Writers' Workshop: indelible legacy

By The Gazette Editorial Board

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When the Iowa Writers' Workshop was formed 75 years ago, it was rare for a university to grant graduate degrees for creative work.

It's much more common today, as writing and other artistic programs have flourished. Still, the workshop remains in a class all its own - as the country's oldest and most prestigious graduate writing program - a crucible for some of the most promising new writers of our time.

Alumni have published several thousand books and have earned nearly every major writing award, including the National Book Award, MacArthur “Genius Grants” and 17 Pulitzer Prizes. Three recent U.S. Poets Laureate are Iowa Writers' Workshop grads.

It would be difficult to imagine America's literary landscape without Writer's Workshop graduates or faculty members such as Flannery O'Connor, John Irving, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., T. Coraghessan Boyle, Marilynne Robinson, Ethan Canin and Jane Smiley; or workshop poets such as Robert Bly, Marvin Bell and Mary Swander, Iowa's current Poet Laureate.

Workshop alums have written for television shows and movies such as “The Sopranos” and “Deadwood.” Their work has been adapted into movies such as “Road to Perdition” and “The Hours.” In the past three-quarters of a century, the program has left an indelible mark on the literary world. But perhaps nowhere has it's impact been felt more strongly than in Iowa City.

“Around the world, ‘Iowa' is synonymous with writing,” as UI President Sally Mason told a Gazette reporter.

The Workshop's prestige lends international visibility to the University of Iowa. Its proximity alone is enough to entice some literature lovers and would-be writers to study there.

The Writer's Workshop was a key ingredient in Iowa City's designation as a UNESCO City of Literature - one of only four in the world. It's frequently cited as a reason Iowa City tops so many organizations' lists of best places to live, work and visit.

Its presence has helped foster a love of the written word in every segment of the community.

That's increasingly so under the direction of Writers' Workshop Director Lan Samantha Chang and after the City of Literature designation.

Through projects like Patient Voice, in which Writers' Workshop graduate students offered at least six weeks of free writing classes to people with chronic or mental illness, current students are further spreading workshop founders' once-radical belief that creative writing was a craft that could be nurtured - that it could be taught.

In the years ahead, Iowa City, and Iowans generally, should celebrate and capitalize on that reputation to provide more opportunities for students and the community.

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