‘Full Body Burden’ becomes a documentary

“It’s a very powerful film,” says Iversen, a literary nonfiction writer and professor of English at the University of Cincinnati whose book “Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats” is the basis for the documentary. 

Part memoir and part environmental expose, the book details Iversen’s upbringing in a small Colorado town close to Rocky Flats, a secret nuclear weapons plant once designated “the most contaminated site in America.” The film explores environmental and political issues tied to nuclear weapons production and contamination.

“I’ve been involved with the documentary process since its inception” in 2014, says Iversen.

Although the film was a long time in production Iversen was not idle. In addition to leading the literary nonfiction program and teaching at UC, she spent those years researching and writing her next book, “Friend and Faithful Stranger: Nikola Tesla in the Gilded Age.”

The biography, which should be finished within the year, will be the result of more than a decade of global research, including visits to every major site where Tesla lived or worked. “This is a man who saved every toothpick,” she remarks, gesturing over her shoulder to the stacks of cardboard boxes that contain copies of Tesla’s letters, lecture notes and journal entries.

“I have over 12,000 documents digitized. …then there are all the boxes in my office,” she points out.  

Whether she is writing about the effects of ecological disaster on individuals who grew up near the nuclear weapons plant at Rocky Flats or the life and times of Nikola Tesla, “Iversen’s work connects her to so many different audiences and provides a great example to our students of how to influence the world through writing," says Jennifer Glaser, chair of UC’s Department of English.

One of the department's main goals, Glaser says, is “to encourage our faculty to do public-facing work that is legible to people inside and outside the academy — and Kristen's work is a great example of that.” 

And to assist in getting to the finish line, Iversen recently received a competitive National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant for $60,000.

“I’m thrilled and frankly I didn’t expect it,” she says of the NEH grant, adding that she applied and “thought, well, you know, we’ll see.” The grant is icing on the cake, that will allow her to take the time to focus solely on the Tesla book.

In addition to teaching at UC since 2014 and overseeing the literary nonfiction program, Iversen serves as nonfiction editor of the literary magazine Cincinnati Review and is working on another research-driven book titled, “Winks Lodge: Colorado’s Hidden African American Jazz Club and Literary Salon,” supported by a Taft Fellowship. This project explores Black cultural history and the presence of the Ku Klux Klan in the American West.

Trained in fiction and poetry, Iversen blends literary craft with rigorous journalism, giving voice to stories that bridge personal, historical and cultural significance.

Featured image at top of film clap board: iStock Photo/nicoletaionescu