A really lovely shout-out for several Iowa City bookshops appears among the Literary Boroughs series in Ploughshares:

Literary Boroughs 21: Iowa City 

Former Writher's Workshop Professor Passes Away

Former Writer's Workshop Professor Vance Bourjaily Dies

The author of A Game Men Play, Now Playing at Canterbury, and The Violated, among others. He published 10 novels altogether.

Bourjaily taught at the Workshop from 1957 to 1980, and worked with Kurt Vonnegut and Philip Roth during their time at the Workshop.

Our thoughts are with the family.

Writer's Workshop Up and Comers

The Lambda Literary Foundation recently announced its "Five New Queer Voices to Watch Out For" and two of our local Iowa City Writer's Workshop participants are on the list. Congratulations to Justin Torres and Michael Fauver.

The New Yorker Gives Iowa Recognition

Here's a nifty article that Nialle passed along to me, the New Yorker's "20 Under 40" list. This year is pretty cool because it includes six University of Iowa Writer's Workshop graduates. The six names to note are Chris Adrian, Daniel Alarcon, Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, Yiyun Li, Z.Z. Packer, and Salvatore Scibona. Congratulations to the writers.

Pulitzer Winner 2010 Announced

We have a special announcement for the Pulitzer Winner in fiction this year. Paul Harding won for his novel Tinkers, and, in a fun side note, Harding is a graduate of the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop.

The Pulitzer Winner in History is an appropriate book, especially for our times, Liaquat Ahamed's Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World.

For General Nonfiction this year, David E. Hoffman was awarded the Pulitzer for The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy.

And, last but not least, the Pulitzer in Poetry was awarded to Rae Armantrout for Versed.

Yale Younger Poets Prize 2008

The Yale Younger Poets Prize was awarded to a University of Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate this year. Arda Collins' The Waker's Corridor was chosen by Prize judge Louise Gluck.