Thomas K. Dean (Iowa City)

Tom is the special assistant to UI President Sally Mason as well as the founder and director of the Iowa Project on Place Studies.
He is a UI graduate, earning his PhD in American literature in 1991. He has served on the faculties at Cardinal Stritch College, Michigan State University, and Moorhead State University before returning to Iowa City in 1999.

Tom is the author of the forthcoming book of essays titled, Under a Midland Sky from Ice Cube Press. He also is the editor of The Grace of Grass and Water: Writing in Honor of Paul Gruchow and Live Well, Live Wild, a collection of essays by Stephanie Mills and Bill McKibben.

Dean also has been published in such scholarly publications as American Literature Realism, Literature/Film Quarterly, and American Nature Studies. Some of Dean's other published articles include "The Breath of Midsummer" from the Wapsipinicon Almanac and "Confessions of a Tornado Virgin" from Prairie Weather. He also wrote a chapter in the book Letters to a Young Iowan titled "Permission to Love Home."