Local Presses

Final Thursday Press

Cedar Falls

FINALTHURSDAYPRESS.COM

Cedar Falls Authors Festival: Jim o’Loughlin, Hearst Center for the Arts, Tuesday, Nov. 9 at 7 p.m., Free

Final Thursday reading Series: Gary Kelley, Hearst Center for the Arts, Thursday, Nov. 18 at 6 p.m., Free

Final Thursday Press out of Cedar Falls specializes in special books.

Jim O’Loughlin, press founder and publisher, curates the collection from regional writers whose work stands out and whose projects excite him.

“I’m always trying to work one level beyond what I’m comfortable with,” O’Loughlin said, each project challenging him in a way that allows him and Final Thursday to grow and improve with each publication.

Final Thursday Press evolved from a reading series that O’Loughlin, who is head of the Languages and Literary Studies department at University of Northern Iowa, has held since 2000 on the final Thursday of each month. The series features both an open mic and a featured reader portion. Although not officially associated with UNI, the press was started as an extension of the series, as an opportunity, O’Loughlin said, to highlight regional talent and support “the maintenance of a literary community.”

The increasing ease of access to publishing has allowed Final Thursday to function without needing to be genre-specific or have any hard boundaries surrounding publication. The press is a nonprofit entity funded primarily by grants and staffed sometimes by graduate assistants from UNI, sometimes by O’Loughlin alone. Because of its micro nature, O’Loughlin said, Final Thursday allows writers the opportunity to have more say in the process of publishing than they ordinarily would.

Because O’Loughlin puts such attention into each publication, the press only prints about one book per year, but the books tend toward the unique—another one of the benefits, he says, of running a micropress. His current recommendations include Final Thursday’s most recent publication, Passion for Beauty: Marjorie Nuhn, Watercolorist, and 2020’s Winsome/Bend of the Sun. The first is a visual biography of painter Marjorie Nuhn, who studied at Grant Wood’s Stone Art Colony. It’s compiled by Nuhn’s brother Ferner and includes essays and letters from other people in Nuhn’s life. The 2020 release is a double-cover pair of mysteries by Grant Tracey, fiction editor at the North American Review.

The books have small runs and must be purchased in-person from Hearst Center for the Arts, Ragged Edge Art Bar and Gallery or the UNI campus bookstore; online through Amazon; or by ordering through email (linked under each title on the Final Thursday Press website) and sending a check.

Although the pandemic “has made things harder,” O’Loughlin said, “it has made these events and publications matter more.”

“[I feel] fortunate to be at a place where it’s understood that we grow in all directions,” O’Loughlin said. “In any area there are always people doing interesting, important work and there are ways that we can support that and make sure we celebrate them.”

The Writers’ Rooms

Iowa City/Cedar Rapids

THEWRITERSROOMS.ORG

Imagine other Worlds with Authors, The Writers’ rooms, online (facebook.com/iaotherworlds), Saturday-Sunday, Nov. 6-7, Free

When Erin Casey and Alex Penland started the Writers’ Rooms, the idea was to create supportive environments for writers who worked in one of several specific genres. As the organization’s website puts it:

“The Writers’ Rooms endeavors to help all writers with their craft. We strive to encourage and foster community-sourced knowledge to help lead literary sessions and provide a safe, positive writing environment. We are writers helping writers.”

In 2018, as a way to thank the individuals who lead each of the Rooms, Penland and Casey collected, edited and published work by the Rooms’ “concierges.” That book, A New Adventure, was the Writers’ Rooms’ first foray into publishing.

With that experience under their belts, Casey and Penland saw they might be on to something that could serve a wider group of writers while also serving as a fundraiser for the nonprofit.

“We realized that it would be great for our writers and for our community to publish an anthology once a year,” Casey explained via Zoom.

They made an early decision that has guided the organization’s publishing efforts since: using the four natural elements—water, fire, air, earth—as themes for the next four books.

The first call for submissions was fairly straightforward: “All we asked was that people submit work with a water theme,” Casey said.

No writing style was off limits. Fiction, nonfiction, poetry—all of these and more were welcome by design.

“You can interpret the theme a lot of different ways,” Casey said, “and then the anthologies have something for everyone.”

For the forthcoming anthology, Writers of the Flame (set to be published in March 2022), the founders have relied on the help of a volunteer committee to help them get the book ready for publication and then out into the world.

“We’re encouraged that people do join the committee with the promise that they will learn how to publish an anthology.”

The learn-by-doing experience includes content selection and editing; book formatting and publishing for both the electronic and physical editions (the Writers’ Rooms uses a self-publishing service to create the books); and marketing and publicity—including setting up readings and the like for the participating authors.

Any writer in the community is welcome to submit work for consideration for the Writers’ Rooms’ anthologies. Casey anticipates the submission period for the next anthology, which wraps up the elements theme by focusing on earth, will open in April or May of 2022.

“It won’t be long after Writers of the Flame comes out,” she said. “It is basically a yearlong process to do this.”

While there are plenty of challenges from the moment submissions open to the moment the books are in the hands of readers, Casey believes all the effort is well worth it.

“We’re really proud of them,” Casey said. “It’s a lot of work, but we like to be able to showcase our authors and show people what they can learn about their work through the Writers’ Rooms.”