Nancy Price

Long before her words reached around the globe, they echoed through the quiet streets of Cedar Falls, where Nancy Price, acclaimed author and proud Panther, wove Iowa’s landscapes and spirit into every story she told. 

Though she had many achievements in her life, one of the most memorable was her third novel, “Sleeping with the Enemy,” published in 1987. She novel became a feature film starring Julia Roberts, released in 1991. Much of the story is set in a city similar to Cedar Falls with a university resembling UNI. 

She loved Iowa, often setting her novels in Cedar Falls. In one of her books, “No One Knows,” a young city girl sees Iowa for the first time. “I had never dreamed of anything like Iowa…Iowa buildings, houses and barns were almost lost under a sky I had hardly known was there. It made me feel small. It made me feel free. Iowa’s green gave way to flowers, or the purple-black of shaded streets, or the lavenders of far-off farmland. Trains ran through town, trailing their long, lamenting voices behind them like blue scarves.” 

Nancy Price’s connections to UNI span three names of the institution. Her family moved to Cedar Falls when her father, Malcolm Price, became the fourth president of the Iowa State Teachers College. She attended the college’s “Campus School,” then in Sabin Hall, during her junior and senior years of high school. In 1945, she was married at the UNI President’s house, which is believed to be the only wedding that has occurred in the President’s house.

In 1956, when UNI was the State College of Iowa, Price enrolled in a writing class taught by poet James Hearst, who encouraged her to send her poems to national publications. Throughout the 1960s, her poems and short stories appeared in national publications including The Atlantic, Harper’s Bazaar, The Nation, Ladies Home Journal, New York Times, America, The Hornbook, Virginia Quarterly Review and the Quarterly Review of Literature. 

While she taught on and off since 1964, Price joined the University of Northern Iowa’s department of English Language and Literature in 1980 as a tenured full professor and taught creative writing.  A 1991 faculty profile in “Northern Iowa Today” outlined her approach with students, often involving pages of written feedback on a single poem or short story. 

“I really make an extra effort to encourage students rather than discourage them,” she said. “I bring examples to show the students and give them criticism on a private, personal level in a conference or on written pages.”

Price was presented an honorary doctorate degree of literature in 2018. Her novel “Three in the Door” published later that year is set around Seerley Park with a key scene under the UNI Campanile.

Writing into her late nineties, Price finished her final novel, set in Cedar Falls, shortly before her passing in 2023. In her career, she had more than a dozen novels published, with some translated into 18 languages. More than 100 poems and stories were published in hardback books, national magazines and journals.