In the 21st century, perhaps Jane Austen would write: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that cat videos are even more popular than porn.” Our fascination for other creatures is more than a curiosity about different species. It also tells us something about ourselves.

In this Eleventh Hour presentation, Charles Holdefer will consider how animals have served writers in their exploration of what it means to be human. He’ll look at excerpts from Mary Oliver, Leo Tolstoy and others, with an...

Mark your calendar for our 100-Word Microstory Contest — a free online writing competition for a variety of age groups. You don’t have to be an Iowa Writers’ Workshop grad — or even have participated in a flash writing contest before — to join in the fun. Just create a story in 100 words or less that uses one of two specific writing prompts. We will announce the writing prompts here on Monday, July 15, 2024, at 9 a.m. CDT.

Charles Holdefer will read from his new collection of stories, Ivan the Terrible Goes on a Family Picnic. "Did the Russians invent baseball? Is there a connection between Babe Ruth’s cross-dressing and Gertrude Stein’s secret mission to New York? What does history tell us about what lies beyond heaven? From the American heartland to Hiroshima, to Paris, to shopping malls and caves with prehistoric art, Ivan the Terrible Goes on a Family Picnic is a wild ride across generations and frontiers of...

We all know, read, and send our writing to literary magazines and journals, and for many of us, publication in their pages is the first time we see our work in print, our first professional nod. But where did this practice come from? Has the mission of a literary journal changed or stayed the same over time? Furthermore, who are these editors that writers are trying to impress? What makes one journal more renowned or popular than another? In this lecture, we’ll consider the literary journal as a...