People, writers, often refer to Iowa City as the city for writing. This expectation was thrust onto me too during the weeks leading up to my stay in Iowa City. I went to the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio (IWYS) for 2 weeks. It’s at the University of Iowa and all of the faculty are graduates or students at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. I didn’t even know what that was until I applied. And for anyone who doesn’t know: the Writers’ Workshop is an MFA (Master of Fine Arts) program that specializes in all forms of writing (Fiction, Poetry, Screenwriting, and even Nonfiction). It’s the best in the country, with a less than 5% acceptance rate. The best of the best go there. When someone says an author went to Iowa, that means something.
Iowa City was a shock to me, especially when I put it up next to a suburban city like San Jose. It’s a college town, which I could not fathom before I saw it. Everything, and I mean everything, is Hawkeye themed (The University of Iowa’s mascot). Most people who live there go to school there. I’m sure all of the hotels’ busiest seasons are at the beginning of the fall semester, when parents come bustling with their children, saying their final goodbyes. The heart of Iowa City, the downtown area, is only a couple streets. We walked there so much I had practically memorized it by the end of the two weeks. The entire city was swept in a gentle feeling, a feeling I have never longed for. I’ve always loved big cities and an almost claustrophobic experience. I need to be surrounded by people, whether it’s because I need to feel a part of something bigger or because I can’t live with my own mind for so long I’m not sure. I’m not a character to analyze.
Before going – it was my first time leaving my parents for so long – I scoured the internet in anticipation of Iowa and the studio itself. All I could find, through the website and the letters my teacher sent me before the studio started, was that Iowa was supposed to be some ‘regenerative city’. It was supposed to invent and imagine and find in you some long lost artistic sense. I thought that was all bullshit. Iowa is Iowa. Writing is writing. And yes, I was mostly right. But yes, I was also wrong.
Everyone there was a writer. In all senses of the word. That was the first thing I noticed, and the first thing that really mattered to me. Coming from the heart of the Silicon Valley, surrounded by people who obsess over productivity and work and STEM and wealth and all the things I couldn’t care less about, I was in awe of the people who could put their foot down and proclaim that yes, they’re a writer. To explain the Silicon Valley, I have to tell you about this odd phenomenon I’ve noticed. Someone, anyone honestly, will ask me: What do you want to study? Or do, which is the worser of the two because it’s just so incredibly vague. I’ll say I want to study English in college. Then, the look on their face comes. It’s a look of distinct worry and disgust and a want for me to say it was just a joke. And I am quick to combat this look. I’ll then say, the words rushing out in reassurement, that I’ll go to law school though. It’s always the ‘though’. I have to say it, to tell them that no I’m not throwing away my life, yes I will make money, you don’t have to worry I’m not so stupid that I’ll pursue something as silly as writing when I can make so much doing something practical. Practicality is the only word I can use to describe the Silicon Valley. If it’s not practical, you musn’t do it. But I found myself repeating the exact same interaction in Iowa, in a completely different way.
They’d ask me what I wanted to do in the future. I’d say English. They’d smile, relating because yes, that’s what they’ll probably do too. And I’d add oh but I’m going to law school because mentioning my practical route has been engrained in me now. And their faces would drop and I’d feel like a traitor. That, in all these people who are proud to do ‘what they love’ (which is a ridiculous phrase, I hate it), I cannot follow through. There, being practical was an act of treason.
One of my friends there goes to an art school. An art school! I think we’d have an all-STEM school here before we’d ever get an art school. Everyone at her school can boldly say that they will pursue something in the arts without ever feeling like they’re making a mistake.
I hate to say it, but for the time I was there, Iowa City definitely felt like a city for writers. Some writers festival was happening though, so maybe that influenced me. The first time I felt it was on the first day, a Monday, when we all went out to go to a reading at a bookstore. The reading was about flash fiction, which I do not like simply because I write longform fiction and I need a lot from what I read; I’m not satisfied with just 100 words. But it wasn’t the reading that got to me. The second floor was packed with people, so much so that people were sprawled out on the floor behind us. I was watching the people around me more than I was the reader (a friend there said I observe a lot which is true and I suppose a testament to my writing which is purely observational). There were people of all ages, people who had reached success, people who were still striving for it. But everyone there was bound by the common title of ‘writer’.
The second time was when I was in a cafe, doing an exercise which required me to listen. I chose the cafe for the only reason that there was a pair of two older women having, what looked like, a deep conversation and I wanted to know more. I pulled up a chair at the table beside them and listened. They were a pair of writers, talking about writing: scenes and perspectives and language and the art itself. They weren’t stumbling over their words. They didn’t regard themselves as foolish for prioritizing art over efficiency. I labored over their conversation and held on to each of their words about writing for as long as I could.
My friends and I encountered this guy who was our age and a student at the STEM camp that the university was also holding. The conversation went something like this. He came up to us very enthusiastically, mentioning something about how we were writers and how he’s seen us around! We said yeah, we are part of the writers’ studio and asked him what he did. He said that he was studying proteins and alzheimers and something that meant a lot more than what we did. He asked us if all we did was write. We got pretty defensive, took his words as condescending though he was just ignorant.
I don’t think it was because there wasn’t truth to his words. There was. But it’s because so many people don’t have it in them to prioritize art. Art is a hobby, something to admire from afar. It is not something to labor over, something to love. And he was doing such real things: living here for 6 weeks, studying in a lab, hopefully helping further the study of alzheimers. And what were we doing? Reading. Writing. All of the above. It felt silly in comparison. But I loved it. I loved sitting in our classroom and having seminars where people actually wanted to be there (unlike school, where only five people speak about some meaningless nonsense). I loved being given the opportunity to spend all my hours thinking about what to write, what to read, and writing and reading. I realize sure, it isn’t important to others. But yes, it’s important to me.
We befriended a lot of the STEM kids during our search for this mystery man. We found him eventually, realized he was just stating the obvious to which we had no reason to be so angry over. He was kind, thoughtful. I taught him a game we invented and we played together. As we hung out with the STEM kids, there was the constant recurring question from them: So, you just write? It was one that simmered, a question without a right answer. I did not know how to admit it without sounding foolish. But none of them thought it was foolish, in fact so many of them wished they could just sit and do what they loved too, be it art or not. So when someone asked me the same question, I said yes. I write.