IWP Staff

Christopher Merrill
Director
100 Shambaugh House

Christopher Merrill has published seven collections of poetry, including Watch Fire, for which he received the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets; many edited volumes and translations; and six books of nonfiction, among them, Only the Nails Remain: Scenes from the Balkan Wars, Things of the Hidden God: Journey to the Holy Mountain, The Tree of the Doves: Ceremony, Expedition, War, and Self-Portrait with Dogwood. His writings have been translated into nearly forty languages; his journalism appears widely; his honors include a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres from the French government, numerous translation awards, and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial and Ingram Merrill Foundations. As director of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa since 2000, Merrill has conducted cultural diplomacy missions to more than fifty countries. He served on the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO from 2011-2018, and in April 2012 President Barack Obama appointed him to the National Council on the Humanities. www.christophermerrillbooks.com

Shelly Criswell
Shelly Criswell
Fall Residency Coordinator
100 SHSE

Shelly Criswell (Fall Residency Coordinator) began her career teaching composition, writing, and research courses at the university level. For over a dozen years she was the Managing Editor at the nation’s oldest literary magazine, the North American Review. In her spare time, she considers herself a pretty serious at-home cook, a writer, a visual artist, and a super-fan of NPR (National Public Radio). She joined the IWP in 2020.

A portrait of Cate Dicharry.
Cate Dicharry
Executive Associate Director of Operations
100 Shambaugh House

Cate Dicharry received her MFA in Creative Writing from University of California, Riverside and later served as the IWP’s Youth Programs Coordinator. She became director of the Writing and Humanities Program at the University of Iowa’s Carver College of Medicine in 2019, serving also as managing editor of The Examined Life Journal and director of The Examined Life Conference. She now returns to the IWP as the executive associate director of operations. She is the author of the novel The Fine Art of Fucking Up, among other publications. 

A portrait of Monique Galpin.
Monique Galpin
Administrative Services Manager
100 Shambaugh House

Monique Galpin joins the IWP after a decade of administrative services with the Carver College of Medicine, where she worked in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and coordinated the Summer Health Professions Education Program (SHPEP), a pathway program for underrepresented undergraduate students.  She is a longtime member of the UI African American Council, and has been involved in community boards including FilmScene and Sankofa Outreach Connection. Her current favorite literary pursuit is helping her little one through the '1,000 Books Before Kindergarten' challenge with Iowa City Public Library.

Lauren Haldeman

The Writing University Webmaster Lauren Haldeman is the author of Instead of Dying (winner of the 2017 Colorado Prize for Poetry, Center for Literary Publishing, 2017), Calenday (Rescue Press, 2014) and the chapbook The Eccentricity is Zero (Digraph Press, 2014). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tin House, The Colorado Review, Fence, The Iowa Review and The Rumpus. A poet, web designer and comic book artist, she has taught in the U.S. as well as internationally, including a reading and lecture tour of South Africa sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. She has been a recipient of the 2015 Sustainable Arts Foundation Award, the Colorado Prize for Poetry and fellowships from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. You can find her online at http://laurenhaldeman.com.

Pamela Marston
Digital Learning Coordinator
100 Shambaugh House

Pamela Marston has taught literature and creative writing at university level for over twenty years, in hybrid, online, and campus course types. Her research areas have included 21st century literacies, environmental humanities, and art and politics. Her course design and course development consistently strives to include emerging genres and to promote inclusion.

A portrait of Mike Meginnis
Mike Meginnis
Communications Coordinator
100 Shambaugh House

Mike Meginnis received an MFA in Fiction from New Mexico State University, where he served for several years as managing editor of the literary magazine Puerto del Sol. He is the author of the novels Drowning Practice (2022, Ecco) and Fat Man and Little Boy (2014, Black Balloon). His story “Navigators” appeared in Best American Short Stories 2012. He has served in several positions at the University of Iowa, working to communicate with various audiences, plan events at every scale, and provide support to learners of many ages.

Oriogun_headshot_Cropped
Romeo Oriogun
Youth Programs Coordinator
100 Shambaugh House

Romeo Oriogun is a Nigerian poet, essayist, and the author of Sacrament of Bodies (2020), Nomad (2021) and The Gathering of Bastards (2023), as well as three chapbooks. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he has won the Nigeria Prize for Literature, the Alice Fay Di Castagnola Prize, the Brunel International African Poetry Prize, and was a finalist for the Lambda Prize for Gay Poetry. His poems have appeared in Poetry, The New Yorker, The Nation, Harvard Review, American Poetry Review, Narrative Magazine, The Common, and elsewhere, and are translated into several languages. As of 2023, he coordinates IWP’s youth programming.

Happening Now

  • Congratulations to our colleagues Jennifer Croft and Aron Aji, who are among those serving as judges for the National Book Awards this year, in their case in the category of translated literature.

  • Ranjit Hoskote’s speech at the 2024 Goa Literary Festival addresses the current situation in Gaza.

  • In NY Times, Bina Shah worries about the state of Pakistani—and American—democracy.

  • “I went to [Ayodhya] to think about what it means to be an Indian and a Hindu... ”  A new essay by critic and novelist Chandrahas Choudhury.

  • In the January 2024 iteration of the French/English non-fiction site Frictions, T J Benson writes about “Riding Afrobeats Across the World.” Also new, a next installment in the bilingual series featuring work by students from Paris VIII’s Creative Writing program and the University of Iowa’s NFW program.

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