Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/03/26/a-writer-explains-why-she-quit.html
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Being a writer seems like the kind of job where it would be easy to live wherever you want. Your interaction with co-workers is infrequent and can be done remotely and there’s no need to by physically close to any particular resource. It’s kind of silly for a writer to live in downtown Seattle unless they’re a reporter for the local newspaper or something.
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When I worked as a production editor in New York, most of the freelancers I hired (copyeditors, proofreaders, etc) did not live in New York. Some did, but generally it was people living outside the city, sometimes fairly far (in those days everything was still paper that had to be shipped around, so using folks in the West was generally not an option).
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Also that is still a city they are living in. Not as big as Seattle but with enough culturally to do in town to support a writers house.
I was down the road in Dubuque for 3 months where $400/month got you a studio and it sucked.
There was fuck all to do in town and while they had a nice transit system that I used if I had easier access to a car I would have been in Chicago or some other town with more to do than go to the bar or to the casino every goddamn weekend.
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The love of shoveling snow often calls to me too.
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I think we have different standards for “big cities” if the Midwest doesn’t have any.
Me, I sold my house in Phoenix when I retired. Now I live about an hour south of Albuquerque, Nice climate – not nearly as hot as Phoenix, snows rarely enough that it’s a nice change rather than a grim burden, and if the amenities aren’t overwhelming (we still get first-run movies, but for short runs) there’s a kick-ass university to keep the brain alive. Over-65 non-degree-seeking students get to take classes at $5 per credit hour.
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I personally enjoy her reference to cedar rapids smelling like crunchy berries on a good day as the typical cedar rapids landmark is the big Quaker oats sign by the plant because the smell most of the time is more of a oat malaise.
Still a nice place to live, I just chuckled the obvious wasn’t mentioned in favor of something I’ve never been blessed to inhale on my visits there.
There is also a funny flipside to this though as more people who are from iowa, educated in iowa are finding more creative and professional jobs being taken up by out of state transplants who love how cheap it is and quaint and folksy, and can be a big fish. Employers are thrilled to “land” someone from Golley, shucks new york, Chicago or had Harvard on a resume. The cheap cost of living slowly comes up and leaves a certain taste in the mouths of the natives. Such is life, not a biggie, I got mentally detoured reminiscing : )
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I have to say I do miss the east coast. But then, I am a snooty liberal elite.
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Isn’t that why Hemingway lived in Havana?
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Please, please, please - more of us have to move to Iowa, if for no other reason than to get rid of this asshole.
(Yeah, ok, you’d probably have to move to Sioux City, but still…)
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Yeah, it’s a little telling when the piece presents “Midwest” and “big cities” as mutually exclusive concepts. I mean, Chicago, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, etc. are some pretty easy examples of large cities, right? And last I checked, there are non-large cities on the coasts, in the Southwest, in the South, all over the place, really.
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Oh, now you did it. Again.
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She lives in an apartment. We have apartments in the midwest now!
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(Yeah, ok, you’d probably have to move to Sioux City, but still…)
to paraphrase Johnny Cash - “Sioux City? What a pity.”
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Miracle of miracles.
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Hello from Toledo, Ohio!
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She lives in one with a view of an in-unit laundry, apparently. Do you have those in the midwest, too?
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Not fair to criticize me for someone else’s typo.
No criticism made. I do not know how you thought that. I merely pointed out her error and asked if you had those (the thing she claimed to have) too. It was all aimed at her. I think you are misreading this.
