Iowa : U.S. Literary Powerhouse

petrolino
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"People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore.” - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

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Iowa : U.S. Literary Powerhouse May 13, 2020 19:54:38 GMT politicidal and spiderwort like this

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Post by petrolino on May 13, 2020 19:54:38 GMT

'City Of Literature : A Film About The History Of Creative Writing In Iowa City'

Iowa & her neighbours

Novelist, war correspondent & left-wing radical Josephine Herbst of Sioux City, Iowa, with Florence Hermann & John Herrmann in 1929, against the backdrop of Lake Michigan

The University of Iowa’s Pentacrest in 1958

'Philip Roth, the author of award-winning books including Portnoy's Complaint and American Pastoral had deep ties to Iowa City and the University of Iowa.
He began his literary career in college. After briefly attending Rutgers University, Roth studied at Bucknell University, where he launched the magazine Et Cetera. Some of his early short stories were featured in the publication. After graduating in 1954, Roth served in the U.S. Army. He continued to write as a soldier. After his service, he attended University of Chicago, where he earned a master's degree in English literature.
Roth served as a visiting professor at the Writers' Workshop from 1960 to 1962.'

- The University Of Iowa ('The Writing University')

Quad Cities horror author Linnea Quigley of Davenport, Iowa

Iowa Writers' Workshop : The Pulitzer Machine In Action

Fiction

Robert Penn Warren, 1947 Pulitzer for All the King's Men, former faculty member.
Wallace Stegner, 1972 Pulitzer for Angle of Repose, MA, 1932; PhD, English, 1935.
James Alan McPherson, 1977 Pulitzer for Elbow Room, MFA, 1969; former faculty member.
John Cheever, 1979 Pulitzer for The Stories of John Cheever, former faculty member.
Jane Smiley, 1992 Pulitzer for A Thousand Acres, MA, 1975; MFA, English, 1976; PhD, English, 1978.
Philip Roth, 1998 Pulitzer for American Pastoral, former faculty member.
Michael Cunningham, 1999 Pulitzer for The Hours, MFA, English, 1980.
Marilynne Robinson, 2005 Pulitzer for Gilead, emeritus faculty member.
Paul Harding, 2010 Pulitzer for Tinkers, MFA, English, 2000.
Andrew Sean Greer, 2018 Pulitzer for Less, former visiting faculty member.
Flannery O'Connor, 1972 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction for Complete Stories
Madhuri Vijay, India, 2019 JCB Prize for Literature for The Far Field

Journalism

Tracy Kidder, 1982 Pulitzer in general nonfiction for The Soul of a New Machine, MFA, 1974.

Poetry

Karl Shapiro, 1945 Pulitzer for V-Letter and Other Poems, former faculty member.
Robert Lowell, 1947 Pulitzer for Lord Weary's Castle, 1974 Pulitzer for The Dolphin, former faculty member.
Robert Penn Warren, 1958 Pulitzer for Poems 1954–56, Now and Then, 1980 Pulitzer for Poems 1976–78, former faculty member.
W. D. Snodgrass, 1960 Pulitzer for Heart's Needle, BA, 1949; MA, 1951; MFA, 1953.
John Berryman, 1965 Pulitzer for 77 Dream Songs, former faculty member.
Anthony Hecht, 1968 Pulitzer for The Hard Hours, attended Workshop but did not graduate.
Donald Justice, 1980 Pulitzer for Selected Poems, alumnus and former faculty member.
Carolyn Kizer, 1985 Pulitzer for Yin, former faculty member.
Rita Dove, 1987 Pulitzer for Thomas and Beulah, MFA, 1977.
Mona Van Duyn, 1991 Pulitzer for Near Changes, MA, English, 1943.
James Tate, 1992 Pulitzer for Selected Poems, MFA, 1967.
Louise Glück, 1993 Pulitzer for The Wild Iris, former faculty member.
Philip Levine, 1995 Pulitzer for The Simple Truth, MFA, 1957; former faculty member.
Jorie Graham, 1996 Pulitzer for The Dream of the Unified Field, MFA, English, 1978; former faculty member.
Charles Wright, 1998 Pulitzer for Black Zodiac, MFA, 1963.
Mark Strand, 1999 Pulitzer for Blizzard of One, MA, 1962; former faculty member.
Robert Hass, 2008 Pulitzer for Time and Materials, frequent visiting faculty member.
Philip Schultz, 2008 Pulitzer for Failure, MFA, English, 1971.

