Excerpt 1 from STATE FAIR by Phil Stong

The whole farm was crackling with preparation. The Hired Man had not marcelled Blue Boy, but only because the curl of the hair was not a judging point. He had manicured him; he had viewed more critically than a Corot the misty sunrise tint of his snout; no Park Avenue specialist knew one half about any dowager's bowels what the Hired Man knew about Blue Boy's--in addition, the Hired Man was pleased with what he knew; Blue Boy's coat was curried and rubbed to enameled perfection; Blue Boy's tail was curled so tightly that its tension would have alarmed uninformed persons; Blue Boy, as he lay and rocked upon his four legs, was the finest creature of his species that had ever existed in time and space.

State Fair, by Phil Stong

Come see the University of Iowa Press at the State Fair this year on opening day, next week, from 3:00pm - 9:00pm!

Iowa's Horn of Plenty Exhibit

Iowa as a cornucopia spewing corn--also used as the state's exhibit at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco in 1915. 

Was This Heaven, by Lyell D. Henry, Jr. 

Raptor of the Week: Mississippi Kite

Mississippi Kite
Ictinia mississippiensis

This graceful bird now regularly occurs in Iowa, being reported each year. It
returned in 1978 after an absence of some seventy years. There are historic
records of nesting in Iowa; in modern times, it has nested in Polk County in
1995 and succeeding years, and there is recent evidence of probable nesting in
Ottumwa.

The Raptors of Iowa, paintings by James F. Landenberger