The Virtual Writing University is a collective of Iowa faculty, students, and administrators at work on various projects that reflect, interpret, and extend Iowa's collective intelligence about creative writing. For more information about the VWU's administrative structure, visit About the VWU.The Wing The Virtual Writing University's Experimental Wing, or, "The Wing," as we've come to refer to it during its three months of development, embraces the creative interdisciplinary potential of digital production and community-based practice. It is dedicated to the exploration of experimental literary and multimedia hypertext research and production. Time-based media [Internet-based radio and television], online publishing and live events are integral parts of 'Wing' research. Virtual Writing University Archive The Virtual Writing University Archive began as a collaboration between the International Writing Program (IWP) at The University of Iowa and the School of Library and Information Science (SLIS). The IWP held hundreds of recordings of its past literary events in analog audio and video formats. These recordings document the history of the IWP, and they represent an important chapter in the larger story of writing at Iowa. Prior to the Virtual Writing University Archive, the recordings were inaccessible and in danger of deterioration. With the support of the Graduate College and the Arts and Humanities Initiative at the UI, faculty and students from the School of Library and Information Science have developed the Archive to provide access to the remarkable literary tradition that is writing at Iowa. The project has grown since its inception to embrace the larger community or writers in Iowa City, and with no end to the recordings in sight, the Archive promises to be a resource for writers, students, and researchers for years to come. The Journals Project Electronic journals, like electronic texts in general, sometimes seem to be flying outward in a thousand directions at once. While they are relatively easy to create, by the same token, they can quietly disappear, leaving little or no trace of themselves behind. The Journals Project is something of a virtual mooring, a place for editors to secure their publications amidst turbulent sea changes, a place for visitors to tie up and have a look around. In part a clearing house, the project provides at least some sense of the richness and quality of the many, fine current or past journals in which writing, variously envisioned, is the subject. Here visitors will find descriptions of and links to electronic publications originating at the University of Iowa and elsewhere. But as a project, it also aims to provide the means of making comparisons and seeking out patterns across the broad spectrum of contemporary electronic publishing as a tool for research, for writing, and for the dissemination of knowledge in the world today. Visit an early protoype for the project. View directory of Writing University Journals. Hypertext History of Writing at Iowa The History of Writing at Iowa for the Virtual Writing University will chronicle the myriad ways in which The University of Iowa has established itself as a place of visionary writing programs, from the establishment of the first creative writing program in the world (The Iowa Writers Workshop in 1936) to the first Translation Workshop in the country, the unique and unparalleled contribution of the International Writing Program, the well-known Playwrights Workshop, the largest Nonfiction Writing Program in the country, the Center for the Book, and the prestigious Iowa Review. An author index of former students, faculty, and visiting writers will be also be compiled. These listings will borrow structural and navigational elements from Wikipedia and from the Lannan Foundation Audio Archives to include hyperlinks to interviews, photographs, and recordings (where available) for each entry. A representative biographical sketch will read as follows:

Marvin Bell received his MFA from The Writers’ Workshop in 1963 and retired after forty years of teaching at The University of Iowa in 2005. Iowa’s first Poet Laureate, he is the author of eighteen books of poetry and essays. View Marvin Bell’s panel on Iowa City’s Literary Walk, read a transcript of his Iowa Poet Laureate acceptance speech, and listen to Marvin Bell read from a selection of poems published in These-Green-Going-To-Yellow: Poems and Iris of Creation.

A related project, coordinated through The University of Iowa Press, will be a “Map of Iowa City’s Literary Stars” that will highlight the residences where famous Iowa authors lived during their tenure in the Iowa City/Coralville area through the ages. The print version of this map may also translate well into an online version in the form of a PDF file or as an interactive version created via Google Maps and/or Google Earth.