(Radio Iowa) – A central Iowa English professor’s debut collection of short stories is being released today (Tuesday) and it’s an atypical collection since it reads more like a novel.
Marc Dickinson, who teaches creative writing at Des Moines Area Community College, says each of the 12 stories is linked with multiple recurring characters. “Replacement Parts” centers on a series of people struggling with personal demons and societal expectations in small-town Iowa. If you read it from beginning to end, Dickinson says it has “a novelistic feel” as the stories are “talking to each other.” His collection is set in a fictional Iowa town of Dexton, which is loosely based on an amalgamation of many small, struggling towns.
Dickinson’s first appearance with the book is scheduled for tomorrow (Wednesday), and he says the association with the Nine Eleven attacks isn’t entirely coincidental, as one of his characters is a veteran who served in Afghanistan.
