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.

About the Writers' Workshop

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Upcoming Events

Live from Prairie Lights | Erika Meitner & Kiki Petrosino — 'Assembled Audience' & 'Perfect Italian' promotional image

Live from Prairie Lights | Erika Meitner & Kiki Petrosino — 'Assembled Audience' & 'Perfect Italian'

Thursday, October 15, 2026 7:00pm
Prairie Lights Books
Erika Meitner & Workshop alumnus Kiki Petrosino will read from their new books, 'Assembled Audience' and 'Perfect Italian'
Iowa City Book Festival | Tree Tour: Literary Grove at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop promotional image

Iowa City Book Festival | Tree Tour: Literary Grove at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop

Monday, October 19, 2026 12:00pm
Dey House

Explore the Literary Grove with University of Iowa Arborist Andy Dahl
Take a guided stroll through the Literary Grove, where each tree has a story to tell. Arborist Andy Dahl will share the unique histories and literary connections of these remarkable trees, many linked to celebrated authors from the world-renowned Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Iowa City Book Festival & Geneva Lecture Series | Marilynne Robinson and Nicholas Kristof promotional image

Iowa City Book Festival & Geneva Lecture Series | Marilynne Robinson and Nicholas Kristof

Monday, October 19, 2026 7:00pm
Macbride Hall

The following is copied from https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/marilynne-robinson-and-nicholas-kristof/:

How Can We Hope When It All Feels Hopeless? An evening with Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas Kristof and Marilynne Robinson

Marilynne Robinson is the author of the novels Housekeeping, Gilead, Home, Lila, and Jack. Gilead won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award, while Home received the Orange Prize for Fiction and Lila won the National Book Critics...

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Program News

A portrait of University of Iowa aluman Yiyun Li.

Pulitzer Prize winner Yiyun Li headlines Iowa’s Literary Legends Talk

Thursday, October 15, 2026
Iowa Magazine
The Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate returns to campus Oct. 23 to discuss her acclaimed memoir, Things in Nature Merely Grow.
A collage of books written by University of Iowa alumni.

Bookshelf picks: New releases from University of Iowa authors

Thursday, October 15, 2026
Iowa Magaine
Check out the latest must-read titles from the Writing University.
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.
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