Atina Diffley of Organic Farm Works will read from the memoir Turn Here Sweet Corn: Organic Farming Works at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 21, in Prairie Lights Books in downtown Iowa City and a live stream on the University of Iowa’s Virtual Writing University website.

A critique in Kirkus Reviews called the book "an education on organic farming and its importance, as well as a heartfelt love letter to the land.”

Diffley is the editor and designer of Roger Blobaum’s Organic History Website, and a contributing author of and lead trainer for Wholesale Success: A Farmers Guide to Selling, Postharvest Handling and Packing Produce.

From 1985 to 2008, she and her husband Martin ran the Gardens of Eagan, an urban-edge, organic vegetable farm, which he started in 1973 as one of the first certified organic produce farms in the Midwest.

Land use issues have been a central point of entry for Atina’s organic advocacy. In 1989, the fifth-generation Diffley family land was lost to suburban development. The Diffleys collaborated with filmmaker Helen DeMichiel to create the award-winning documentary, Turn Here Sweet Corn: The Video. Filmed on the Diffley land in Eagan and in the surrounding community, the video focuses on the loss of greenbelt farmlands to suburbia.

The Diffleys started over on new land, but faced eminent domain again in 2006 when threatened by a crude oil pipeline owned by Koch Industries. The Diffleys intervened as legal parties in the route proceeding and succeeded in creating an Organic Mitigation Plan that provides protections for the soil and certification of threatened organic farms in Minnesota.

In 2008 the Diffleys sold the Gardens of Eagan name to the Wedge Community Co-op. The Wedge-operated Gardens of Eagan continues to provide organic produce to the local community. The Diffley’s on-farm projects now include breeding of sweet corn cultivars, mentoring beginning farmers, and transitioning conventional land to organic.

For accommodations at the live event, contact jan@prairielights.com. For UI arts calendar and event information, visit the new Arts Iowa website.