At the library: My lifetime love of writing

As a former secondary school teacher and a now as a public librarian at the Washington Public Library, I have spent my entire career promoting writing. For me personally, my life of writing started when I could first form letters and put them together to make words.

I can vividly remember the 'book” I created about horses when I was probably in 2nd grade. Each page had an illustration of a horse and a line that told the name of that horse and a short description. 'This is Star. She is nice.”

After that, I recall the stories I would write longhand, on notebook paper in Mrs. Reeker's 7th grade English class. She asked that we fold the assignments in half lengthwise and pass them forward in our row. I was a prolific writer and so proud of my thick packets to present to my teacher.

Then came high school and I found poetry which seem like the holy grail to me. Suddenly, I could put all my murky feelings down on paper to make sense of my world. In college, I decided to study English literature, Spanish, and secondary education. Those were halcyon days, when I was reading and writing at my maximum and to my utter satisfaction.

I spent many nights at the typewriter, honing my skills as I wrote paper after paper for my classes. During those years, I was fortunate to have several outstanding, inspiring English professors at Morningside College. Their critique was straightforward and not always easy to take, but it made me want to work harder to improve.

I edited the college literary magazine and was pleased the year I got 3rd place in the annual writing contest! I went on to teach writing to middle school and high school students at West Bend-Mallard in Iowa and Bancroft-Rosalie in Nebraska. Luckily, my students were excited about all the writing exercises I designed and we put together our own compilations lovingly named Scribbles.

I still go back and reread some the work that those now middle-aged adults wrote during those years and I marvel at their stark innovation with words. They did not even realize the brilliance in some of their pieces. One could easily be jealous.

When I shifted my career to public librarian, I continued my advocation of words with a teen group here at the WPL called the Scribblers Club. It was immensely rewarding to work with youth who want to be writers. During my span of time I have had several different versions of a writing club/workshop and our current Washington Writers' Workshop is going strong with regular attendance of adults and teens.

We have the advantage of living so close to the University of Iowa which often provides us visiting writers/presenters through their Arts Share program. This month, however, we are lucky to host one of my past inspirations who has agreed to grace our next Washington Writers' Workshop Zoom. Dr. Marty Knepper, Emeritus English professor at Morningside College, Sioux City, Iowa will be our speaker on craft during the first hour. She taught for over 45 years and I had the privilege of being her student.

'My grandparents, parents, siblings, and I all are voracious readers and writers, although in widely different genres,” Dr. Knepper said. 'It's no surprise that I ended up getting undergraduate and graduate degrees in literature and learned to research and write about literature. At the same time, I began teaching writing classes and literature classes. Toward the end of graduate school, I became interested in women's writing and popular culture. This led me throughout my life to write conference papers and conventionally published and researched academic articles on women writers of detective fiction (especially Agatha Christie) and to co-author a book on Iowa Films, the last an adventure in self-publishing.

'Throughout 45 years of teaching, what I loved most was working with student writers one-on-one in Writing Centers or in student-teacher conferences. In the late 1980s, I became a writing workshop facilitator for the Iowa Writing Project for several decades, responding to K-12 teachers' writing of all types and leading group responses to their writing. I became fascinated with the different writing processes writers use and the ways in which responses can turn writers on or off.

'As an English department chair for 31 years, I also learned to write administrative prose, not my favorite genre but an important one. Since retiring in 2017, I have continued journaling and writing articles for publication and become an active writing consultant and editor for other writers. While I have never been a creative writer, I have often worked with creative writers through Iowa Writing Project and as a teacher.

'In the last three years, I have worked with a YA fiction writer, a memoirist, several poets, and a science fiction writer as well as editing a college history, a national magazine, applications for scholarships, Christmas letters, and accreditation documents. I believe everyone needs readers willing to read carefully, ask questions, and be supportive. I am grateful to all my readers and collaborators.”

In addition, Dr. Knepper has a connection with our town!

'My mother, Mildred Steele, used to give talks at public libraries across the state for Humanities Iowa. I am nearly certain that she was at the Washington Library more than once. My parents lived in Wellman when I was in college, I worked summers in Iowa City two of those years, and I taught one year in Keokuk and five years at Augustana in Rock Island. My parents lived all their later life in Pella. I do know southeastern Iowa!”

If you would like to join our little band of writers for the presentation this month on Friday, Jan. 29 at 10 a.m., email leann.kunz@washington.lib.ia.us for link to join the WWW Zoom.