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How do we teach empathy? Numerous studies have been done that attribute increases in empathy to reading fiction — any fiction. But (and this may just be my own personal biases speaking here) I’d argue that science fiction has the edge. In it, we’re faced with characters that are so, well, alien from ourselves that […]
John “Gene” E. Dawson’s memoir Farm Boy City Girl: From Gene to Miss Gina, A Memoir (MiRiona Publishing) blends personal narrative with the history of his family and the times in which he lived (1931-2020), chronicling his life as a genderfluid gay man coming of age in the changing cultural landscape of Iowa, St. Louis, […]
The backstory begins like this: Imagine Other Worlds with Authors (I.O.W.A.), a yearly multi-genre book signing event that began in the mid-2010s to uplift and highlight regional writers, was once plagued by the presence of a soda machine stuck in a musical loop. Throughout their entire event, the thing repeated and repeated and repeated. So, […]
I love to tell people that I want to learn everything. When I was asked to read a book about the history of crossword puzzles I thought, “well, that’s not a topic I would have picked,” and agreed. When the first page told me that the crossword puzzle was invented in 1913 I could not […]
A 2018 study by sex toy company EdenFantasys revealed that 40 percent of respondents considered themselves kinky, with over one-third claiming a specific fetish. Still, there’s an overwhelming dearth of affirming literature out there: There’s a lot of exoticizing, quite a bit of shaming, but very little normalization. Enter Kink, a new anthology out Feb. […]
The mythology of “the Heartland” (also called “Middle America” or the “flyover states”) is usually rooted in archaic abstractions such as “traditional family values” and conservative ideals. These parts of the American landscape are described as if they are closed off by narrow boundaries, with rigid attitudes imposed upon the diverse populations inhabiting them. As […]
In the 1950s, the University of Iowa was the setting for groundbreaking work being done on the condition of clubfoot, a congenital deformity which causes an infant’s foot or feet to turn inward. When left untreated, the condition — which affects one in every thousand births, the vast majority of which are in developing countries […]
The em-dash is by far my favorite punctuation. It’s useful as a break, a pivot point: It comes in handy often at Little Village, as we believe ellipses should only indicate removed material. The casual “pause ellipses” that pepper social media are a no-go in our stories and interviews, so that elapsed time, that silent […]
Hillsboro Publishing Parker Graham is uncertain in the ways that only a recent high school graduate can be. In Love and Corn and Whatnot, John M Donovan revisits the world of his earlier novel Trombone Answers, but the arc of the main character’s coming of age stands alone and cohesive for new readers. As Parker […]
Published by Black Ocean When Center for Afrofuturist Studies founding curator Anaïs Duplan first launched that initiative in Iowa City in 2016, he told Little Village, “It’s about making it safe to feel uncomfortable and then trying to make it better.” That philosophy echoes throughout the twists and turns of his latest work, Blackspace: On […]
The origins of Abandoned Iowa can be traced back to the fall of 2010, when author Mitch Nicholson was still an English undergraduate student at a small private college in Marion County. Academic pressures combined with a hot, stuffy dorm room and the claustrophobic setting of a small campus nearly proved to be unbearable and […]
One never knows when the inspiration for an unforgettable road trip might happen. But you will most likely experience many of those unignorable “let’s go right now” moments that will get you to hit the road while you read Iowa Supper Clubs, released in August from The History Press. Megan Bannister adds the historical flavor […]
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Little Village is an independent media company based in Iowa City. In print since 2001, our mission is to create visibility for the communities, businesses and events that define our region. Support Little Village →