For more than 80 years writers have come to Iowa City to work on their manuscripts and to exchange ideas about writing and reading with each other and with the faculty. Many of them have gone on to publish award-winning work after graduating. With the spirit of an arts colony and the benefits of the research University of which we are a part, the Writers' Workshop continues to foster and to celebrate American literature in all its varied forms.

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Upcoming Events

Craft Talk by Wayne Koestenbaum promotional image

Craft Talk by Wayne Koestenbaum

Friday, October 9, 2026 2:00pm to 3:00pm
Nonfiction Writing House
Krause Series Craft Talk at the Nonfiction Writing Program

Live From Prairie Lights | IWP Sunday Afternoon Reading Series | Radu Vancu, Harumi Kawaguchi 川口晴美 , & Amber Esau, joined by Lizzie Cusick

Sunday, October 11, 2026 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Prairie Lights Books
Please join us for our annual IWP Sunday Afternoon Reading Series! This week’s event features IWP Residents Radu Vancu, Harumi Kawaguchi 川口晴美 , and Amber Esau, joined by recent Iowa Writers' Workshop graduate, Lizzie Cusick.
VIEWS Presents: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Reading & Q&A promotional image

VIEWS Presents: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Reading & Q&A

Monday, October 12, 2026 7:00pm to 8:00pm
English-Philosophy Building

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah was raised in Spring Valley, New York, and now lives in the Bronx. His debut collection, Friday Black, was a New York Times bestseller, won the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Award and the Dylan Thomas Prize. His first novel, Chain-Gang All-Stars, was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction, winner of the Inside Literary Prize, shortlisted...

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Program News

A portrait of Nicholas Boggs, who received the Truman Capote Literary Trust Award administered by the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop.

Nicholas Boggs receives 2026 Truman Capote Award from Writers' Workshop

Thursday, October 8, 2026
Iowa Now
Nicholas Boggs, a writer and assistant professor of English and creative writing at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, New York, has been selected as the 2026 recipient of the Truman Capote Literary Trust Award for Literary Criticism in Memory of Newton Arvin.
A portrait of University of Iowa alumna Brenda Hillman.

Iowa Writers’ Workshop alumna named finalist for National Book Award

Thursday, October 8, 2026
Sara Epstein Moninger
Iowa Now
Poet Brenda Hillman, who earned an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1976, is a 2026 finalist for the prestigious National Book Award.
A portrait of University of Iowa professor Matthew Neill Null.

Matthew Neill Null helps students find a distinctive voice

Thursday, October 1, 2026
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
The Iowa Writers’ Workshop alumnus and associate professor brings a unique approach to fiction and a commitment to helping students develop their own artistic voices.
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