The Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate returns to campus Oct. 23 to discuss her acclaimed memoir, Things in Nature Merely Grow.

Check out the latest must-read titles from the Writing University.

Nicholas Boggs, a writer and assistant professor of English and creative writing at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, New York, has been selected as the 2026 recipient of the Truman Capote Literary Trust Award for Literary Criticism in Memory of Newton Arvin.

Poet Brenda Hillman, who earned an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1976, is a 2026 finalist for the prestigious National Book Award.

The Iowa Writers’ Workshop alumnus and associate professor brings a unique approach to fiction and a commitment to helping students develop their own artistic voices.