Englert to hold flash writers-in-residence project

IOWA CITY - The Englert Theatre announces a new event held during this year's Iowa Arts Festival - the 'Flash Writers-in-Residence.”

Staged in the Englert tent throughout the festival, three local writers - essayist Ariel Lewiton and poets Nikki-Lee Birdsey and Montreux Rotholtz - will participate in live demonstrations of the writing process, as well as hold Q-&-A discussions on the craft of writing.

Part literary experiment, part performance art, the mini-residency will attempt to take one of the most private artistic processes - writing literature - and put it in the public view. The project also seeks to bridge the gap between Iowa City's esteemed literary community and the community at-large (all three of the participating writers attended University of Iowa master of fine arts programs).

'Writing and literature are such essential elements of the Iowa City experience, but the writing process is typically a very private and arduous endeavor,” says Englert Executive Director Andre Perry. 'Even the scores of writers we see everyday working on their literature in coffee shops around Iowa City are tucked away into their spaces with the aid of headphones. We see this project as an opportunity to present these wonderful writers in our town to the greater community. They are amazing writers but also extremely nice people - they won't bite.”

Iowa Arts Festival attendees can engage in the interactive Flash Writers-in-Residence exhibit in several ways: by brainstorming/'feeding” the artist words or ideas that may be incorporated into the finished work, by encouraging youth to write poetry of their own in the Englert tent's youth workstation, and by participating in informal Q-&-A sessions on the writing process with each writer at the end of her segment. Final works created at the event by the writers-in-residence will possibly be shared with the general public at a later date.