The University of Iowa

The Writing University

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More than 40 Pulitzer Prize winners. Seven U.S. Poets Laureate. Countless award-winning playwrights, screenwriters, journalists, translators, novelists and poets.

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Next Event

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Shambaugh House Reading

Friday, August 25, 2023 5:00pm to 6:00pm

Shambaugh House

Join us in person at the Shambaugh House (430 N. Clinton St., Iowa City) or online via Facebook or Zoom for a reading by two IWP 2023 Fall Residency writers. For those who are present in person, light refreshments will be provided.

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The First and Best Home for Writing

Upcoming Events

Shambaugh House Reading promotional image

Shambaugh House Reading

Friday, August 25, 2023 5:00pm to 6:00pm

Shambaugh House

Join us in person at the Shambaugh House (430 N. Clinton St., Iowa City) or online via Facebook or Zoom for a reading by two IWP 2023 Fall Residency writers. For those who are present in person, light refreshments will be provided.

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IWP Reading at Prairie Lights Books

Sunday, August 27, 2023 4:00pm to 5:00pm

Prairie Lights Books

A reading by international writers and UI MFA students.

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Recent News

"When I went to Iowa, how lucky was it that the first reader of my first novel was Kurt Vonnegut. I couldn't have asked for a better mentor than that." -- John Irving

Iowa Playwrights Workshop alum Samuel D. Hunter takes home three awards for his screenplay of "The Whale"

Congratulations to Adedayo Agarau, who has been awarded a Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University

Congratulations to Workshop alum Jamil Jan Kochai, on The Story Prize longlist for 'The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories'!

Congratulations to Lan Samantha Chang, Lucy Ives, and Zachary Lazar, on the longlist for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize!

Iowa Playwrights Workshop graduate Samuel D. Hunter talks about his time at Iowa and writing his play, The Whale, now adapted into a film starring Brendan Fraser

In ‘This Other Eden,’ a Historical Tale of Paradise Lost: a fantastic New York Times review of Workshop alum & Pulitzer Prize-winner Paul Harding's new novel

Congratulations to Joy Harjo, winner of the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award and to Vauhini Vara, a finalist for the John Leonard Prize for Best First Book, from The National Book Critics Circle

"Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2023" includes new books by UI grads Sabrina Orah Mark, Curtis Sittenfeld, Edan Lepucki, C Pam Zhang, Vauhini Vara & Jamel Brinkley!

More News

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Featured Writer

Rita Dove

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Rita Dove received her MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1977.

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Program Highlight

BA in Translation

The new BA in Translation major started at the University of Iowa this fall 2022!

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Featured Archive

Carl Phillips in conversation with Kaveh Akbar

Live from Prairie Lights, March 4, 2022

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"I do not in fact know what I would have done, or who I would have been as an adult if I hadn’t lived in and around Iowa City"

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- Jane Smiley, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1992)

Is Where.

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We Write.

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This.

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