Sandy Allen, NWP 2012, published the feature “A Brilliant Cure But We Lost the Patient,” a cultural history of electroshock, in the Believer; and the essay “Into the Woods with 150 Trans Men,” about attending a summer camp for trans men, in Esquire.

Mary Margaret Alvarado (Mia), NWP 2006,

has a short story, “Application for Admission [DRAFFFFT] from Kaylee River King,” in The Rumpus, written in the busted form of an essay; and a new nonfiction book, American Weather, in collaboration with the artist Corie Cole, out and for sale.

Barret Baumgart’s (NWP 2014) second book, YUCK: The Birth & Death of the Weird & Wondrous Joshua Tree, Yucca brevifolia, won the 2023 Wandering Aengus Book award for nonfiction and will be published by WA-based Wandering Aengus Press in March 2025. He also has a blog and occasional podcast on Substack called Dumpster Fires.

Hannah Bonner, NWP 2024, has recently published reviews in Hyperallergic, Senses of Cinema, and The Sewanee Review. 

Drew Bratcher, NWP 2016, published “All the Honky-Tonk Babies Have Broken Hearts,"  an essay about Hank Williams Jr., in the Los Angeles Review of Books; and an essay called  “One on One," about losing to his son, Beckett, at basketball, in Salvation South. 

Frances Cannon, NWP 2017, is the Mellon Science and Nature Writing Fellow at Kenyon College and is an editorial reader for the Kenyon Review. She has several forthcoming books in the coming years: Willow and the Storm (forthcoming with Green Writers Press in the spring of 2025) and Queer Flora, Fauna, Funga (forthcoming with Valiz Press in 2026). 

Matthew J. C. Clark, NWP 2009, published the essay “Reconsidering the Lobster” in Rustica Journal. 

Mieke Eerkens, NWP 2013, will publish an essay in the forthcoming anthology Nothing Compares to You (Simon & Schuster), a celebration of musician Sinéad O’Connor. Essays by program alumni Sarah Viren, NWP 2011, and Stephanie Elizondo Griest, NWP 2012, will also appear in the book.

Rachel Faldet, NWP 1987, is co-editor, with Maren Johnson, of Sagas of Luther College. The grant-funded (CIC-NetVUE) anthology’s thirteen essays and intergenerational interview explore the heritage and identity of the liberal arts college, past, present, and future. 

Ori Fienberg, NWP 2007, had his first collection, Where Babies Come From, published in September by Cornerstone Press; the Chicago Review of Books named the collection a must-read and declared it “dazzling and eccentric.” He was also a Scholar at the 2024 Yetzirah Jewish Poetry Conference, and his writing is forthcoming in the Cimarron Review, Ploughshares, and Smartish Pace. 

Jonathan Gleason, NWP 2022, was named one of four finalists for the 2024 Granum Foundation Prize. His first book, Field Guide to Falling Ill, is forthcoming from Yale University Press in 2025. 

A. Kendra Greene, NWP 2012, is a Scholar of Note at the American Library in Paris. She’ll be visiting professor at the University of Missouri in the spring. And while a MacDowell fellow this fall, she completed the illumination of No Less Strange or Wonderful: Essays in Curiosity, forthcoming March 4, 2025 from Tin House.

Jenna Hammerich, NWP 2010, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her essay “Ground,” published in River Teeth 25/2.

The Council of Writing Program Administrators named Douglas Hesse, NWP 1980,  one of the two recipients of its Lifetime Achievement Award for 2024. The CWPA will hold an event in July 2025 to honor his achievements. In addition, the Association of Departments of English/Modern Language Association will award him the Francis Andrew March Award at its annual convention in New Orleans, in January, where he’ll be invited to give remarks. He notes: “the second winner of the March award was Jix Lloyd-Jones, one of the forces behind founding the NWP. The first winner of the award was John Gerber, also a long-ago chair at Iowa.

Laura Julier’s (PhD 1988) book, Off Izaak Walton Road, won this year’s River Teeth Nonfiction Book Award, judged by writer Lacy M. Johnson, and will be published by the University of New Mexico Press in March 2025. She will give a reading at Prairie Lights Books this spring.

Sarah Khatry, NWP 2024, published the essay “Experiments in Light” in VQR.

