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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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The Writing University Podcast Network

At the Writing University, we're devoted to delivering the most enlightening, educational and entertaining podcasts from the University of Iowa's creative writing programs. We gather all our offerings together here for you to peruse and enjoy!

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Upcoming Events

Application Deadline: Obermann Summer Writing Collective

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 5:00pm

This program offers companionship and accountability to University of Iowa artists, scholars, and researchers working on any kind of academic writing project (ex. academic articles/essays, fellowship or grant applications, book projects, edited volumes, or nonfiction) who want dedicated time, a cozy space, and a community for the practice of writing. In Summer 2024, these small, write-on-site groups will continue to meet in at the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies at 111 Church St. Groups...

Live from Prairie Lights | Colin Hamilton

Thursday, May 23, 2024 7:00pm

Prairie Lights Books

Iowa City native Colin Hamilton will read from his new book, The Discarded. "In Hamilton's metafictional work, an unnamed librarian reflects on books pulled from the library's shelves and relegated to obscurity—and, by extension, the purposes of libraries in general. Hamilton's clear devotion to 'the morgue' of discarded books is oddly inspiring; there's something mesmerizing about the collective encyclopedia of knowledge they comprise as a whole, even if many of the parts seem less than...

Write at the Stanley: A Generative Writing Workshop

Sunday, May 26, 2024 2:30pm to 4:30pm

Stanley Museum of Art

Join us monthly to generate new creative writing inspired by works in the Stanley collection. Each session will be led by a different talented writer from our area, who will be offering a new prompt and a new approach to ekphrastic writing (writing inspired by visual art). Bring your own notebook and pencil or computer and leave with the beginning of a newly written piece. Co-sponsored by Iowa City Poetry. Teen and adult writers in all genres are welcome. Write at the Stanley meets every fourth...

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Rita Dove

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

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BA in Screenwriting

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

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Jo Ann Beard + Melissa Febos reading

Live from Prairie Lights, 03/26/2021

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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"

iowa writers workshop wreath of laurel for the writing university

- Jane Smiley, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1992)

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The Writing University

Start Your Story Here

Programs

Writers

Archives

The Writing University Podcast Network

Upcoming Events

Application Deadline: Obermann Summer Writing Collective

Live from Prairie Lights | Colin Hamilton

Write at the Stanley: A Generative Writing Workshop

Recent News

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: UI Press Author Amy Lee Lillard

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