1. This chick has a forthcoming book called The Princesses of Iowa. (I found a brief synopsis of it here.) I love this title. I want to change the titles of all my blog posts to end in “of Iowa.” Is there such a thing as Midwestern literature? No there is not. Why not? Because it would be unseemly. But, if there were, I’m totally already championing any books with titles that end in “of Iowa” as being quintessential examples of the form.
2. Four words: Rob. Zombie. Woolite. Commercial.
Tiny Cat Pants 
Oh, hell yeah there is a Midwestern literature! What’s Cather or Kinsella if not
Midwestern? There’s even a Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature!
…of Iowa.
I think it’s been almost a decade since they had an MLA devoted to Midwestern Literature, as well. I’m still not buying it. Ha ha ha ha ha.
…of Iowa.
Ooo, ooo, ooo, I wonder if we can tell the true Midwestern literary giants by their pronunciation of the state as “Ioway?”
The three circumstances in which real Iowans pronounce it Ioway:
1) they are poking fun at pretentious East Coast literary types and folks who are not Midwesterners but pose as them (this would include people from Kansas and Ohio);
2) they are in a production of Music Man; or
3) they need of a rhyme for “be ok.”
And great writers have come out of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. http://www.uiowa.edu/~iww/