2009 Between the Lines

2009's Between the Lines was the first to take place on the University of Iowa campus. Twelve students from Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, and Syria joined 76 Iowa Young Writers' Studio participants in our version of "summer camp" -- where writing and literature, not hikes and campfires, are the main focus. BTL students attended morning English-language seminars with their IYWS peers, and an afternoon Arabic-language creative writing workshop (led by teachers and IWP alumni Tarek Eltayeb and Iman Humaydan). They took time out for fun as well, visiting Adventureland (an amusement park) and a bowling alley, among other places.

The Stretch writing exercise starts each weekday.

Students experimented with different forms of creative writing at the Arabic-language workshop.

Showing off skills at the Arabic-language workshop.

BTL students shared their favorite Arabic-language authors with IYWS students.

In this Stretch exercise, students had to create sentences with words that were taped on their foreheads.

For several BTL students, this was their first time in a bowling alley.

It's not a photography mistake...this is what BTL students look like in the funhouse mirror at Adventureland.

BTL class of 2009. Standing, left to right: Iman Humaydan (faculty, Lebanon), Christopher Merrill (IWP director), Tarek Eltayeb (faculty, Austria), Zaid Al-Nassir (student, Jordan), Soumer Daghastani (chaperone, Syria), Bashar Al-Sawaftah (student, Jordan), Nael Roby (student, Israel), Ahmad Ezery (student, Israel), Majd Iwidat (student, Palestinian Authority), Bana Aassy (student, Israel). Kneeling/sitting, left to right: Basima Takrouri (chaperone, Palestinian Authority), Irene Ghattas (student, Palestinian Authority), Nadia Tellawi (chaperone, Jordan), Hussein Youneiss (student, Lebanon), Asma Abu Dahab (chaperone, Jordan), Lora Abaza (student, Syria), Nadia El Malt (student, Lebanon), Yara Abou Fakher (student, Syria), Iya Ghassib (student, Jordan).

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Excerpts from the forthcoming volume of poems Exhausted on the Cross by Najwan DARWISH, in Kareem James Abu-Zeid’s translation from the Arabic and superbly introduced, can be read at The Paris Review blog.
Read and watch a lovely remembrance of Marvin BELL, Iowa’s first Poet Laureate, devoted friend of IWP, a mensch.
One of the four 2020 Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Big Other magazine, recognizing “innovative writers who shape the conversation about literary art, about language, form, structure, style,” goes to the distinguished Chinese novelist Can Xue 残雪.
Fiction writer and journalist THAWDA Aye Lei forwards a call for solidarity and protest by 125 independent Myanma writers against the military’s overthrow on 2/1/21, of a democratically elected government and the subsequent massive detentions. A call for release of those detained and for a reinstatement of Myanmar's democratically elected government has also been issued by PEN International.
For her novel Liebe um Liebe, Dragica RAJČIĆ is among this year's recipients of the significant Schweitzer Literaturpreis.

2009 Between the Lines

Between the Lines

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