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Iowa Writers' Workshop

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The Program in Creative Writing, more commonly known as the Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa is a graduate-level creative writing program in the United States. Writer Lan Samantha Chang is currently the director of the Workshop.

The program began in 1936, with the gathering together of poets and fiction writers under the direction of Wilbur Schramm. Graduates earn a Master of Fine Arts in English; Iowa was the first program in the country to offer this degree.

The program has a minimal curriculum, requiring students to take a small number of classes each semester, including the Graduate Fiction Workshop or Graduate Poetry Workshop itself, and perhaps one or two additional literature seminars. The modest curricular requirements are intended to prepare the student, in a sense, for the realities of professional writing, where self-discipline is paramount.

The program revolves around the Graduate Workshop courses, which meet once a week. Before each three-hour class, a small number of students will have submitted material for critical reading by their peers. The class itself consists of a round-table discussion during which the class and the instructor offer impressions, observations, and analysis about each piece. The specifics of how the class is conducted vary somewhat from teacher to teacher, and between Poetry and Fiction workshops. The ideal result of the process is not only that authors come away with insights into the strength and weaknesses of their own work, but that the class as a whole derives some insight, whether general or specific, about the process of writing.

Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni have won a dozen Pulitzer Prizes (most recently Marilynne Robinson in fiction in 2005, and Michael Cunningham in fiction and Mark Strand in poetry, both in 1999), as well as numerous National Book Awards and other major literary honors. Four recent U.S. Poets Laureate have been graduates of the Workshop. In 2003, the Workshop received a National Humanities Medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities. It was the first Medal awarded to a university, and only the second given to an institution rather than an individual."[1]

Pulitzer Prizes of Writers' Workshop Graduates and Faculty

The University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop has 25 affiliated Pulitzer Prizes earned by various faculty and graduates, and over 40 attributed to graduates and faculty of The University of Iowa.

Writers' Workshop graduates have produced 13 Pulitzer Prizes since 1947.

Fiction

Journalistic

Poetry

  • Robert Lowell, 1947 Pulitzer for Lord Weary's Castle, 1974 Pulitzer for The Dolphin, former faculty member.
  • Robert Penn Warren, 1958 Pulitzer for Poems 1954-56, Now and Then, 1980 Pulitzer for Poems 1976-78, former faculty member.
  • W.D. Snodgrass, 1960 Pulitzer for Heart's Needle, BA, 1949; MA, 1951; MFA, 1953.
  • John Berryman, 1965 Pulitzer for 77 Dream Songs, former faculty member.
  • Donald Justice, 1980 Pulitzer for Selected Poems, alumnus and former faculty member.
  • Carolyn Kizer, 1985 Pulitzer for Yin, former faculty member.
  • Rita Dove, 1987 Pulitzer for Thomas and Beulah, MFA, 1977.
  • Mona Van Duyn, 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Near Changes, MA, English, 1943.
  • James Tate, 1992 Pulitzer for Selected Poems, MFA, 1967.
  • Louise Glück, 1993 Pulitzer for The Wild Iris, former faculty member.
  • Philip Levine, 1995 Pulitzer for The Simple Truth, MFA, 1957; former faculty member.
  • Jorie Graham, 1996 Pulitzer for The Dream of the Unified Field, MFA, English, 1978; former faculty member.
  • Charles Wright, 1998 Pulitzer for Black Zodiac, MFA, 1963.
  • Mark Strand, 1999 Pulitzer for Blizzard of One, MA, 1962; former faculty member.
  • Robert Hass, 2008 Pulitzer for Time and Materials, frequent visiting faculty member.
  • Philip Schultz, 2008 Pulitzer for Failure, MFA, English, 1971.

Notable alumni

Notable alumni of the program include:

Faculty

Over the years, permanent and visiting faculty have included prominent fiction writers and poets, including:

Fiction writers

Nelson Algren,Jonathan Ames, Mike Anderson,Madison Smartt Bell, Vance Bourjaily, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Kevin Brockmeier, Ethan Canin, Edward Carey, John Casey, John Cheever, Frank Conroy, Robert Coover, Jim Crace, Charles D'Ambrosio, Nicholas Delbanco, Stuart Dybek, Deborah Eisenberg, Tony Eprile, Richard Gehman, Judith Grossman, Barry Hannah, Ron Hansen, Adam Haslett, James Hynes, Thom Jones, Margot Livesey, Paule Marshall, Elizabeth McCracken, James Alan McPherson, Bharati Mukherjee, Chris Offutt, ZZ Packer, Francine Prose, Marilynne Robinson, Philip Roth, James Salter, Bob Shacochis, Scott Spencer, Elizabeth Tallent, Barry Unsworth, Jennifer Vanderbes, Kurt Vonnegut, Joy Williams, Meg Wolitzer, and Richard Yates.

Poets

Simon Armitage, John Ash, Marvin Bell, Ted Berrigan, John Berryman, Gillian Conoley, Mark Doty, Lynn Emanuel, Paul Engle, Kathleen Fraser, James Galvin, Forrest Gander, Louise Gluck, Jorie Graham, Robert Hass, Lyn Hejinian, Brenda Hillman, Anselm Hollo, Donald Justice, Claudia Keelan, Galway Kinnell, Carolyn Kizer, August Kleinzahler, Sukrita Paul Kumar, Ann Lauterbach, Mark Levine, Larry Levis, Robert Lowell, Thomas Lux, Jack Marshall, Heather McHugh, Sandra McPherson, Bob Perelman, Carl Phillips, Claudia Rankine, Donald Revell, Mary Ruefle, Tom Sleigh, Gerald Stern, Mark Strand, Robert Sward, Thomas Swiss,Cole Swensen, James Tate, Susan Wheeler, Emily Wilson, C.D. Wright, and Dean Young.

References

  1. ^ The University of Iowa Writer's Workshop Webpage: About the Workshop

External links

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