Yet again, despite a worldwide pandemic and working online from afar, University of Iowa undergraduates in the Department of English’s Publishing II courses have curated, edited, designed, and published an entire book: Living Proof: An Anthology of High School Writers. 

Released this spring, Living Proof is the third anthology in the annual series supported by the Nonfiction Writing Program and the Dept. of English’s literary publishing track, a year-long laboratory designed to give undergraduate students both a taste of the publishing world and hands-on editorial experience. 

Graduate teaching instructors Rachel Sudbeck, Tony Andrews, and Bryn Lovitt, all nonfiction writers and recent NWP graduates, led their CNW:2992 - Publishing II students through the editorial process. 

As in previous years, many high schools from around the state of Iowa participated, but this year’s anthology also featured high school writers beyond Iowa’s borders. Students from as far as Sherman Oaks, California and Mason, Ohio submitted essays, stories, and poems for consideration for this year’s project. The finished anthology brought together a diverse array of voices and gave many young writers, both in Iowa and beyond, a chance to be heard. At the same time, the Publishing II experience nurtured the next young cadre of publishing professionals. 

Undergraduate editors, their teachers, the newly-published high school writers, and their teachers celebrated the release of Living Proof in a public Zoom reading on Monday, May 3.