Faculty: https://writersworkshop.uiowa.edu/people
Website: https://writersworkshop.uiowa.edu/
The Creative Writing Program (Iowa Writers' Workshop) is a world-renowned graduate program for fiction writers and poets. Founded in 1936, it was the first creative writing program in the United States to offer a degree, and it became a model for many contemporary writing programs. In addition to its Master of Fine Arts program, it also offers writing courses for undergraduates.
The Iowa Writers' Workshop has been home to thousands of remarkable writers, including Flannery O'Connor, Raymond Carver, Rita Dove, John Irving, James Alan McPherson, Philip Levine, Jane Smiley, Michael Cunningham, Sandra Cisneros, Denis Johnson, Jorie Graham, Ann Patchett, Lan Samantha Chang, D.A. Powell, Nathan Englander, Yiyun Li, Eleanor Catton, Angela Flournoy, Garth Greenwell, Yaa Gyasi, and Jamel Brinkley. The program's faculty and alumni include winners of virtually every major literary award, including seventeen winners of the Pulitzer Prize, six recent U.S. Poets Laureate, and numerous winners of the National Book Award, MacArthur Foundation Fellowships, and other major honors. In 2003, the Iowa Writers' Workshop received a National Humanities Medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities—the first awarded to a university and only the second given to an institution rather than an individual.
The Creative Writing Program offers courses for students from other programs of study; summer courses are open to undergraduate and graduate students.
To learn more about the Creative Writing Program's history and faculty, visit the Iowa Writers' Workshop website.
Creative Writing—Writers' Workshop Courses
The Creative Writing Program offers courses for undergraduates as well as graduate students. Enrollment in some graduate-level courses requires admission to the M.F.A. program. See "Courses" in the Department of English section of the Catalog for course descriptions and prerequisites to enrollment.
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| CW:1800 | Creative Writing Studio Workshop | 3 |
| CW:2100 | Creative Writing | 3 |
| CW:2870 | Fiction Writing | 3 |
| CW:2875 | Poetry Writing | 3 |
| CW:3002 | Writing and Reading Young Adult Fiction | 0,3 |
| CW:3003 | Writing and Reading Science Fiction | 3 |
| CW:3004 | Writing and Reading Fantasy Fiction | 3 |
| CW:3005 | Professional and Creative Business Communication | 3 |
| CW:3107 | Creative Writing for the Health Professions | 3 |
| CW:3215 | Creative Writing and Popular Culture | 3 |
| CW:3218 | Creative Writing for New Media | 3 |
| CW:3870 | Advanced Fiction Writing | 3 |
| CW:3875 | Advanced Poetry Writing | 3 |
| CW:4745 | The Sentence: Strategies for Writing | 3 |
| CW:4751 | Creative Writing for the Musician | 3 |
| CW:4760 | The Art of Revision: Rewriting Prose for Clarity and Impact | 3 |
| CW:4870 | Undergraduate Writers' Workshop: Fiction | arr. |
| CW:4875 | Undergraduate Writers' Workshop: Poetry | arr. |
| CW:4894 | Undergraduate Project in Creative Writing | arr. |
| CW:4897 | Novel Writing | 3 |
| CW:7810 | Form of Fiction | 3 |
| CW:7820 | Form of Poetry | 3 |
| CW:7830 | Seminar: Problems in Modern Fiction | arr. |
| CW:7840 | Seminar: Problems in Modern Poetry | arr. |
| CW:7870 | Fiction Workshop | arr. |
| CW:7875 | Poetry Workshop | arr. |
| CW:7890 | Graduate Project in Creative Writing | arr. |
| CW:7895 | M.F.A. Thesis | arr. |