What are writers always telling us they need?
Dedicated time to write. A space without distraction. A regular writing practice. We're excited to announce a new program to support our writing community in just this very way: Zen Write Nights.

This reading will feature the 2018 Bicultural Iowa Writing Fellows, with their collection “We The Interwoven: An Anthology of Bicultural Iowa.”

The Iowa City Book Festival annual book fair is the place to meet and mingle with Iowa City's network literary organizations. Join us at the Iowa Writers' House table for swag, signings, and to get all the information on our fall programs.

This course will outline all of the available paths to publication for both fiction and nonfiction writers, offer the pros and cons of each, and give you actionable next steps for whichever path you choose.

As part of International Welcoming Week Iowa City, join us for a reading of stories written by immigrants and first generation Iowans in the recently published collection, We the Interwoven: An Anthology of Bicultural Iowa as well as a reception and exhibition of artwork from visual artist Maegan Tyrell’s “Photovoice Project.”

The Witching Hour is hosting a fundraiser at the Iowa Writers’ House this Wednesday, September 12th from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Please consider attending this event. Your support will help us produce an amazing festival and continue the annual tradition of exploring the unknown, celebrating the creative process, and discussing new work.

These readings focus on the Bicultural Iowa Writers’ Fellows's final collection, WE THE INTERWOVEN. There will be a reading and a signing at the Des Moines Arts Festival, Sunday, July 24th, 2018. This is a free event, not including a copy of the book.

These readings focus on the Bicultural Iowa Writers’ Fellows's final collection, WE THE INTERWOVEN. There will be a reading and a signing at the Des Moines Arts Festival, Sunday, July 24th, 2018. This is a free event, not including a copy of the book.

Join us for a special community writing event at the Iowa Writers' House in partnership Honoring Your Wishes and Iowa City Hospice. Inspired by the themes of love, forgiveness, and gratitude, the Love Letters Project invites writers to gather together for a special afternoon of community writing. 

The event is free and open to the community. Spaces are limited and seats are available on a first come first served basis. 

Portland-based indie press YesYes Books presents a reading by Khadijah Queen, Kayleb Rae Candrilli, and KMA Katherine Sullivan.

FREE and open to the public.

Literary magazines and independent publishers from across the country, and right here in Iowa City, will set up shop at The Mill in Iowa City for the 8th year in a row, representing some of the most exciting work in publishing today.

A graphic memoir can be the ultimate way to “show rather than tell.” In this workshop, we’ll learn about graphic novels and focus on the unique ways images can help tell a story.

Maybe you have a brilliant idea for a non-fiction story or perhaps there is an essay, hidden like a jewel in your files, the only trouble is, you don’t know how to get published. This intensive three-hour course, is designed to take you from idea, to pitch, to publication.

In this course, Andrea leads us through a reflective journey into the self; guiding creative methods of self-authorization and purpose finding. The participants will learn ways to translate complex emotions associated with significant events in their lives into a written form of storytelling that is safe, supportive and appropriate for a broader public. 

She discusses how individuals can anticipate narrative arcs that allow us to live as the characters we wish to become. Such public forms of writing are crucial as a way to bear witness both to the mercies and the travesties of the everyday world—it can help others learn the language necessary to give voice to their own experiences.

This class focuses on how traumatic and difficult events can also be interpreted as ruptures that open (rather than close) future possibilities. Looking at the power of wonder, the class will explore the work of the imagination to describe how such ruptures can make us more capable of being aware of the surrounding world and thus more able to pursue the lives we wish to lead.

This class focuses on what happens after we find the words that let us connect ourselves to our memories and to the larger world around us. We will move beyond a core memory or event toward a story that promotes an openness to futures that we would desire. In this way, we are able transition from a place of hurt toward a path of healing. Because such writing involves the grieving process it demonstrates the need for editing and the ability to shape our stories by expanding the context. Editing our stories is not simply excising events that we wish not to remember, but involves adding moments, scenes, and contexts that provide a character arc of an autonomous self. Even in stories where characters lack autonomy, the writer / editor is able to alter how events are told or experienced in ways that liberate characters to more choices in the future.

The Energy of Story helps you begin to understand how to access the unconscious stories that influence our conscious decisions.  Learning to listen and express these stories from a personal place allows the release of shame around trauma and begins to move us to a place of response versus reaction. This gives us the power to author our own stories within the larger familial and cultural stories that surround us.  

The Power of Science provides a way to redefine our stories from what seems to be a given trajectory influenced by forces beyond our control, to embracing the  empowered state of being the author of our own lives. The class grounds writing as a tool for self-transformation in a scientific approach that demonstrates how the power of story can change our chemical makeup and repair emotional scarring on a cellular level.  Gypsy will explore with you the science of emotion, how it manifests in our physical bodies, and discuss inherited traumas that are inscribed on our genetics and that influences our ability to live healthy lives; emotionally and physically. 

Like their creators, our characters are capable of curiosity, and their eyes, focused on the right detail and filtered through the right lens, will unveil meaning in the same the way a camera does as it pans in on a subject in a film...

The Scarlet Room is our group for romance writers and readers where we provide opportunities for romance writers to share and write in a safe, supportive, and creative space. All are welcome at whatever stage of the writing journey you are in!