2016 South Africa Tour

 

Participants:

Kia CORTHRON’s first novel, The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter, will be published in 2016 by Seven Stories Press. Her plays have been produced by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Playwrights Horizons, Ensemble Studio Theatre, NY Theatre Workshop; in London by the Royal Court and Donmar Warehouse; regionally by Minneapolis’ Children’s Theatre, ATL/Humana, Mark Taper Forum, Alabama Shakespeare, Yale Rep, Huntington, NY Stage & Film, Baltimore's Center Stage, Goodman, Hartford Stage, and elsewhere. For her body of stage work she has been honored, among others, with the Otto Award (2016); the Windham Campbell Prize for Drama, the USArtists Jane Addams Fellowship and the Simon Great Plains Playwright Award. Residencies include the Bogliasco Foundation (Italy), Hawthornden Castle (Scotland), Bellagio (Italy), Dora Maar (France), MacDowell, Siena Arts Visiting Artist (Italy), and McKnight National Residency. Among her other awards are the Wachtmeister , the Columbia/Goodman Fellowship, a MacLean Foundation Award, an NEA, and a Kennedy Center Fund. For her TV work she received the Writers Guild membership, and the Edgar Allan Poe award for The Wire. She serves on the Dramatists Guild Council and is a member of the Authors Guild. Her website is www.kiacorthron-author.com.

USA

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.

Katori HALL is a playwright/performer. Her plays include The Mountaintop (2010 Olivier Award for Best New Play), Hurt Village (2011 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize), Children of Killers (National Theatre, UK and Castillo Theatre, NYC), Hoodoo Love (Cherry Lane Theatre), Remembrance (Women’s Project), Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, WHADDABLOODCLOT!!! (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Our Lady of Kibeho (Signature Theatre) and Pussy Valley (Mixed Blood). Among her many awards are the Lark Play Development Center Playwrights of New York, two Lecomte du Nouy Prizes from Lincoln Center, a NYFA Fellowship, the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, the Columbia University John Jay Award for Distinguished Professional Achievement and the Otto Rene Castillo Award for Political Theatre. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Guardian, Essence, and elsewhere; her collected plays have been published by Methuen Drama. Currently a member of the Residency Five at Signature Theatre Company in New York City, Katori will make her directing debut with a film adaptation of Hurt Village. Her website is www.katorihall.com.

Naomi JACKSON is the author of The Star Side of Bird Hill ( 2015), long-listed for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and an NAACP Image Award finalist. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, traveled to South Africa on a Fulbright scholarship, where she received an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town. Her work has appeared in literary journals and magazines in the United States and abroad. She is the recipient of residencies from the University of Pennsylvania’s Kelly Writers House, Hedgebrook, Vermont Studio Center, and the Camargo Foundation. Her website is www.naomi-jackson.com.

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

 

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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