Summer Institute

We are no longer accepting applications for this program.
The 2022 cohort was the final group to participate.

2019-2022: The Summer Institute (SI) was a two-week creative writing and cultural exchange program for participants age 18-22 from Pakistan, India, and the U.S. Due to the global coronavirus pandemic, the SI was held virtually in 2020 and 2021, with a final session taking place in person and on campus in the summer of 2022. This program was free for accepted applicants from all disciplines—the arts, humanities, sciences, and everything in between—and focused on creative writing and the power of narrative. Attendees took part in collaborative workshops focused on their creative work, in seminars to expand literary knowledge of diverse global literatures, in special seminars on the craft of writing, and in activities designed to forge new lines of understanding and shared purpose among its community of writers. The SI was an opportunity to see writing as a form of action—a personally-empowering skill that can be employed for social change.

The Summer Institute was supported by the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad.

 

"Had I not enrolled in the program, I never would have been exposed to the works of writers such as Alice Munro or Bharati Mukherjee. The global perspective on creative writing opened my eyes to new cultural perspectives and new writing techniques."
- 2020-21 participant

 

"I'll miss the writing and the lectures, but most of all I will miss the unconditional love and support i received from my IWP family. I will miss how much light this program has spread despite the impenetrable darkness of a hard year."
- 2020-21 participant

 

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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