Overview
2023 marked the third year in a row that the Between the Lines (BTL) Program was held virtually. This year’s program is made possible by the generous support from the Cultural Programs Division of the U.S. Department of State, and the dedication of individuals that support the program’s mission. 28 students aged 15-18 connected to engage in our dynamic and culturally enriching programming for this 15th session of BTL: Peace and the Writing Experience. These students hailed from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Ghana, India, Lebanon, Pakistan, South Africa, United States, and Zimbabwe.
The participants were asked to wander outside the familiar borders of their cultures, to travel virtually into the lives and literature of their cohorts. The participants were encouraged to be vulnerable and brave, to take risks and throw themselves headlong into every challenge and adventure that comes with the art of writing. Each writers met every moment with courage, ingenuity, and passion.
One highlight of this session was the special seminars, where our students enhanced their writing skills by exploring various creative mediums. Leading these sessions were esteemed guest instructors Hera Naguib, Camisha Jones, Arinze Ifeakandu, Esther Ifesinachi, Moriana Delgado, Saleem Hue Penny, Jerry Lee Davis, and Henry Lien. Each instructor brought their unique expertise to the table, guiding the students through a range of compelling topics and themes. Camisha Jones delved into 'Poetry and Disability,' offering insights into how poetry can articulate the lived experiences of people with disabilities. Moriana Delgado presented 'Poetry as the Architecture of Interrogation,' encouraging students to use poetic forms to question and investigate complex ideas. Jerry Lee Davis and Henry Lien introduced the usage of meditation as a tool for creative writing, demonstrating how mindfulness practices can deepen the writing process. These seminars provided students with diverse perspectives and techniques, enriching their writing journeys and broadening their understanding of how different artistic disciplines can intersect with and enhance their literary work.
2023 Session dates & Anthology:
Between the Lines: Peace and the Writing Experience: July 8–July 21, 2023
Read the session Anthology
Meet the Instructors
Peace and the Writing Experience
Rumena Bužarovska
Rumena Bužarovska is a fiction writer and literary translator. An author of four volumes of short stories translated into more than ten languages, her book My Husband has been adapted into three stage productions in Ljubljana, Belgrade and Skopje. A 2018 resident of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, she is a professor of American literature and translation at the Ss Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. She is the co-author and co-organizer of the women’s storytelling initiative PeachPreach. (IWP Fall Resident ’18, BTL faculty ’20, ’21, 22 North Macedonia)
Mary Hickman
Mary Hickman was born in Idaho and grew up in China and Taiwan. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. Hickman is the author of two books of poems, This Is the Homeland (Ahsahta Press, 2015) and Rayfish (Omnidawn Publishing, 2017), which won the James Laughlin Award, given by the Academy of American Poets and chosen by Ellen Bass, Jericho Brown, and Carmen Giménez Smith. An assistant professor at Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln, Nebraska, she also teaches in (and loves!) the University of Iowa International Writing Program’s Between the Lines exchange program. (BTL Faculty ’15, ’16, ’17, ’20, ’21, 22 U.S.)
Vladimir Poleganov
Vladimir Poleganov is the author of one collection of short stories, The Deconstruction of Thomas S (2013, St. Kliment Ohridski University Press) and one novel, The Other Dream (2016, Colibri), which won the Helikon Award for Best Fiction Book of the Year in 2017. His short stories have appeared in various literary magazines in Bulgaria and abroad. “The Birds”, a short story, was featured in Dalkey Archive Press’ anthology Best European Fiction 2016. In 2016, he participated in the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program. This was followed by residencies in Shanghai and Sun Yat-sen University in China. He has translated novels by writers such as Thomas Pynchon, George Saunders, Octavia E. Butler, and Peter Beagle into Bulgarian. In 2020, his translation of George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo won the Association of Bulgarian Translators Prize. He is currently working on a PhD in Bulgarian literature at Sofia University where he also teaches courses on creative writing and fantastic literature. (IWP Fall Resident ’16, BTL faculty ’20, ’21, and 22 Bulgaria)
Rochelle Potkar
Rochelle Potkar is a fictionist, poet, and screenwriter. Rochelle is an alumna of Iowa’s International Writing Program (2015) and a Charles Wallace Writer’s fellow, University of Stirling (2017). Author of Four Degrees of Separation and Paper Asylum, which was shortlisted for the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize 2020. She had her poetry film Skirt featured on Shonda Rhimes’ Shondaland. Her short story collection Bombay Hangovers was released in 2021. Widely-anthologized, a few of her poems and stories have won prizes. Her first screenplay was a quarter-finalist at the Atlanta Film Festival Screenwriting competition 2020. (IWP Fall Resident ’15, Summer Institute Mentor ’19, India)
Tariro Ndoro
Tariro Ndoro is the author of the poetry collection Agringada: Like a Gringa, Like a Foreigner (2019), which won the inaugural NAMA Award for Outstanding Poetry Book from Zimbabwe's National Arts Council. A finalist in several other poetry competitions, she has had her work anthologized and translated. Ndoro has a BSc in Microbiology and an M.A. in Creative Writing. (IWP Spring Residency ’21, Harare)