It was an exciting week at the IWP with the announcement Friday that Mo Yan (IWP ’04, China) had been awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature. Mo Yan is the second IWP alumnus to win the prize, after Orhan Pamuk in 2006. Check back here soon for a Shambaugh House Quarterly Roundup with other good news from IWP alumni.

Having passed the halfway point, there are still more than sixty events scheduled for the 2012 residency! In addition to regular IWP events, this week includes a joint reading by former Iowa Poet Laureate Marvin Bell and IWP director and poet Christopher Merrill as well as a celebration of Paul Engle Day, which honors the IWP’s co-founder who was also a long-time director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

What does your name mean? Where does it come from? If you could invent your own paradise, what would it look like? These were just some of the questions young writers were busy imagining answers to with the help of IWP writers Matias Correa (Chile), TJ Dema (Botswana), Nay Phone Latt (Burma), Gulala Nouri (Iraq), and Pandora (Burma) two Saturdays ago.

After parting ways early last week for the mid-residency travel period, which took one group of writers to New Orleans and another to San Francisco, the writers reconvened in Iowa City late Friday evening.  They needed a day to recover from the whirlwind tours which included readings, events centered around the rich literary and cultural traditions of these two great American cities, and, in the case of New Orleans, writers handling (and, in at least one instance, kissing) baby alligators.

On Sunday evening, writers, community members, and University of Iowa students gathered to see the works of nine current IWP residents performed by actors in the 12^th annual edition of Global Express, a program of staged readings of works by IWP writers.

It’s a whirlwind of literary events this week. In addition to the regular schedule, we have a series of public events centered around Hisham Matar’s visit. The New York Times best-selling novelist is in Iowa City this week as the 2012 Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor.

We are pleased to announce that beginning Tuesday, September 18^th, the University of Iowa will welcome New York Times bestselling novelist Hisham Matar, this year’s Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor, to Iowa City for four days of literary events.

While at the University of Iowa, Matar will visit classes, discuss translation and international literature with residents at the International Writing Program, and meet with undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty from the University’s various writing programs.

Can a poem be obedient? This is just one of the questions renowned gender historian and University of Iowa Professor Emerita Linda Kerber posed to IWP writers while moderating last Friday’s panel on “Spectral Gender.” The question arose after panelist Pandora (Burma) observed that Burmese women who comply with societal norms are likely to produce “obedient poems.” 

 After a full week of literary events in Iowa City, International Writing Program Residents piled into two vans and made the short drive to nearby Lake Macbride State Park. 2012 Resident Stephanie Ye of Singapore wasted no time in fastening her orange life-vest and climbing into an aluminum canoe for a scenic paddle around the lake with IWP Director Christopher Merrill. Other writers strolled along one of the park’s forested trails or sat on the hill overlooking the lake and chatted about writing, literature, and their first impressions of Iowa.

The writers are here, the jetlag has worn off and the Fall Residency is in full swing! After a busy inaugural week, which included readings, a film screening, swimming and boating at nearby Lake Macbride, and a tractor tour of Wilson’s Apple Orchard, where the writers sampled homemade apple cider donuts and apple turnovers (look for a blog post on this excursion later in the week), we are ready to kick off a second week of exciting IWP events.