May 12, 1982 – W.P. Kinsella releases “Shoeless Joe” – expanded from Kinsella’s short story “Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa.” The book served as the basis for the 1989 film Field of Dreams.
During his second year of graduate school at the University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop, W.P. Kinsella began working on a new story inspired by Iowa City, the 1919 Black Sox, and his complicated relationship with his father. It was the story that would change his life—and Iowa—forever. At first, it was simply a lyrical 20-page short story, where Joe Jackson, the infamous White Sox player who was accused of game-fixing in the 1919 World Series, materializes like a phantom ballplayer from the corn.
READ MORE ABOUT THIS IOWA STORY HERE.
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