The Midwest Creative is back for 2025
Hey, it's me.
It’s 2025. The air is frigid, the vibes are as strange as ever, and your favorite Midwest Creative is back.
Did you miss me? I missed you.
Before my month and a half break, Substack started feeling like a chore, requiring less passion and excitement to put work out into the world. I find writing from that place so insulting to that excitement I feel when I write from a place of urgency and necessity.
So I’m beginning year 3 of the Midwest Creative in a bit of a different direction.
In the introduction to the 2024 edition of “Best American Essays,” Wesley Morrison writes, “So many of us are mothers and fathers remembering what it was like to be daughters and sons. So many of us are daughters and sons recovering from our mothers and fathers.” He’s describing an essay that explores the complexity of parent-child relationships, but I’m struck by the quote’s ability to depict the singularities within much of human experience. I’m particularly interested in the tension between those singularities and the breadth of variations that exist within them. We are all experiencing the exact same things in deeply unique ways.
These tensions are complex and passionate and frustrating and heartening, and they’re what drive our decisions and how we love and hate. I want to explore how they shape us and reshape us, to, as Haley Nahmann says about her Substack Maybe Baby (which was an inspiration for the direction I’d like to move), “understand myself or the world differently than I did before.”
I’ll publish an essay here every Tuesday that chronicles those efforts to understand why the world works the way it does. I’ll likely change this publication’s name at some point. I’ll likely incorporate more offerings at some point. I’m waiting for inspiration to strike for both.
I hope to continue to write about creativity in the Midwest in some capacity, as I still love learning how folks are making the lives they want wherever they want. But that approach to weekly reporting and writing was quickly become unsustainable for me. This is, for now, a labor of love, and I need to be excited by the work.
2025 began with several changes.
After two wonderful, fulfilling years with CultureALL, I decided to accept a job with Business Publications Corporation as a Creative Associate.
I'll be working on design projects with the creative team for the various print and online products. I’ve had lots of small opportunities to practice graphic design since graduating college and have always enjoyed it, so I’m really excited to learn more and expand my skillset.
I’ll also be serving as the editor of the Fearless newsletter, which covers women and gender issues in Iowa. I started freelancing for the Fearless publication last spring and have done the work part-time since October. It’s felt both strange and reassuring to start a job already knowing how to do half of it. It’s a beat I’m passionate about.
Please feel free to send any story ideas, pitches, news releases, etc. about women in Iowa doing great stuff my way! I'm looking to expand coverage to the entire state of Iowa. We will also be looking to expand our network of guest contributors. You can email me at maceyshofroth@bpcdm.com.
The Midwest Creative is a proud member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Please consider a subscription to my brilliant colleagues’ work to support storytelling across the state of Iowa. All of these authors provide content for free, with paid subscription options. Pick one or more, and help sustain this movement.