It is high time for a Shambaugh House Roundup, in which we share news our associates, friends, and alumni, as well as a few choice bits from within the wall of Shambaugh House, home of the International Writing Program. As always, if you have news to share, send it our way and we'll include it in an upcoming post.

On Going Home is the name we've given to a short series of essays by our 2011 fall residents. We commissioned the pieces because we wanted to keep in touch and because we were curious to know what the process of returning home was like for authors who'd spent nearly three months in the U.S. writing, researching, travelling, and interacting with Americans. We also asked the authors to send us a photograph that somehow represented "home" in some fundamental way.

We’re proud to announce that the International Writing Program’s own director Christopher Merrill has been appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the National Council for the Humanities, the 26-member advisory body of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Created in 1965, the NEH supports learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities. Merrill replaces archaeologist Iris Love, whose term has expired, and he will serve until January 26, 2016.

One may quibble with the shading and proportions (and there is certainly a gross generalization or two); nevertheless, Tim Parks’ recent posting at the New York Review of Books, “the Writer’s Job,” offers a decent portrait of the pressures shaping modern American literary careers. The piece’s mix of acuity and personal bias is best displayed in the way he re-centers the commonly-accepted roots of what in the U.S. is often derisively called “the workshop story”:

On Going Home is the name we've given to a short series of essays by our 2011 fall residents. We commissioned the pieces because we wanted to keep in touch and because we were curious to know what the process of returning home was like for authors who'd spent nearly three months in the U.S. writing, researching, travelling, and interacting with Americans. We also asked the authors to send us a photograph that somehow represented "home" in some fundamental way.

Currently in its sixth year, the Mission Creek Festival annually brings writers, musicians, and comedians to town for a busy week of programming, including concerts, readings, question & answer sessions, and—new this year—events featuring food from local restaurants.

On Going Home

Forty-three years ago, four years married, expecting our first child, looking for somewhere to put down our roots. This house on the hill looked good then. With the patina of age and memories it looks even better now. 

Here, as the world turns and the generations roll over, our children bring their own giggling children to tumble down the same grassy slopes. Here in memory I hold Jim's hand as he slips into unconsciousness. "I know you want to hang on," I say. "But if it's too hard—it's okay to let go." And he does. This is home.

The morning of November 8th, 2011 was a drizzly one in Iowa City. Snow had been predicted for later in the week, but the IWP's fall residents were going to miss it as they were headed to Washington D.C. and New York City. As is does each year, the trip to the east coast would mark the official end of the IWP's fall residency.

Since last fall, a team of professionals from across divisions at the University of Iowa has been working with the creative and technical staff of the Moscow Art Theatre to produce Book Wings, a collaboratively staged live reading of commissioned work from eight accomplished Russian and American poets*, Maxim Amelin, Quan Barry, Linor Goralik, Terrance Hayes, Inga Kuznetsova, Dora Malech, Anna Russ, and Matthew Zapruder. 

We're overdue for a Shambaugh House Roundup, in which we share news from inside of Shambaugh House and from our associates, friends, and alumni. That said, here's a very full midwinter roundup for you. As always, if you have news to share, send it our way and we'll include it in an upcoming post.