“This is the first time I’ve gotten to the Writers’ Workshop,” said Bill Bryson, to the audience gathered in the sun-filled Frank Conroy Reading Room of the Dey House. The Iowa-born writer and current resident of England is one of the most widely published authors of nonfiction. This week, the University of Iowa awarded Bryson […]
Iowa Writers Workshop
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Interview: Elizabeth Willis reflects on the ‘unacknowledged legislators’
Poet and Iowa Writers’ Workshop instructor Elizabeth Willis is the author of the collections Turneresque (2003), Meteoric Flowers (2006) and Address (2011). She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and teaches at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Willis talked with Little Village regarding her newest collection, Alive: New and Selected Poems (2015, NYRB), and its […]
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Writers’ Workshop grad Tony Tulathimutte reads from debut novel
Reading: Tony Tulathimutte Prairie Lights — Thurs., May 7 at 2 p.m. Novelist and Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate Tony Tulathimutte will read from his debut novel, Private Citizens (William Morrow Paperbacks), tonight at 7 p.m. at Prairie Lights Bookstore. Tulathimutte is looking forward to reading at the beloved local bookstore. “I spent more time in […]
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Week-long events with Afrofuturist artist Tiona McClodden
Tiona McClodden Public Space One, Iowa City, May 3-6 The Center for Afrofuturist Studies welcomes artist-in-residence Tiona McClodden to Iowa City. Several events have been scheduled with the artist this week. Events commence Tues., May 3, at 6 p.m. when Tiona will provide a talk and Q&A at Public Space One. On Wednesday at 4:15 p.m. […]
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Marilynne Robinson to retire from Workshop
F. Wendell Mills Professor of Creative Writing at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Marilynne Robinson will teach her last class Friday. Robinson’s work has been awarded with the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Orange Prize, two National Book Critics Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. For the past 25 years, Robinson has taught graduate fiction workshops as […]
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Poets Margaret Ross, Sarah Deniz Akant, and Callie Garnett at Prairie Lights
Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduates Margaret Ross, Sara Deniz Akant, and Callie Garnett will be reading their poetry this evening, 7:00 p.m. at Prairie Lights. Margaret Ross was the winner of The Omnidawn Poetry Book Prize for her title A Timeshare. She has been the recipient of a Fullbright as well as a fellowship from the […]
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Novelist Angela Flournoy to read in Cedar Rapids
Angela Flournoy Cedar Rapids Barnes & Noble — Sun., Apr. 3 at 4 p.m. The African American Museum of Iowa is sponsoring a visit from novelist Angela Flournoy on Sunday, Apr. 3. The Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate will be reading from her debut novel, The Turner House, and engaging in a discussion of the book. […]
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Iowa City author Garth Greenwell hopes to break the ice for queer writers working in Bulgaria
Garth Greenwell’s debut novel, What Belongs to You, begins when an American high school teacher meets a young prostitute named Mitko in the bathroom basement of Bulgaria’s National Palace of Culture. The book that unspools their relationship is already poised to be one of the best of the year. It takes us through Sofia, Kentucky and a complex web of memory that makes us consider the ways all of our relationships are shaped by need and longing, both emotional and material. That longing is woven into our narrator’s very fiber and the complex country that surrounds him and the charismatic, complicated Mitko.
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Interview: Writer Andrew Malan Milward talks character, Kansas and authoring the High Plains
With a “heart as vast as the prairie,” as Storyville puts it, Iowa Writers’ Workshop alum Andrew Malan Milward explores the landscape and legacies of his home state through eight independent but interlocking stories in his second short story collection, I Was a Revolutionary (Harper, 2015). Revolutionary packs more than 150 years of complicated history […]
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Writers’ Workshop grad named US Poet Laureate
Earlier this week, the Library of Congress named Juan Felipe Herrera the new U.S. Poet Laureate. “The times now seem to be evolving with voices of color,” Herrera said in a recent interview with The Washington Post. He will be the first Mexican-American Laureate in U.S. history. A graduate of University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, […]
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Poetry City Actualized: A look back at the birth of an Iowa City-based literary movement
Welcome to Iowa City, aka Poetry City, where key Actualist sites have been targeted by urban development for over forty years. What’s Actualism? It’s a poetry…
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Interview: Sarah Heyward, ‘Girls’ staff writer, on crossing over from the Workshop to Hollywood
Sarah Heyward, the plucky Los Angeles screenwriter/actor known best for her achievements as a staff writer on HBO’s Girls, studied…
