HeyJaredRural Magic by Sara Ramsey
An Iowan and a coastal elitist walk into a bar...and, spoiler, they're both me. I write about community, connection, and magical moments in rural Iowa, which I'm rediscovering after two decades in San Francisco.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 3
- Latest publication
- Aug 26, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 8, 2026
Latest issues
Participation ribbon (opens the original)
Read excerpt
I took Friday off to go to the Iowa State Fair. I told my coworkers that this is the custom of my people, but I still had to count it as a vacation day instead of a religious observance.The Iowa State Fair started in 1854, and it has been in its current location in Des Moines since 1886. By Iowa law, public schools cannot start their school year before the end of the state fair. Over 1,200,000 people attended the fair this year — 37% of the state’s total population. I’m not overstating when I sa
Unbearably human (opens the original)
Read excerpt
This week, Substack launched a partnership with Pangram to analyze which newsletters might be written by AI. With the social media discourse currently split between AI-maxxing tech bros and anti-AI vigilantes (and, as usual, a wide range of opinions in between), I told my brother that I’m concerned about false positives and witch hunts.He isn’t worried for me. “Your Substack is unbearably human,” he said.Unbearably human. As a tagline, it’s a banger.I feel unbearably human this week. I’m swelter
Stumbling forward (opens the original)
Read excerpt
As a reminder, I sometimes intersperse shorter observational posts with my longer essays about rural Iowa. The structure is based on a writing exercise from memoirist Dani Shapiro, who makes daily notes of what she did/saw/heard in order to more deeply observe the small moments.Here’s what I did, saw, and heard in southern Iowa during America’s 250th birthday.DIDI bought items from two-thirds of the vendors at the first annual Fourth of July market. There were six vendors, so this is not as impr
Publishing over time
Last 90 days. Choose a month to open its work.
Recurring subjects
Named in the text we hold. One piece can cover several.
Audience
No verified audience measurement yet.
About this data
Counts cover the work we have indexed. Tone needs enough text and a confident classification. Excerpts and episode notes are not full articles or transcripts.
Identity or attribution wrong? Suggest a correction.