Kevin Koch, MA Writing 1981; PhD English 1992, was interviewed on Iowa Public Radio (“Talk of Iowa”) regarding his recently published book Midwest Bedrock: The Search for Nature’s Soul in America’s Heartland (Indiana University Press, 2024). The 35-minute interview is archived at 

https://www.iowapublicradio.org/podcast/talk-of-iowa (dated Nov 8, 2024).

Emily Mester, NWP 2018, published the debut essay collection American Bulk: Essays on Excess with W.W. Norton in November 2024. She will give a reading at Prairie Lights Books in Spring 2025.

Michele Morano, NWP 2001, was recently elected as Secretary of the AWP Board of Directors. Feel free to contact her with any questions or feedback about the organization.

Aaron Pang, NWP 2024, followed up his Iowa City performances of his one-person show “Herein Lies The Truth” with a performance at the Elysian Theater in Los Angeles. The show, which was his NWP thesis project, was directed by Connie Chen, NWP 2025.

Angela Pelster-Wiebe, NWP 2012, sold her new essay collection The Evolution of Fire: Meditations on Crises to Milkweed Editions, coming out in 2026.

Torrey Peters, NWP 2009, will publish Stag Dance: A Novel and Stories, with Penguin Random House in March 2025. 

Kristen Radtke, NWP 2012, visited the NWP in October as the Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor.

Tatiana Schlote-Bonne, NWP 2022, will publish her second horror novel, The Mean Ones, in Fall 2025.

Rebecca Sheir, NWP 2006, is in her 8th season as host and writer of Circle Round, the family folktales podcast from Boston’s NPR station. Rebecca took the podcast across the country in 2024, with live on-stage recordings in San Francisco, Minneapolis, Portland (OR), Seattle, Chicago and New York City. In February 2025, Circle Round will makes its debut at Boston’s Symphony Hall with a live recording featuring an all-star cast and players from the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Darius Stewart, NWP 2020 and current doctoral student in the University of Iowa English Department, successfully passed his comprehensive exam in December 2024. This fall, he taught a workshop and participated in the discussion “Fine Lines: Poems from Around the World” at the Mumbai LitFest in India.

Darius Stewart at the Mumbai LitFest. Photo courtesy of Rachita Sai Barak/The Queer Muslim Project.

In addition to being a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award, Deborah Taffa’s (NWP 2013) debut, Whiskey Tender: A Memoir, was longlisted for a 2025 Carnegie Medal of Excellence in Nonfiction. It was also named a Top 10 Memoir of the year by Audible, a Top 10 Nonfiction Book by Esquire Magazine, a Top 10 Book of 2024 by The Atlantic, a Top 100 Book of the year by Time Magazine, and a 2024 Top 50 Nonfiction Title by The Washington Post. It was also included in Electric Literature’s Best Nonfiction of 2024 list. Deborah recently signed with the speaker’s bureau, Authors Unbound.

Deborah Taffa at the 2024 National Book Awards Ceremony.

Adina Talve-Goodman’s posthumous essay collection Your Hearts, Your Scars, released by Bellevue Literary Press, was shortlisted for the 2024 Wingate Prize in the UK. The annual prize is awarded to the best book “to translate the idea of Jewishness to the general reader.” Ann Napolitano wrote: “Adina Talve-Goodman walked a tightrope, for much of her thirty-one years, between life and death. I’m grateful this beautiful book exists, so everyone else can know her, too. Adina was a brilliant writer, and these pages are imbued with her exuberance, her sharp humor, and both versions of her spectacular heart.” Talve-Goodman was a member of NWP class of 2019.

Joshua Wheeler, NWP 2015, published a feature on the cultural history of Smokey Bear, “The Last and Final Death of Smokey Bear,” in a special issue of Alta on Reckoning with the West. His novel, The High Heaven, will be published by Graywolf in Oct. 2025. 

Cutter Wood, NWP 2010, will publish Earthly Materials: Journeys Through Our Bodies’ Emissions, Excretions, and Disintegrations with Mariner Books HarperCollins at the end of April 2025.

The film adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s (NWP 2011) novel Nightbitch opened the third annual ReFocus Film Festival in Iowa City in October. The film, starring Amy Adams and written and directed by Marielle Heller, was released by Searchlight Pictures in December.

A throwback to NWP alumni at the NWP House dedication weekend in 2023. From left to right: Logan Naylor, Sarah Khatry, Sanjna Singh, and Martha Strawbridge.