« Sean Scully, Artist (Sean Scully: Wall of Light is on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from 9-26-06 to 1-15-07), 10-20-06 | Main | Anne Strauss, Associate Curator in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art, 10-27-06 »
October 27, 2006
Professor Christopher Merrill, Director of the International Writing Program, The University of Iowa, 10-27-06
Christopher Merrill has published four collections of poetry, including Brilliant Water and Watch Fire, for which he received the Peter I. B. Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets; translations of Aleš Debeljak’s Anxious Moments and The City and the Child; several edited volumes, among them, The Forgotten Language: Contemporary Poets and Nature and From the Faraway Nearby: Georgia O’Keeffe as Icon; and four books of nonfiction, The Grass of Another Country: A Journey Through the World of Soccer, The Old Bridge: The Third Balkan War and the Age of the Refugee, Only the Nails Remain: Scenes from the Balkan Wars, and Things of the Hidden God: Journey to the Holy Mountain. His work has been translated into 20 languages.
He has held the William H. Jenks Chair in Contemporary Letters at the College of the Holy Cross, and now directs the International Writing Program at The University of Iowa.
The principal design of the International Writing Program at The University of Iowa (IWP) is threefold: to introduce talented individuals to American life; to enable these individuals to take part in American university life; and to provide writers with time, in a setting congenial to their efforts, for the production of literary work. Since 1967, over a thousand writers from more than 115 countries have attended the IWP at the University of Iowa. The project is designed for established and emerging creative writers — poets, fiction writers, dramatists, and non-fiction writers.
The University of Iowa is the nation’s premier center for creative writing. Giving and attending talks and readings, and meeting with well-known and emerging visiting American writers give the international writers broad exposure to currents in American literature. IWP also strives to give each writer the opportunity to present his or her work in a public forum. Televised and radio interviews with individuals and groups of writers are broadcast in the Iowa City and university communities.
Posted by David Lemberg at October 27, 2006 12:15 PM Return to ARTSCAPE home page