We Wanted to Be Writers

We Wanted to Be Writers
Author: Eric Olsen
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing Inc.
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2011-08-16
Genre: House & Home
ISBN: 160239735X

"It was the best teaching-writing job I ever had." --John...

A Community of Writers

A Community of Writers
Author: Robert Dana
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Total Pages: 317
Release: 1999-04-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1587292769

With these words, written long before his Iowa Writers' Workshop became world famous, much imitated, and academically rich, Paul Engle captured the spirit behind his beloved workshop. Now, in this collection of essays by and about those writers who shared the energetic early years, Robert Dana presents a dynamic, informative tribute to Engle and his world. The book's three sections mingle myth and history with style and grace and no small amount of humor. The beginning essays are given over to memories of Paul Engle in his heyday. The second group focuses particularly on those teachers—Robert Lowell, John Berryman, Kurt Vonnegut, for example—who made the workshop hum on a day-to-day basis. Finally, the third section is devoted to storytelling: tall tales, vignettes, surprises, sober and not-so-sober moments. Engle's own essay, "The Writer and the Place," describes his "simple, and yet how reckless" conviction that "the creative imagination in all of the arts is as important, as congenial, and as necessary, as the historical study of all the arts." Today, of course, there are hundreds of writers' workshops, many of them founded and directed by graduates of the original Iowa workshop. But when Paul Engle arrived in Iowa there were exactly two. His indomitable nature and great persuasive powers, combined with his distinguished reputation as a poet, loomed large behind the enhancement of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. This volume of fine and witty essays reveals the enthusiasm and drive and sheer pleasure that went into Iowa's renowned workshop.

The Body of Brooklyn

The Body of Brooklyn
Author: David Lazar
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Total Pages: 181
Release: 2005-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1587294354

Even before the controversy that surrounded the publication of A Million Little Pieces, the question of truth has been at the heart of memoir. From Elie Wiesel to Benjamin Wilkomirski to David Sedaris, the veracity of writers' claims has been suspect. In this fascinating and timely collection of essays, leading writers meditate on the subject of truth in literary nonfiction. As David Lazar writes in his introduction, "How do we verify? Do we care to? (Do we dare to eat the apple of knowledge and say it's true? Or is it a peach?) Do we choose to? Is it a subcategory of faith? How do you respond when someone says, 'This is really true'? Why do they choose to say it then?" The past and the truth are slippery things, and the art of non-fiction writing requires the writer to shape as well as explore. In personal essays, meditations on the nature of memory, considerations of the genres of memoir, prose poetry, essay, fiction, and film, the contributors to this provocative collection attempt to find answers to the question of what truth in nonfiction means. Contributors: John D'Agata, Mark Doty, Su Friedrich, Joanna Frueh, Ray González, Vivian Gornick, Barbara Hammer, Kathryn Harrison, Marianne Hirsch, Wayne Koestenbaum, Leonard Kriegel, David Lazar, Alphonso Lingis, Paul Lisicky, Nancy Mairs, Nancy K. Miller, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Phyllis Rose, Oliver Sacks, David Shields, and Leo Spitzer.

A Lucky Man

A Lucky Man
Author: Jamel Brinkley
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2018-05-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1555979955

FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION In the nine expansive, searching stories of A Lucky Man, fathers and sons attempt to salvage relationships with friends and family members and confront mistakes made in the past. An imaginative young boy from the Bronx goes swimming with his group from day camp at a backyard pool in the suburbs, and faces the effects of power and privilege in ways he can barely grasp. A teen intent on proving himself a man through the all-night revel of J’Ouvert can’t help but look out for his impressionable younger brother. A pair of college boys on the prowl follow two girls home from a party and have to own the uncomfortable truth of their desires. And at a capoeira conference, two brothers grapple with how to tell the story of their family, caught in the dance of their painful, fractured history. Jamel Brinkley’s stories, in a debut that announces the arrival of a significant new voice, reflect the tenderness and vulnerability of black men and boys whose hopes sometimes betray them, especially in a world shaped by race, gender, and class—where luck may be the greatest fiction of all.

The Iowa Writers' Workshop

The Iowa Writers' Workshop
Author: Stephen Wilbers
Publisher: Iowa City : University of Iowa Press
Total Pages: 172
Release: 1980
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN:

Tracing the evolution of the writer's workshop, Wilbers depicts it as having roots in the midwestern regionalist literary movement of the late nineteenth century and in the university's writer's clubs of the same period. The quirky personalities of the individuals who contributed to its growth are revealed as also the pros and cons of students "learning" to write in an academic situation.

Iowa Authors and Their Works a Contribution Toward a Bibliography (Classic Reprint)

Iowa Authors and Their Works a Contribution Toward a Bibliography (Classic Reprint)
Author: Alice Marple
Publisher: Forgotten Books
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2017-11-29
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 9780332246352

Excerpt from Iowa Authors and Their Works a Contribution Toward a Bibliography The idea of such a list is not new. It remained, however, for Miss Marple to engage in its present exhaustive character. She has availed herself of the following aids: A list prepared by the late Hon. Theodore S. Parvin; a partial chronological list kindly loaned by Professor Selden L. Whitcomb, now of the University of Kansas; a list prepared by the Iowa Press and Authors Club; Some Recent Publications by Iowa Authors, current in the Iowa Journal of History and Politics; A list of books by Iowa Authors, by the Iowa Library Commission, 1904; the excellent collection of clippings upon, and of volumes by Iowa authors in the Iowa State Library. But her greatest aid was the books and pamphlets in the Historical Department itself, of which the collections of the Louis iana Purchase Commission, and the collection of Hon. Henry Stivers, of Osceola, Iowa, lately acquired, form a large portion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Iowa Curiosities

Iowa Curiosities
Author: Eric Jones
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2009-11-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 0762761601

Your round-trip ticket to the wildest, wackiest, most outrageous people, places, and things the Hawkeye State has to offer!