Iowa City playwright Mary Swander’s most recent play began with a chance find at a local store. “Years ago, I took a walk down the road one day from my place, an old Amish one-room schoolhouse, to the country store,” Swander recounts on her Substack. “There, they have a rack of literature … My eyes […]
World War II
Posted inCommunity/News
Pulitzer-winning novelist Edna Ferber’s painful time in Ottumwa shaped her as an artist and ‘a human being’
“Life can’t ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer’s lover until death — fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous, constant; the more varied the moods, the richer the experience. I’ve learned to value every stab of pain and disappointment.” —Edna Ferber Edna Ferber (1885-1968) was […]
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Donna Reed and her Iowa science teacher sought to spotlight the horror of the atomic bomb. Then the White House got involved.
The studio promised it would be a prestigious motion picture, with big stars and stunning visual effects. The movie would tell the true story of the creation of the atomic bomb, and give people a fuller understanding of what it means to live in a world with such weapons. It was 1947, 76 years before […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
A new documentary highlights Holocaust writers and the ‘sacred memory’ they recorded
This Jan. 27, FilmScene will take part in a global screening event (one of two in Iowa) to remember the victims of the Holocaust. Connecting our community with the International Day of Commemoration, FilmScene will show the documentary ‘Who Will Write Our History’ and Agudas Achim’s Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz will moderate a panel discussion
