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Top Public University for Writing

Iowa's strength in writing reaches new level in annual U.S. News & World Report ranking

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News and Announcements

photo of Kaveh Akbar in front of a bookshelf

Kaveh Akbar profiled in Iowa Now

Thursday, February 27, 2025
Kaveh Akbar, associate professor and director of the English and Creative Writing major at the University of Iowa, first drew acclaim for his poetry.
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NWP MFA student Spencer Lane Jones featured in 5Q Interview

Monday, February 10, 2025
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.
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Nine English Department faculty and graduate students present their research at the Modern Language Association Convention

Monday, January 27, 2025
English department faculty and grad students attended the 2025 MLA Annual Convention in New Orleans.
Kaveh Akbar

Kaveh Akbar's poem "Elegy for a Name" in the New Yorker

Monday, December 30, 2024
cover of Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

Kaveh Akbar's Martyr! on the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2024

Tuesday, December 10, 2024
Josephine Geiger-Lee rides on a blue car

English represented at Homecoming

Friday, November 8, 2024
Hualing Engle beside portraits of Hualing and Paul Engle

Cofounder of UI International Writing Program Hualing Engle dies

Friday, October 25, 2024
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Deborah Whaley's book on black sororities relevant to election

Wednesday, October 23, 2024
yellow newspaper

Melissa Febos in the New York Times

Monday, October 7, 2024
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Kaveh Akbar on Time Magazine’s 2024 Time100 Next List

Wednesday, October 2, 2024
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Upcoming Events

Creative Writing and the Cold War Conference

Monday, March 24, 2025 1:30pm to 5:00pm
English-Philosophy Building
Loren Glass and Harry Stecopoulos are collaborating on a one-day conference on creative writing and the cold war in tandem with Prof. Yukari Yoshihara (Tsukuba University), Prof. Hiromi Ochi (Senshu University), and other Japan-based US studies scholars.
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Forms of Apocalypse

Tuesday, March 25, 2025 3:30pm to 5:00pm
English-Philosophy Building
William Rhodes, Assistant Professor of English, University of Iowa, will give a talk on apocalyptic literature and form as part of the "Criticism Today" lecture series.
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English Department VIEWS: Jonathan Lethem Reading

Wednesday, March 26, 2025 7:00pm to 8:00pm
English-Philosophy Building
English Department VIEWS presents: Jonathan Lethem. Jonathan Lethem’s genre-defying fiction weaves the conventions of noirs, westerns, science fiction, and graphic novels into something both evocative and wholly original. The “bard of Brooklyn” (LitHub) is the author of more than a dozen books — including the much-lauded novels "Motherless Brooklyn" and "The Fortress of Solitude" — and the winner of a MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant. Books will be available for purchase.
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Krause Series in Contemporary Nonfiction: William Callahan

Friday, April 4, 2025 4:00pm
Nonfiction Writing House
Literary Agent William Callahan will be giving a Publishing Q&A at the Nonfiction Writing House on Friday, April 4th at 4 p.m.
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Nonfiction Writing Program Alumni Reading Series: Torrey Peters

Saturday, April 5, 2025 3:00pm
Prairie Lights Books
Torrey Peters, alum of the Nonfiction Writing Program will read from her new book Stag Dance at Prairie Lights Books on Saturday, April 5th at 3:00 p.m. Reception to follow: Nonfiction Writing House - 530 N. Clinton St., Iowa City
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Knowledge of Nothing: Apocalyptic Ekphrasis in The Flowers of Evil

Thursday, April 17, 2025 2:00pm to 3:30pm
English-Philosophy Building
Nathan Brown will be presenting. Nathan Brown is Professor of English and Canada Research Chair in Poetics at Concordia University, Montreal, where he directs the Centre for Expanded Poetics. He is the author of Baudelaire's Shadow: An Essay on Poetic Determination (MaMa, 2021); Rationalist Empiricism: A Theory of Speculative Critique (Fordham, 2021); and The Limits of Fabrication: Materials Science, Materialist Poetics (Fordham, 2017). His translation of Baudelaire's The Flowers of Evil was...
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