Jim Heynen

In 1939, just before graduating from high school in the small town of Ridgeway in northeast Iowa, Everett Kuntz spent his entire savings of $12.50 on a 35mm Argus AF camera. He made a camera case from a worn-out boot, scraps from a tin can, and a clasp from his mother’s purse. For the next several years, especially during the summers when he worked on his parents’ dairy farm, he clicked the shutter of his trusty Argus all around the quiet town. Everett bought movie reel film in bulk from a mail-order house, rolled his own film, and developed it in a closet at home, but he never had the money to print his photographs. More than two thousand negatives stayed in a box while he married, raised a family, and worked as an electrical engineer in the Twin Cities. When he became ill with cancer in the fall of 2002—sixty years after he had developed the last of his bulk film—Everett opened his time capsule and printed the images from his youth. He died in 2003, having brought his childhood town back to life just as he was leaving it. A sense of peace radiates from these images. Whether skinny-dipping in the Turkey River, wheelbarrow-racing, threshing oats, milking cows, visiting with relatives after church, or hanging out at the drugstore or the movies, Ridgeway’s hardworking citizens are modest and trusting and luminous in their graceful harmony and their unguarded affection for each other. Visiting the town in 2006 as he was writing the text to accompany these photographs, Jim Heynen crafted vignettes that perfectly complement these rediscovered images by blending fact and fiction to give context and voice to Ridgeway’s citizens.

Reflections of a Small Town in Iowa, 1939-1942

Sunday Afternoon on the Porch

Sally Green

Chris Wallace

Richard Dokey

Michael Daley

Morgan Nikola-Wren

Raul Sanchez

Paul Hunter

Bryce Milligan

Janet Bergstrom

Andrea Carter

Mikel Vause

Abbe Rolnick

Carol Hendrickson

Jon D. Lee

Simon Perchik

Dayna Patterson

Mary Elizabeth Gillilan

Nancy Takacs

J. Kaye Faulkner

Luther Allen

Angela Belcaster

James Bertolino

Anita K. Boyle

J. V. Brummels

Nancy Canyon

Susan Chase-Foster

Larry Crist

David P. Drummond

Denise duMaurier

Susan J. Erickson

Gene Ervine

Seren Fargo

Norman L. Green

Elizabeth Heym

Stephanie Cosky Hopkinson

Christine M. Kendall

John P. Kiristofco

Vince Landi

Mercedes Lawry

Ramon Mesa Ledesma

Laurel Leigh

Andrew Shattuck McBride

Sean H. McDowell

Gary McWilliams

Jim Milstead

Shelley Muzzy

Ranjani Neriya

Janet Oakley

Robert Lavett Smith

Marc Swan

Alan Swyer

Carey Taylor

John Tustin

Elizabeth Vignali

Paul Wicinski

J. Jamieson Woods

Dave Zerby

Clover, A Literary Rag is a semiannual magazine featuring stories, poems, memoir, and an occasional review. Based in Bellingham, Washington, the magazine hosts writers from the region and the world. New writers mix with seasoned writers--and writers from the Independent Writers' Studio are featured. The magazine celebrates words and in this light there are no photographs or visual art in Clover. The cover is the first page of the table of contents for that edition. We frequently have over 50 contributors. We pride ourselves in creating a beautiful setting for the written word.

Clover, a Literary Rag

From a bar hosting its nightly Sad Hour to the moonlit sandbox of a retired army general, Jim Heynen’s new collection of micro fiction presents character sketches of strange yet fascinating men and women. Modeled after Theophrastus' Characters — brief, verbal snapshots of people created by the Greek philosopher — Heynen captures not just the quirks and eccentricities of his characters, but also their humanity. Guilty of only ordinary and forgivable sins, these sketches reveal universal human idiosyncrasies as much as they do the individual characters. Paired with the wonderfully evocative illustrations of renowned illustrator Tom Pohrt, Ordinary Sins will appeal to story lovers and collectors of beautifully made books alike.

Stories

Ordinary Sins

A seventeen-year-old star student and gifted athlete hides the painful truths about her private life, including a failing family farm, her mother's growing apocalyptic fears, the institutionalization of her special-needs sister, and her romance with the son of Hmong immigrants.

The Fall of Alice K.

This book contains colorful profiles and photographs of vibrant men and women who celebrate life as centenarians and beyond.

Moments with One Hundred North American Centenarians

One Hundred Over 100

The Man who Kept Cigars in His Cap

Seventeen-year-old Alice Marie Krayenbraak is beautiful, witty, a star student, and a gifted athlete. On the surface, she has it all. But in Alice’s hometown of Dutch Center, Iowa, nothing is as it seems. Behind the façade of order and tidiness, the family farm is failing. Alice’s mother is behaving strangely amid apocalyptic fears of Y2K. And her parents have announced their plans to send her special-needs sister Aldah away. On top of it all, the uniformly Dutch Calvinist town has been rattled by an influx of foreign farm workers. It’s the fall of senior year, and Alice now finds herself at odds with both family and cultural norms when she befriends and soon falls in love with Nickson Vang, the son of Hmong immigrants. Caught in a period of personal and community transformation, Alice and Nickson must navigate their way through vastly different traditions while fighting to create new ones of their own. Funny and provocative, amusing and unsettling, The Fall of Alice K. marks a watershed moment in the publishing career of author, Jim Heynen.

A Novel

Jim Heynen

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