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  • Sonny Mehta

    The Iowa Writers' Workshop Is Pleased to Announce Sonny Mehta Fellowships in Creative Writing

    June 21, 2021

    Sonny Mehta was, by vocation, a reader, and his impact on the world’s literary landscape was extraordinary. During his 32-year career as president then editor-in-chief at Alfred A. Knopf (until his death in 2019), he edited and published books by a long list of extraordinary authors, including Toni Morrison, Kazuo Ishiguro, Alice Munro, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez—the full list spans nine Nobel laureates, 28 Pulitzer Prize winners, and nine National Book Award winners.

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  • Lan Samantha Chang

    Chang named Berlin Prize fellow

    May 12, 2021

    As program director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Lan Samantha Chang is used to calling people with good news. But this time, the Elizabeth M. Stanley Professor in the Arts was the one who received the call. Chang was named a 2021-22 Berlin Prize fellow, an honor awarded to scholars, writers, and artists who represent the highest standards of excellence in their field. The prize, presented by the American Academy in Berlin, Germany, provides a semester-long fellowship for recipients to pursue their creative work.

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  • Seven writers with Iowa ties earn prestigious literary honors

    April 21, 2021

    The American Academy of Arts and Letters has honored five University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduates and a former visiting faculty member with its 2021 awards in literature, while another workshop alumna was elected to membership in the elite group. The awards, to be presented virtually May 19, recognize both established and emerging writers of fiction, nonfiction, drama, and poetry. Workshop alumni honored include:

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  • Stephen Kuusisto, Andrea Cohen, Sandra Lim,Tracie Morris, Alexander Chee

    2021 Guggenheim Fellowships Awarded to Alexander Chee, Andrea Cohen, Stephen Kuusisto, Sandra Lim and Tracie Morris

    April 08, 2021

    Workshop alumni Alexander Chee (MFA, 1994), Andrea Cohen (MFA, 1985), Stephen Kuusisto (MFA, 1980), Sandra Lim (MFA, 2004), and Tracie Morris (Professor, Poetry) are among 184 artists, writers, scholars and scientists awarded fellowships this year from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Cohen, Kuusisto, Lim and Morris are recognized in the field of poetry; and Chee in the field of General Nonfiction.

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  • Toby Altman

    Toby Altman Awarded 2021 NEA Literature Fellowship in Poetry

    February 04, 2021

    Congratulations to Workshop alumnus, Toby Altman, among the thirty-six poets granted a 2021 Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA Literature Fellowships program offers $25,000 grants in prose and poetry to published creative writers that enable the recipients to set aside time for writing, research, travel and general career advancement. The Literature Fellowships program operates on a two-year cycle with fellowships in prose and poetry available in alternating years.

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