By Tim Shipe, Arts & Literature Bibliographer, UI Libraries

Our Syrian friend, colleague, and alum Khaled KHALIFA (IWP 2007) has a record of writing eloquently about contemporary Syria’s complex political landscape.

We're so very pleased!   The 2012 Best Translated Book Award for poetry, given annually by the indispensable  journal and site Three Percent  has just been announced at the PEN New Voices festival, and it goes to a title featuring not one but two IWP alumni: Spectacle and Pigsty is a selection from two decades of  work of  the Japanese avant-gardist  Kiwao Nomura (IWP '05) selected, edited and co-translated by

Kecia Lynn

At the Shambaugh House our colleague Kecia Lynn's main project is coordinating the Between the Lines summer program for young  Arabic-language writers.  Periodically, though, she leaves the house, changes hats, and becomes a suave talk show host for

In the last weeks we have been at once worried and excited about our friend Ghada AbdAal (IWP 2010), the Egyptian blogger/writer (and pharmacist) from the industrial city of Mahalla, whose intensely political atmosphere couldn’t be more different than that of Iowa City.

When the young psychologist Guesly Michel came to Iowa City from Port-au Prince this summer to learn about writing as a therapeutic procedure (the Patient Voice program at the UI Hospitals and Clinics has had a similar program for a number of years), he was by his own admission new to the game.

Let's get this new year underway with a frank interview Helon Habila (IWP 2006 and New Symposium 2007 on Justice) gave The Daily Independent while 'back home' in Nigeria. Among the topics: how to grow local writing. And another: Habila's 2010 novel Oil for Water, written in the US but set in the Niger delta's oil fields.

Old friend and IWP alumnus Etgar Keret is among the writers from both sides of the divide who have recently commented on the tension between Turkey and Israel in the wake of the Mavi Marmara clash, in the Turkish paper Zaman.

(Thanks to the indispensable Common Review for the pointer)