On July 12, as part of the Iowa Summer Writing Festival’s The Eleventh Hour series, I’ll be giving a talk called ‘Against Ideas’. I’ll be in Iowa City from July 9-15, teaching a weekend and week-long course, both on writing novels. The latter is fully subscribed, but I think there are are still places on the weekend course (July 9-10).
On August 16, back in Auckland, I’ll be giving a talk on Laura Ingalls Wilder, Rose Wilder Lane and Helen Dore Boylston at the University. I did a lot of Wilder research back in the 90s, visiting all the home sites – in Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota and upstate New York – and spending time researching at the Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, where the Wilder papers are held. (Little-known fact: I was a Hoover Scholar.)