Canin teaches at the The Iowa Writers’ Workshop and one of the stories in that book, The Palace Thief, was the basis for the movie The Emperor’s Club.) Prairie Lights also has regular readings from authors (Live from Prairie Lights). One I’d like to make is Sept. 13, 2010 when Susanna Daniel reads from her debut novel Stiltsville. (About an Atlanta woman who moves into a house on stilts in Miami’s Biscayne Bay.) Archives of pasts readings are available online.

I’m telling you there is something in the water in these parts. I often stop in The Prairie Lights Bookstore when I head through Iowa City in hopes that some of it rubs off on my own writings.

Scott W. Smith

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The Juno-Iowa Connection

 

Yesterday the Oscar nominations were announced and Diablo Cody and her script Juno were nominated for best original screenplay and the film was also nominated for best picture.  I recently pointed out her Iowa connection as having graduated from the University of Iowa.

If you’re not familiar with the creative talent that has come out of the University of Iowa hold on for what I’m about to tell you.  You’ll be hard pressed to find a university that has educated and attracted more novelist, poets, essayist, screenwriters and short story writers at such a high level of proficiency and acclaim.

The campus is located just off Interstate 80 in Iowa City. Head west on 80 from New York City and you’ll run right into it. Head east on 80 from San Francisco (or via Park City if you’re coming from Sundance) and you’ll be heading toward the promise land of creative talent.  And if you happen to be in Cedar Falls where I’m typing this, it’s just a little over an hour drive south.

Its famed Iowa Writers’ Workshop is the oldest and most prestigious MFA writing program in the country. The program has produced thirteen Pulitzer Prize winners, and has had professors such as Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse-Five), Robert Penn Warren (All the King’s Men) and Philip Roth (The Human Stain).

Its notable MFA alumni whose writings have become movies include John Irving (The World According to Garp), W.P.Kinsella (Shoeless Joe, which became the movie Field of Dreams), Leonard Schrader (screenplay, Kiss of the Spider Woman), Ethan Canin (The Palace Thief that became the movie The Emperor’s Club), Michael Cunningham (The Hours), Nicholas Meyer (Oscar-nominated The-Seven-Percent-Solution), Robert Nelson Jacobs (screenplay, Chocolat), Max Allan Collins (The Road to Perdition) and Anthony Swofford (Jarhead).

Most recently two Iowa grads have had books listed in The New York Times 10 best books of 2007; Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson and Then We Came to an End by Joshua Ferris.

Those educated at the University of Iowa (though not in the writing program) include Stewart Stern (Rebel Without a Cause), Barry Kemp (Coach), actor/writer Gene Wilder (Young Frankenstein), producer Mark Johnson (Rain Man), Richard Maibaum (12 James Bond films including From Russia with Love), and the great playwright Tennessee Williams (A Streetcar Named Desire).  I’m sure I’ve missed many people, but I think you get the point.

So Diablo Cody joins a distinguished list of honored writers from Iowa. Congratulations on her success. I’m sure her 12 years of Catholic schooling in the Chicago area also played a part in developing her talent. The list of Catholic influenced (some positive, some negative) writers is too long to address now but may be worth a future blog. (I’m neither Catholic nor did I attend the University of Iowa, but I do like to notice trends.)

But make no mistake, Cody’s quirky mix of Midwest roots (she wrote Juno while living in Minneapolis) are what make her writing original. (Ditto that for the Minneapolis raised Coen brothers who just received writing and directing Oscar nominations for No Country for Old Men.) And that originality is what makes Cody attractive to Hollywood, both as a writer and as a person. Stick to your dreams and more importantly keep writing.

And paste this quote from Ohio screenwriter Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct) above your writing area: “If you write a good, commercial script and start sending it out – someone will recognize that it is good and commercial…If they think your script will make them money, they will option or buy your script.”

May 2008 Addition: The Juno-Iowa Connection Part 2. Ellen Page the talented lead actress in Juno is in Des Moines this month shooting Peacock with Cillian Murphy.

For more about Iowa and Diablo Cody read the post Life Beyond Hollywood. To read more about University of Iowa graduate John Irving read John Irving, Iowa & Writing.

© Copyright 2008 Scott W. Smith

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