Crossing: A Braided Memoir

January 27, 2012

POROI (Project on Rhetoric of Inquiry) is pleased to announce Crossing: A Braided Memoir, a Rhetoric Seminar by Russell Scott Valentino. The seminar will take place on Wednesday, February 1, 2012 11:30am-1pm and the Bowman House on the University of Iowa campus.

Crossing: A Braided Memoir employs the compositional technique of the braid to explore the composite themes of mixture, translation (crossing with something on your back), and transgression (crossing the line). Crossing is both physical, as in movement from one place to another, one shore to another, and metaphysical, as in what happens when you die. It also holds a wealth of figurative associations from the mixing of cultures and languages to religions and races. It is movement across thresholds of various kinds, barriers, borders. It is bastardization when opposed to purity.

Visit the POROI website to download a PDF of the paper.

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UI expands writing options for undergrads

January 24, 2012

The University of Iowa's new Frank N. Magid Undergraduate Writing Center now offers an undergraduate writing certificate to all students, regardless of their major.

The center, housed within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, officially began its work last semester following a $1 million commitment from UI graduate Marilyn Magid in honor of her late husband, Frank, a fellow UI alumnus.

But the plans for providing more options for undergraduate students, have been in the works for some time, said Helena Dettmer, an associate dean for Undergraduate Programs and Curriculum and a professor of Classics at UI.

“It occurred to me that one of the reasons students might want to come here is because of the school’s great emphasis on writing,” Dettmer said. “We decided we needed a credential that students could earn as undergraduates.”

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English Department | Teaching & Learning
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Novel conceived at the UI begins week of Writing University streams

January 17, 2012

Sara Levine's Treasure Island!!!, which she conceived while teaching nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa, will open a week of live literary streams on the writinguniversity.org website.

"I was teaching nonfiction at the University of Iowa and a colleague asked me which essayists I liked, and I mentioned Robert Louis Stevenson," says Levine, explaining how she came to write the book. "I was thinking of Stevenson's essays but he said 'Oh, Treasure Island.'" Thinking it might be fun to write an essay about not liking the book, Levine picked up a copy and found its swashbuckling style enjoyable. -from an The NWI Times article

The events, originating at 7 p.m. in Prairie Lights Books will be: --Levine on Monday, Jan. 23. --Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole reading from Sacred Trash on Tuesday, Jan. 24. --Roger Rosenblatt reading from the memoir Kayak Morning: Reflections on Love, Grief and Small Boats on Friday, Jan. 27. Read more

Fiction | Poetry | Nonfiction
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The Iowa Review Awards Now Accepting Submissions

January 12, 2012

Each January, The Iowa Review holds a writing contest in Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction. Judges for the 2012 Iowa Review Awards are Timothy Donnelly (poetry), Ron Currie, Jr. (fiction), and Meghan Daum (nonfiction).

Winners receive $1,500; first runners-up receive $750. Winners and runners-up are published in our December 2012 issue.

Contest rules and submission guidelines

Current students, faculty, or staff of the University of Iowa are not eligible to enter the contest.

Work is ineligible to win the contest if it is slated for publication before December 2012, whether in another magazine or as part of a book, or if it has been named winner or runner-up in any other contest.

Judges are instructed not to award the prize to entrants with whom they have had a personal or professional relationship. Despite reading the entries with author names removed, judges may sometimes be able to guess the identity of the entrant. Even if they can't tell during the judging process, they have the right to change their decision if it turns out that the entrant is someone with whom there is any appearance of conflict of interest. Therefore, the Iowa Review advises entrants not to enter the contest if the judge is someone they know personally or have worked with professionally.

Fiction | Poetry | Nonfiction | Iowa Review
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