Writers' Workshop

In this panel, writers will discuss place and setting as key in many kinds of writing. They will explore the following questions: How do you convey a sense of place or paint a unique landscape? In what ways does location contribute to your writing? Can a literary work truly be "universal," or will place always determine how a piece is understood? Featuring: Forrest Gander, Catarina Gomes (International Writing Program), Nurit Kasztelan (International Writing Program), Chris Offutt, and Pervin...

At Noon, The Iowa City Book Festival Presents Writers’ Workshop Faculty member Elizabeth Willis, who will read from Liontaming in America (New Directions, 2024), a hybrid work engaged with American belief and relationship structures, theatre, activism, and film. This work has been Longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry. "In this vast and masterful book, Elizabeth Willis lays personal claim to the terror unleashed by John Winthrop’s prophecy ‘wee shall be made a story.’ And it’s...

With his signature crackling prose, literary master Chris Offutt has staked out his own territory in crime fiction, a place of familial allegiances, old wounds, and revenge — the code of the hills. His new book, a sharp, twisty southern noir with echoes of James Sallis and Daniel Woodrell, will force Mick to face up to the way of life he thought he’d escaped. Chris Offutt is the author of two collections of short stories, three memoirs, and six novels. His books have been translated into 12...