Natalia Reyes, an MFA student in the world-renowned Iowa Writers’ Workshop, has received a 2018 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. The fellowship will allow Reyes to focus entirely on her writing while at Iowa. She is the second Workshop writer to receive the prestigious award. Photo by Tim Schoon.

'Clarinet Marmalade' - Bix Beiderbecke (of Davenport, Iowa)

Last Edit: May 14, 2020 14:05:29 GMT by petrolino

"Movies are the enemy of the novel because they are replacing novels. Novelists shouldn’t write for the movies, unless, of course, they discover they’re no good at writing novels." - John Irving

spiderwort
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Iowa : U.S. Literary Powerhouse May 19, 2020 21:27:41 GMT petrolino likes this

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Post by spiderwort on May 19, 2020 21:27:41 GMT

Thanks for the great post, petrolino. I love Iowa City. Lots of very interesting, smart, and talented people there. And the list of writers who didn't win Pulitzers but still attended the Workshop is pretty phenomenal, including the likes of John Irving, Robert Bly, Ann Patchett, Frank Conroy, and John Gardner, out of so many more. And the teachers - oh, what an amazing list that is, including Kurt Vonnegut Jr, Marilyn Robinson, Nelson Algren, Philip Roth, Nicholas Meyer, (and Frank Conroy, John Irving, & Jane Smiley after they attended the workshop and achieved literary success).

Many of my maternal ancestors lived in Iowa, among them one novelist, my third cousin, Phil Stong, who grew up about an hour south of Iowa City and is remembered for writing the novel, "State Fair." And, no, he didn't attend the Workshop, because it didn't exist at that time.

Anyway, thanks for the wonderful post and for the reminder that the heartland of the U.S. has produced some really great talents. I would love to see that film. Do you know where I can find it?

P.S. I that love Iowa City is divided by a river that runs through it. And the Drama School is right on the river. Oh, now you've got me wanting to visit there again!

Last Edit: May 19, 2020 21:59:04 GMT by spiderwort

petrolino
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"People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore.” - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

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Iowa : U.S. Literary Powerhouse May 20, 2020 14:54:25 GMT spiderwort likes this

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Post by petrolino on May 20, 2020 14:54:25 GMT

May 19, 2020 21:27:41 GMT spiderwort said:

Thanks for the great post, petrolino. I love Iowa City. Lots of very interesting, smart, and talented people there. And the list of writers who didn't win Pulitzers but still attended the Workshop is pretty phenomenal, including the likes of John Irving, Robert Bly, Ann Patchett, Frank Conroy, and John Gardner, out of so many more. And the teachers - oh, what an amazing list that is, including Kurt Vonnegut Jr, Marilyn Robinson, Nelson Algren, Philip Roth, Nicholas Meyer, (and Frank Conroy, John Irving, & Jane Smiley after they attended the workshop and achieved literary success).

Many of my maternal ancestors lived in Iowa, among them one novelist, my third cousin, Phil Stong, who grew up about an hour south of Iowa City and is remembered for writing the novel, "State Fair." And, no, he didn't attend the Workshop, because it didn't exist at that time.

Anyway, thanks for the wonderful post and for the reminder that the heartland of the U.S. has produced some really great talents. I would love to see that film. Do you know where I can find it?

P.S. I that love Iowa City is divided by a river that runs through it. And the Drama School is right on the river. Oh, now you've got me wanting to visit there again!

Hi spiderwort. It's funny how my ancestors on my paternal side went to Massachusetts to work in publishing, and some of your maternal ancestors were literary-minded folks from Iowa. I remember you told me that of the 7 U.S. states I said I'd most like to visit on a round trip - Ohio - Michigan - Indiana - Wisconsin - Minnesota - Iowa - Illinois - that you'd visited them all, and Iowa was your favourite. I'd like to visit Davenport and Dubuque, for sure.

