Our Summer Directives Are Live!

We are excited to share that the Everyday Life in Middletown Summer 2025 Directives are now live. This year’s prompt asked diarists to reflect on identity and belonging in Muncie, as well as their experiences as EDLM contributors.

You can read the full directive prompt here: Prompt Link

Here are some glimpses from the directive entries:

 

“Identities are fictions—constructions that emerge in the interaction between the self and the world and which are potentially unstable, negotiable, revisable…” (Diarist A01)

“I’m a husband, father, homeowner, and college professor… those roles explain more about how I live my daily life than categories like race or class.” (Diarist A02)

“For most of my life, my identity as a mother was most important to me… my grandchildren range in age from 30 to 2 years of age, giving me a long time to be a grandparent.” (Diarist A15)

“Life is easy here in Muncie as a white person—it’s the baseline from which everything else is judged… But as someone in the LGBT community, I do not feel cared for or safe here in Indiana.” (Diarist A23)

“My identities? I see them as roles—scientific/artistic intellectual, skeptic, martial artist, foodie, gardener… mapped within a sociosemantic network.” (Diarist B35)

“Munsonians have a place in their hearts for the quirky and the misfits, if they have gotten to know them and regard them as non-threatening.” (Diarist C45)

“For me, I am only child. I am a partner. I am a friend. I am an academic. I’m a writer. Perhaps that one most of all. But being queer and married to a transwoman made Muncie a difficult place to call home.” (Diarist C46)

“I embody the dominant two categories everyone loves to hate—Boomers and Christians. What can I say. I am what I am… Jesus is the cornerstone.” (Diarist F56)

 

We are still collecting directive entries for Summer 2025—so if you haven’t written yet, there’s still time to contribute. You can read the full prompt here: Summer Directive 2025 Prompt 

Submit your directive entry to this email address: edlmiddletown@gmail.com