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

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Upcoming Events

Take it from a Fiction reader: getting your short story passed the first round at Lit mags!

Saturday, September 21, 2024 1:00pm to 4:00pm
Virtual
Location: Porchlight 1019 E Washington St, Iowa City, IA 52240, USA Led by Nicole Vanderlinden What happens to your short story once you’ve submitted it to literary journals? Who reads your piece, and what happens next? Although each venue runs things a little differently, almost all have a first-pass read, which is where most stories end their journeys. In this weekend-long workshop, you’ll learn strategies for breaking through that screening read to move on to the next level (and, hopefully...

Susan Aizenberg - Live from Prairie Lights

Saturday, September 21, 2024 4:00pm
Prairie Lights Books
Iowa City poet Susan Aizenberg will read from A Walk With Frank O’Hara: Poems, published by the University of New Mexico Press Mary Burritt Christiansen Poetry Series, edited by Hilda Raz. "Susan Aizenberg is a poet with a wonderfully distinct voice — the poems in A Walk With Frank O'Hara have that difficult-to-achieve illusion of effortlessness I deeply admire, with no fussiness or straining for effect, but rather a clean elegance that allows Aizenberg's natural lyricism to shine. Aizenberg is...

Take it from a Fiction reader: getting your short story passed the first round at Lit mags!

Sunday, September 22, 2024 1:00pm to 4:00pm
Virtual
Location: Porchlight 1019 E Washington St, Iowa City, IA 52240, USA Led by Nicole Vanderlinden What happens to your short story once you’ve submitted it to literary journals? Who reads your piece, and what happens next? Although each venue runs things a little differently, almost all have a first-pass read, which is where most stories end their journeys. In this weekend-long workshop, you’ll learn strategies for breaking through that screening read to move on to the next level (and, hopefully...
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News Highlights

5Q Interview: Anna Davtyan Աննա Դավթյան, IWP Resident

UI Professor Kaveh Akbar's Novel "Martyr!" on Obama's Summer Reading List

UI Translation Program Alum in the New York Times

Ethan Hawke joined Stephen Colbert on The Late Show & took a moment to celebrate the excellence of The Iowa Writers' Workshop, where Flannery O'Connor studied in the 1940s.

Two UI faculty members, Kaveh Akbar (English) and Jamel Brinkley (Iowa Writers' Workshop) received the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship

Congratulations to Workshop director Lan Samantha Chang & alumni, Michelle Huneven and Elizabeth McCracken, 2024 Literature Award winners!

Director of the English and Creative Writing Major Kaveh Akbar in the NYTimes

Not sure what book to dive into next? Here is a shortlist of titles released in 2023 by University of Iowa grads, including the latest winner of the National Book Award for Fiction

University of Iowa English Professor Ed Folsom receives an honorary doctorate from TU Dortmund

Translation Workshop celebrates 60 years and looks at what’s next

& More

Ethan Hawke joined Stephen Colbert on The Late Show & took a moment to celebrate the excellence of The Iowa Writers' Workshop, where Flannery O'Connor studied in the 1940s.

Two UI faculty members, Kaveh Akbar (English) and Jamel Brinkley (Iowa Writers' Workshop) received the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship

Congratulations to Workshop director Lan Samantha Chang & alumni, Michelle Huneven and Elizabeth McCracken, 2024 Literature Award winners!

Director of the English and Creative Writing Major Kaveh Akbar in the NYTimes

Not sure what book to dive into next? Here is a shortlist of titles released in 2023 by University of Iowa grads, including the latest winner of the National Book Award for Fiction

University of Iowa English Professor Ed Folsom receives an honorary doctorate from TU Dortmund

Translation Workshop celebrates 60 years and looks at what’s next

5Q Interview: Stephen J. Dinsmore, UI Press Author of 'Iowa's Changing Wildlife'

Featured Archive: Daniyal Mueenuddin reading, Live from Prairie Lights, January 21, 2010

Writers' Workshop graduate Justin Torres wins the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction

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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 Screenwriting

Students are instructed on practical skills and knowledge needed to become successful members of the screenwriting industry!

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Featured Archive

Jo Ann Beard + Melissa Febos reading

Live from Prairie Lights, 03/26/2021

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