Iowa Writers' Workshop

Iowa Writers' Workshop

Dey House, home of the Iowa Writers' Workshop
Other name	University of Iowa Writers' Workshop
Typ	MFA degree program
Established	1936 (1936)
Director	Lan Samantha Chang
Students	90 (Fall 2022)
Standort	Iowa City , Iowa , Vereinigte Staaten 41°39′42″N 91°32′11″W
Website	writersworkshop.uiowa.edu

The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a celebrated graduate-level creative writing program. At 87 years, it is the oldest writing program offering a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in the United States. It is widely considered the best graduate writing program in the country, with The New Yorker, in 2009, calling it "the most renowned creative-writing program in the world."

As of 2023, it counts among its alumni and faculty 29 Pulitzer Prize wins, 10 U.S. Poets Laureate, several National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award wins, one Booker Prize win, one Nobel Prize in Literature win, and two National Humanities Medals, including one for the Workshop itself in 2003. Its 29 Pulitzers consititute 72.5% of the 40 Pulitzers won by University of Iowa alumni and faculty overall.

Its current director is the writer Lan Samantha Chang.

History

In 1922, Carl Seashore, then dean of the University of Iowa Graduate College, allowed creative writing to be accepted as theses for advanced degrees. Later, the School of Letters began selecting students for writing courses in which they were tutored by resident and visiting writers. The Iowa Writers' Workshop began as an official program in 1936 with Wilbur Schramm as its first director.

Under Paul Engle, its second director from 1941 to 1965, the program became a national landmark. He successfully secured donations for the workshop from the business community for about 20 years, including locals such as Maytag and Quaker Oats, as well as U.S. Steel and Reader's Digest. Between 1953 and 1956, the Rockefeller Foundation donated $40,000. Henry Luce, the publisher of TIME and Life magazines, and Gardner Cowles Jr. (1903–1985), who published Look magazine, provided publicity for the workshop's events.

Subsequent directors were George Starbuck (1965-9), John Leggett (1969-86), and Frank Conroy (1987-2005), whose 19 years at the helm made him the longest-serving director.

Lan Samantha Chang was appointed the Workshop's sixth director in 2006. She is the program's first female and the first Asian American, and non-white, director, and has held the role for 17 years.

Organization

Curriculum and courses

The program's curriculum requires students to take a small number of classes each semester, including the Graduate Fiction Workshop or Graduate Poetry Workshop itself, and one or two additional literature seminars. The modest requirements are intended to prepare the student for the realities of professional writing, where self-discipline is paramount. The graduate workshop courses meet weekly. Before each three-hour class, a small number of students submit material for critical reading by their peers. The class itself consists of a round-table discussion during which the students and the instructor discuss each piece. The specifics of how the class is conducted vary from teacher to teacher and between poetry and fiction workshops. The ideal result is not only that authors come away with insights into the strengths and weaknesses of their own work, but that the class as a whole derives insight, whether general or specific, about the process of writing.

When the Workshop received the National Humanities Medal in 2002, then director Conroy explained its ethos: “It is a focused program, like Juilliard. We read constantly, rereading the classics. They can write anything they want. We teach them what we’ve learned as writers.”

In a 2022 interview, current director Chang said: "We don’t have a quota about where people are from or what kind of writing they do. What we look for is work that is filled with energy, work that interests us. I’m sure, every year, there are many, many very good writers who go elsewhere because we don’t admit them. But we try to be very open. I would say that we look for work that excites us. Frank Conroy used to describe it as feeling someone reaching off the page at you when you’re reading, feeling tension in the language."

Faculty and alumni

See category: Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni

Former faculty have included Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Philip Roth, John Cheever, and Marilynne Robinson.

As of January 2023, the workshop's faculty are Jamel Brinkley, Charles D'Ambrosio, Margot Livesey, and Ladee Hubbard in fiction; Ethan Canin in English and creative writing; James Galvin, Mark Levine, Tracie Morris, Elizabeth Willis in poetry; and Program Director Lan Samantha Chang. Visiting faculty are Alexia Arthurs, Tom Drury and Amy Parker.

Reputation

In 1986, during the 50th anniversary of the Workshop, The New York Times wrote: "At 50, the Iowa workshop is something of a dowager, standing unshakably in the mainstream of our literary life."

In April 2021, the American Academy of Arts and Letters recognized seven graduates and former faculty: five graduates and a former visiting faculty member received awards, and an alumna was elected to membership. In response to the news, director Chang said: “The graduates being distinguished by the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2021 came to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop over a period of more than four decades. This reflects the strength and longevity of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and creative writing at Iowa.”

Prestigious awards won by graduates and faculty

Pulitzer Prizes

Fiction

• Robert Penn Warren, 1947 Pulitzer for All the King's Men, former faculty member.
• Wallace Stegner, 1972 Pulitzer for Angle of Repose, MA, 1932; PhD, English, 1935.
• James Alan McPherson, 1977 Pulitzer for Elbow Room, MFA, 1969; former faculty member.
• John Cheever, 1979 Pulitzer for The Stories of John Cheever, former faculty member.
• Jane Smiley, 1992 Pulitzer for A Thousand Acres, MA, 1975; MFA, English, 1976; PhD, English, 1978.
• Philip Roth, 1998 Pulitzer for American Pastoral, former faculty member.
• Michael Cunningham, 1999 Pulitzer for The Hours, MFA, English, 1980.
• Marilynne Robinson, 2005 Pulitzer for Gilead, emeritus faculty member.
• Paul Harding, 2010 Pulitzer for Tinkers, MFA, English, 2000.
• Andrew Sean Greer, 2018 Pulitzer for Less, former visiting faculty member.

Journalism

• Tracy Kidder, 1982 Pulitzer in general nonfiction for The Soul of a New Machine, MFA, 1974.

Poetry

• Karl Shapiro, 1945 Pulitzer for V-Letter and Other Poems, former faculty member.
• 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.
• Anthony Hecht, 1968 Pulitzer for The Hard Hours, attended Workshop but did not graduate.
• 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 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.

U.S. Poets Laureate

• Mark Strand, 2019-20, MFA '78.
• Rita Dove, 1993, MFA '77, the youngest person and first African American to hold the position.
• Philip Levine.
• Robert Penn Warren, faculty.
• Mona Jane Van Duyn, faculty.
• Robert Hass, faculty.
• Louise Glück, faculty.
• Charles Wright, 2014-16, MFA '70.
• Juan Felipe Herrera, 2015-17, MFA '91.
• Joy Harjo, 2019-20, MFA '78, the first Native American person to hold the position.

Booker Prize won by alumni

• Eleanor Catton, 2013, for The Luminaries, graduate.

National Humanities Medal

• Rita Dove, 1996.
• Iowa Writers' Workshop, 2003.

MacArthur Genius Grants

• Yiyun Li, 2003.

External links

• Iowa Writers Workshop website accessed 5 October, 2021
• Tom Grimes (August 15, 2001). The Workshop: Seven Decades of the Iowa Writers Workshop. Hyperion. ISBN 978-0-7868-8672-2.
• Robert Dana (1999). A community of writers. University of Iowa Press. ISBN 978-0-87745-668-1.
• Historic photos of the Iowa Writers' Workshop from the UI Archives 1950–1969 accessed 4 April 2014