Premiere of the Iowa New Play Festival

Iowa New Play Festival

Last week the Iowa New Play Festival presented more than a dozen new scripts from the University of Iowa Playwrights Workshop and the department's undergraduate playwrights in the UI Theatre Building.

As part of this festival, daily events included readings of plays, panel discussions and full feature performances. Five new plays, written by students in the Master of Fine Arts program in playwriting, were premiered with performances as well. Read more...

View a full Festival schedule with descriptions

May 05, 2008
Playwrights Workshop| Theatre Department
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Middle East Reading and Lecture Tour Presents to Saudi Literati

The delegation speaks with Saudi Gazette Editor-in-Chief Dr. Muhammed N. Shoukany

An American delegation (consisting of poets, authors, novelists and writers) presented their work to a audience of Saudi scholars in Jeddah, Saudia Arabia on Sunday, April 20, as a part of the Middle East Reading and Lecture Tour. The tour was hosted by the University of Iowa's International Writing Program and made possible by a grant from the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

The evening was an opportunity for the speakers to share samples of their poetry and prose with an audience of doctors and professors of Arabic and English literature from many universities around the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The delegation in Jeddah, Saudia Arabia

Readers included Christopher Merrill (director of the UI's International Writing Program), Ron Carlson (director of the creative writing program in fiction at the University of California in Irvine), as well as many other honored guests. Read More...

April 29, 2008
International Writing Program| Poetry
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Aeronwy Thomas and Peter Thabit Jones to Present a Dylan Thomas Tribute

Aeronwy Thomas

In celebration of National Poetry Month, Welsh poets Aeronwy Thomas (daughter of Dylan Thomas) and Peter Thabit Jones will read from their work and the works of Dylan Thomas in the Shambaugh House at the University of Iowa on Monday, April 28 at 7 pm.

A noted poet in her own right, Aeronwy Thomas, the second child of Dylan Thomas and his wife, Caitlin, is a writer, teacher and performer. She is known worldwide as an ambassador for her father’s work, and is president of the Dylan Thomas Society, Swansea. Her poetry and prose have been published widely, spanning 30 years of literary activity. Read more...

April 22, 2008
Iowa Writers' Workshop | International Writing Program| Poetry
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Workshop Authors Named 2008 Guggenheim Fellows

Samantha Chang

Workshop alumni Michael Paul Burkard, Lan Samantha Chang, Robin Hemley, Richard Panek, and Reginald Shepherd, were all named 2008 Guggenheim Fellows in an announcement this month by Edward Hirsch, president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Read more about this selection on the Iowa Writers' Workshop website.

April 18, 2008
Iowa Writers' Workshop | Fiction| Poetry
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IWP Alum Clifton Wins Irish Poetry Award

Clifton

The 2008 Irish Times Poetry Now Award was presented to Harry Clifton, a former fellow of the International Writing Program, at the DLR Poetry Now International Poetry Festival in Ireland this month.

The judges described Clifton's winning collection, Secular Eden: Paris Notebooks 1994-2004, as "the achievement of several years' work . . . with great profundity to the poems in how they explored ideas".

Clifton participated as a fellow in the International Writing Program at The University of Iowa in 1985, and has lived in Africa, Asia, Italy and France. He has published several collections of poems, including The Liberal Cage, The Desert Route: Selected Poems 1973-1988 and Night Train Through the Brenner. Read more...

April 16, 2008
International Writing Program| Poetry
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The Patient Voice Project Awarded Major Project Grant

The University of Iowa Arts Share program's Patient Voice Project recently received a 2008 grant from the Johnson & Johnson/Society for the Arts in Healthcare partnership. The Patient Voice Project, which offers creative writing classes to chronically-ill hospital patients, is one of eight initiatives in the United States and Canada to be honored by the society. They plan to use the $40,000 grant to support the expansion of the project.
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April 11, 2008
Iowa Writers' Workshop | Fiction| Nonfiction| Poetry
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Hass and Schultz Win Pulitzer Prizes

Hass

The 2008 Pulitzer Prizes were announced on Monday, April 7, and two of the winning authors, Robert Hass and Philip Schultz (both awarded with the Pulitzer for poetry), have affiliation with the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Robert Hass, professor at UC Berkeley and visiting professor at The University of Iowa, received the prize for his National Book Award winning collection of poetry, Time and Materials (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2007). Iowa Writers' Workshop alumnus Philip Schultz won for his volume of poetry, Failure (Harcourt, 2007).

Other workshop-affiliated authors were nominated as well, including workshop alumnus and former faculty member Denis Johnson for Tree of Smoke in the fiction category; and poet Ellen Bryant Voight, who received a Master of Fine Arts from the workshop, as the third poetry finalist.

The Pulitzer Prize >>
2008 Winners Announced

The Iowa Writers' Workshop >>
Robert Hass and Philip Schultz Win 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

The University of Iowa >>
UI poets Hass and Schultz, and composer Lang win 2008 Pulitzer Prizes

The New York Times >>
2008 Pulitzer Prizes for Letters, Drama and Music

Mercury News >>
UC Berkeley English professor wins Pulitzer for poetry

April 07, 2008

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