The Writing University conducts a series of interviews with writers while they are in Iowa City participating in the various University of Iowa writing programs. We sit down with authors to ask about their work, their process and their descriptions of home.
Today we are speaking with Stephanie Krzywonos, who just graduated from the Nonfiction Writing Program. Congrats Stephanie!!
Stephanie Krzywonos is a graduate of the Nonfiction Writing Program originally from Holland, Michigan. She has worked as a ranger, a professional driver, a pseudo-social worker, a farmer, and the coordinator for Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Her first book, Ice Folks: An Antarctic Memoir, tells the story of living and working at the largest research station in Antarctica through six summers and one long polar winter and is forthcoming from Atria Books in the fall of 2026.
Can you tell us a little bit about what brought you to the University of Iowa?
As an undergraduate, I studied philosophy, and one of my professors told me my philosophical analyses were too “flowery” and suggested I take creative writing courses to “get it out of my system.” I signed up for an introduction to creative nonfiction course in part because of her advice, and also because my crush was going to be in the class. I fell in love – with nonfiction, that is!
When I graduated, I was interested in pursuing a graduate degree in creative writing, but at the time I felt like I didn’t have enough “life experience,” which in retrospect was untrue.
Seven years later, I discovered John D’Agata’s anthology The Next American Essay at a bookstore and read it every day on my hour-and-a-half commute to work in Chicago. My underlinings in that book are like seismographs measuring each bump on my bus route and also my growing interest in studying nonfiction again. I knew if I was going to do it, Iowa would be the place. But by then, my excuse had morphed into: “I’m too old for graduate school.”
Then a few things happened. Due to the pandemic, I lost my job in Antarctica and gave myself a “sabbatical” to write. I read an article about a man in his eighties who had finally earned his undergraduate degree in history (he joked that he had been alive for most of it). Shortly after, I was working as a ranger and went into a port-o-potty to clean. All four walls and the floor were smeared in feces. When I emerged twenty minutes later, I decided to apply to school.
What is the inspiration for your work right now?
Right now, I am working on a book about the seven seasons I spent living and working in Antarctica, which I’ve been laboring over for almost five years. My inspiration for that comes from a deep love for Antarctica, and also the anger I feel about what is happening to the continent and all life on Earth. I keep a Gondwanan fossil on my desk next to my keyboard as a reminder of all that is precious.
Do you have a daily writing routine?
I am not a daily writer. I am a marathon writer. I prefer large, uninterrupted chunks of time to fully immerse myself and get into a flow. I usually do school-related work Monday through Thursday, and block of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for my own writing. After I graduate, I have ambitions to become a daily-ish morning writer.
What are you reading right now? Are you reading for research or pleasure?
Even though I am on the fourth draft of my book, I am also still doing some research and finally getting to some of the drier academic tomes that have loitering around on my to-do list, books like Class and Colonialism in Antarctic Exploration, 1750-1920.
For pleasure, I am re-reading Stephen King’s memoir On Writing, which was the first “craft” book I ever read. It’s really funny. For example, he tells this story about his babysitter, Eula-Beulah, who was very gassy: “Sometimes when she was so afflicted, she would throw me on the couch, drop her wool-skirted butt on my face, and let loose. “Pow!” she’d cry in high glee. It was like being buried in marshgas fireworks. I remember the dark, the sense that I was suffocating, and I remember laughing. Because, while what was happening was sort of horrible, it was also sort of funny. In many ways, Eula-Beulah prepared me for literary criticism.”
Tell us about where you are from - what are some favorite details you would like to share about your home?
I grew up in a horrible small town in a really beautiful place: western Michigan. If I held up my right hand (as most people want Michiganders to do), my home would be on the end of my “heart line” below my pinkie. I grew up right on Lake Michigan, which is the giant footprint of a glacier and simply referred to as “the Lake.” I love introducing people to the Lake, especially when they’re shocked that they can’t see across: it’s as wide and generous as an ocean. One thing Michigan does well is grow fruit: it’s the second highest producer of apples in the country. The pickings on a crisp autumn afternoon, followed by warm slightly-greasy donuts and cold apple cider, are quite fine.
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Thank you!