We regret the passing, on April 11, 2024, of the distinguished Romanian author and critic Dan Cristea, who served as the editor in chief of the Luceafărul de Dimineață cultural monthly. In addition to being an alum of the 1985 Fall Residency, Cristea received his PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Iowa.
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September 2014: The International Writing Program at the University of Iowa will open a new Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on the craft of writing fiction. This course will be offered completely free and is open to anyone who wishes to register.
Instructors
This MOOC will be taught by Christopher Merrill, Director of the International Writing Program, Professor of English at the University of Iowa, and author of six collections of poetry, five works of nonfiction, and many works of translation; and R. Clifton Spargo, Dixon Professor of Creative Writing at Wittenberg University, novelist, short story writer, and cultural critic.
MOOC Description
How Writers Write Fiction 2014 will be taught in English as follows: each week, instructors Merrill and Spargo will post a new video class. In this video class, they will introduce two or three short video lectures given by successful authors of fiction. Each week, the video class will be followed by a set of writing assignments. These assignments will invite you to write fiction, post your work to the MOOC website, and engage in community feedback with your fellow writers. Each week, a team of teaching moderators will lead live discussions of the video topics and the challenges of the writing assignments around the clock in the MOOC discussion forum.
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