It’s true: there are a lot of writers in Iowa City. Hell, I’m one of them, caught in the endless black hole of trying to hack-it-out, finish a book, and make even a speck of a name for myself. Why do we come here – to Iowa City — out of all of the places we could go? Why not New York, why not San Francisco, why not Chicago? Because Iowa City has tradition and more importantly than that it also possesses some intangible magic that allows art to just happen. There’s something in the air that encourages artists to develop, to hone their craft and shape their voice. Also, there’s a telling moment in the film Basquiat when Jeffrey Wright (Basquiat) and Benecio Del Torro are playing hoops and talking about art. Wright asks Del Torro, “How long does it take to make it?” and Del Torro responds, “Five years.” And it’s kind of true: you work on something for five years and you get better no matter where you started. If you chip away on that painting for five years, no matter what, you’ve got a voice, an aesthetic heart, a pulsating state of mind living and breathing through that canvas. Most writers spend a few years in Iowa City developing that etherical style that they will carry with them as they take on the world in years to come. The Writers’ Workshop holds them for two years and the Nonfiction and Playwrighting programs have them for three. Even after that, writers scramble around for fellowships and adjuncts so that they can hold onto that loose bit of freedom known as The Writer’s Life. Again, I am guilty as charged, toiling around the avenues and nooks of Iowa City long after my official business is up. But the business is never done is it? We finish one essay, one story, one poem, one book but it’s never really over and even then a new one is already beginning to write itself. Sometimes the acknowledgement of this continuum incites ecstasy and at other times it’s enough to crush the burning soul of a grown man. It’s in these lesser moments that a spark of inspiration is required, some moment of hope, of perceived genius and cloistered spiritual clarity. It’s in these moments that we need Anthology, that feverish collective of exquisitley crafted and opium-pure expression that compells us writers, that shakes us artists, and tells us: You Are Doing the Right Thing. You Are Doing the Right Thing.

ANTHOLOGY, the best reading series in town returns to Public Space One (on East Washington Street, in the Jefferson Building beneath Subway) after a summer recession. The first reading is being held tonight at 8PM. Thank you Cutter. Thank you Amanda. We need you.