Pop star Dua Lipa recommended UI professor Kaveh Akbar's book Martyr! as her September Monthly Read for her Service95 Book Club.

Tony Tulathimutte went from an unhappy career in Silicon Valley to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Now the acclaimed writer is helping University of Iowa students envision their own paths forward.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and one of the most influential figures in the history of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Robinson shaped a generation of writers over her 25-year tenure as the F. Wendell Miller Professor of English and Creative Writing.

Christopher Merrill has been named the 15th recipient of the Paul Engle Prize, presented by the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature organization.

Award-winning author and Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate Tony Tulathimutte is the inaugural recipient of the Jack Galef Literary Arts Award. Tulathimutte is a visiting faculty member in residence at the workshop this fall.

Yiyun Li (MFA '05) and Daniel Kraus take top honors; two other UI graduates were named finalists, including Scott Anderson (MFA 1993)

Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate Hajar Hussaini one of ten recipients of the 2026 Whiting Award, prestigious literary award for emerging writers

Guggenheim Fellows this year include three Workshop alumni: Suji Kwock Kim in Poetry, and Lucy Ives and Bret Anthony Johnston in Fiction.