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News, Publications, and Awards
Garth Greenwell wins 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Jenny George, Daniel Khalastchi and Jerald Walker are finalists for 2025 PEN Literary Awards Jamel Brinkley and Charles D'Ambrosio awarded Academy of Arts and Letters awards Jamel Brinkley wins 2024 Maya Angelou Book Award Juan Felipe Herrera awarded 2024 MacArthur Genius Grant Ruthvika Rao shortlisted for the Center For Fiction First Novel Prize Elizabeth Willis and m.s. RedCherries longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award in Poetry Tony Tulathimutte longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award in Fiction
The Latest Alumni Updates
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Wednesday, April 8, 2026
Thursday! 4/9 at 8pm in the Frank Conroy Reading Room at Dey House/Glenn Schaeffer Library, Visiting faculty members Kai Ihns and Tony Tulathimutte will read from their work events.uiowa.edu/event/36581
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Wednesday, April 8, 2026
Tonight! 4/8 at 7 p.m. in Prairie Lights bookstore, Daniel Poppick will read from his new novel, 'The Copywriter' events.uiowa.edu/event/37043
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Wednesday, April 8, 2026
Congratulations to Francis Hamit on winning the Literary Titan Gold Book award for 'Out Of Step - Part One, A Memoir of the Vietnam War' https://literarytitan.com/2026/02/11/we-are-not-monsters/
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Monday, April 6, 2026
Varsity Cinema in Des Moines, IA will host the April 29, 7pm premiere of 'Giving Back Breath', a 20-minute documentary film and Q&A featuring Dr. Mike Welsh, Grace Lidgett, Workshop poet William O’Neal II, and filmmakers Courtney Crowder and Chad Cohen https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/local/columnists/courtney-crowder/2026/04/06/documentary-premiere-giving-back-breath-varsity-cinema/88983516007/
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Monday, April 6, 2026
Congratulations to Adedayo Agarau, Winner of the 2026 Nossrat Yassini Poetry Prize! https://thebritishblacklist.co.uk/out-of-africa-nigerian-poet-adedayo-agarau-wins-2026-nossrat-yassini-poetry-prize/
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Monday, April 6, 2026
Tuesday! April 7th at 7pm in the English-Philosophy Building,
Room 304, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Postgraduate Visiting Writers Josh Balicki (fiction), Eli Campbell (playwriting), Spencer Jones (nonfiction), & Brian Orozco (poetry) will present their writing events.uiowa.edu/event/36390
Alumni News
Iowa Writers Revisit Their Origin Stories in Sad Me of the Past Podcast
Friday, October 17, 2025
Iowa Writers’ Workshop student, alumna receive grants from James Patterson to finish books
Thursday, September 11, 2025
We love hearing from alumni! If you have news to share, reach out to us!