So Walter Lang's musical 'State Fair' (1945), which marked the first pairing of longtime friends and collaborators Dana Andrews and Jeanne Crain, is based on a 1932 novel by Phil Strong. There's several other films listed on imdb that are adaptations of his novels, including a film I've not seen called 'Village Tale' (1935), which sounds like one I might enjoy as I'm a fan of director John Cromwell.

When you add in those attendees and teachers to the mix, that's a formidable line-up of writing talent operating in Iowa. Thanks for pulling out some names. They include some of my all-time favourite writers, as my IMDB2 signatures suggest.

I've seen a walk around Iowa City on youtube, it was just a few minutes long, but I felt like I was there. It looked peaceful, sleepy and picturesque, like some of the more remote New England locations writers are traditionally drawn to.

Here's the film from the University of Iowa and the Iowa Arts Council, 'City Of Literature', which is screening on youtube; if I turn up anything else, I'll post it here ... hope you get to see Iowa City again some time soon (and hope you're doing okay with all that's currently going on in the world)!

'City Of Literature' (2012)

Last Edit: May 20, 2020 14:57:47 GMT by petrolino

"Movies are the enemy of the novel because they are replacing novels. Novelists shouldn’t write for the movies, unless, of course, they discover they’re no good at writing novels." - John Irving

spiderwort
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Likes: 9,318

Iowa : U.S. Literary Powerhouse May 21, 2020 4:10:35 GMT petrolino likes this

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Post by spiderwort on May 21, 2020 4:10:35 GMT

May 20, 2020 14:54:25 GMT petrolino said:

Here's the film from the University of Iowa and the Iowa Arts Council, 'City Of Literature', which is screening on youtube; if I turn up anything else, I'll post it here ... hope you get to see Iowa City again some time soon (and hope you're doing okay with all that's currently going on in the world)!

'City Of Literature' (2012)

Hi, petrolino. I just finished watching the film, and I can't thank you enough for providing it. Loved it! It was an absolute joy to see - a wonderful production that really does justice to the creative landscape of Iowa City. And it brought back a lot of memories for me, not least the Prairie Lights Bookstore. Wonderful place to visit and hang out and see writers read their works. The significance of the Workshop cannot be over emphasized, in my opinion. It's on a par with the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, though that isn't academic and does predate it. But the Workshop changed the way writing was thought about in American universities back in the day, to say nothing of turning out some phenomenal writers.

Thanks again for the thread, the film, and your wonderful comments in general. Always a pleasure. And I hope you are doing okay out there in the crazy world today. It's a bit of a dystopian nightmare, for sure.

petrolino
Revered Member

"People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore.” - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

@petrolino
Posts: 27,822
Likes: 21,321

Iowa : U.S. Literary Powerhouse May 21, 2020 10:36:01 GMT spiderwort likes this

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Post by petrolino on May 21, 2020 10:36:01 GMT

May 21, 2020 4:10:35 GMT spiderwort said:

May 20, 2020 14:54:25 GMT petrolino said:

Here's the film from the University of Iowa and the Iowa Arts Council, 'City Of Literature', which is screening on youtube; if I turn up anything else, I'll post it here ... hope you get to see Iowa City again some time soon (and hope you're doing okay with all that's currently going on in the world)!

'City Of Literature' (2012)

Hi, petrolino. I just finished watching the film, and I can't thank you enough for providing it. Loved it! It was an absolute joy to see - a wonderful production that really does justice to the creative landscape of Iowa City. And it brought back a lot of memories for me, not least the Prairie Lights Bookstore. Wonderful place to visit and hang out and see writers read their works. The significance of the Workshop cannot be over emphasized, in my opinion. It's on a par with the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, though that isn't academic and does predate it. But the Workshop changed the way writing was thought about in American universities back in the day, to say nothing of turning out some phenomenal writers.

Thanks again for the thread, the film, and your wonderful comments in general. Always a pleasure. And I hope you are doing okay out there in the crazy world today. It's a bit of a dystopian nightmare, for sure.

I'm doing good thanks. I enjoyed the film too - an hour well spent, especially when they allow us all to see it on a platform like youtube.

"Movies are the enemy of the novel because they are replacing novels. Novelists shouldn’t write for the movies, unless, of course, they discover they’re no good at writing novels." - John Irving