The Writing University Podcast

The elegy offers one of poetry’s most appealing consolations: it can transform loss—and even the threat of loss—into an artful presence. This session will explore how reading contemporary elegies and engaging in elegiac writing can help us reflect on the lives we’ve led (and will lead). Expect a moving and invigorating session—one that isn’t afraid to laugh, either—as we look at some poems that ge...

The Three Poisons is a simple and elegant Tibetan Buddhist teaching that identifies three foundational emotions that underlie all others—passion, aggression, and ignorance—much the way the three primary colors combine to make all others. For writers, awareness of the three poisons, which point to the ultimate equality and emptiness of all emotions, can be as profoundly beneficial as Keats’s idea o...

In this Eleventh Hour, Karen Bender will address a strategy that she found helpful while writing her first novel—finding a short excerpt within it and polishing it to send out. She will discuss the differences between a story and a novel, what to look for in your novel when trying to shape a good excerpt or story, and how to use the story form to help you revise a nebulous, inchoate novel.

What is flash fiction? You’ve read it, perhaps even written it in class: super-short stories, anywhere from a paragraph to a couple of pages in length, sometimes zeroing in on a single moment of experience, sometimes trying to tell a whole life story in a handful of lines. In recent years, flash fiction has moved from the margins to the center, grabbing attention at literary magazines and spawning...

Creative nonfiction is an art of selection, omission, and juxtaposition. Decisions, decisions, decisions… Not only what to leave in and what to take out, but also how to artfully arrange the parts. When just the right elements are juxtaposed, a spark flies up from the space between. In this Eleventh Hour, Carol Spindel will lead a workshop on how to write a personal essay that derives narrative st...

In this panel discussion Pettit, Leidner, McDonnell, and Stone will discuss their recent poetry, fiction, and comic publications in conjunction with specific and intimate outside influences, inspirations, imitations, and inquiries. They will present examples of the ideas, authors, forms, and practices which helped them generate their own most recent work, as well as discuss how writers might disco...

In this Eleventh Hour, Anjali Sachdeva will discuss the effect that getting out into the world and participating can have on your writing. This type of experiential preparation can take different forms—conducting interviews or on-site research, participating in an activity that one will later write about (or that characters take part in during a pivotal scene), or more meditative forms of writing...

Risk taking, risk evaluation, risk avoidance are all leaned up against when one decides to become a writer and decides how to write what one writes. We hear writers say to one another all the time: how did you get away with that?! Or, I can’t believe you got away with that! We admire how writers “get away” with things in writing. Why is this? What attracts us to this? Obviously, at least partly, b...

In this Writing University podcast, Marcos M. Villatoro discusses the advantages of writing without waiting for the elusive “muse” to strike. Villatoro claims that inspiration springs from a writer’s own work ethic, the physical act of writing.

No one writes who hasn't read, and we all know, at least vaguely, that reading as a writer is a distinctive as well as essential part of the writing life. This Elevenses tries to sort out some of the very different, even contradictory things that are involved in reading as a writer.

In this podcast, poet Katie Ford examines the usefulness of employing the “ghosts” of classical forms in crafting contemporary poetry. Ford advises writers to look to the sonnet and listen for the “inherent music” of popular and tested literary technologies.

In this podcast, Lon Otto leads a discussion on how to avoid “literary thin ice”- the insecurities resulting from insufficient originality, tension or authority in a work.

Tim Bascom, using only lines and circles and an array of strange doodles, will attempt to describe the amazing structural options available within the genre of creative nonfiction. No, he won't work blindfolded. However, he will attempt to be entertaining, and perhaps even a bit enlightening. If you like thinking in pictures, not just words, this may be a blessed break from all the verbiage of the...

Through what alchemy do writers take lived life and transform it into art? We all have stories to tell, something from our own life or the life of a loved one, which we believe would make a great short story or novel. All too often, however, when we try to write it down, it’s reduced to an anecdote which lies there on the page, lifeless as an empty glass. In this Elevenses, using failed and succes...

In her presentation, "Yikes! Elysium: Writing About Happiness," Christine Hemp tackles what she describes as a necessary tension between "sunlight" and "the underworld" in fiction and nonfiction writing. Hemp examines how mundane objects such as puzzle p

Marc Nieson proposes the free-writing exercise as a disciplined process of seizing inspiration and later tackling revision. Nieson talks about how to reconcile the writer's often opposing mindsets of creator and editor, the journey of refining the "

David Hamilton shares his thirty years of experience as editor of The Iowa Review, characterizing the unique world of literary magazines as "ephemeral" and "fugitive." Hamilton compares the mechanics of literary reviews, from local publications to l

In this Writing University podcast, Mary Allen discusses "the mysterious thing" that happens when one sits down to write. She describes her process of finding inspiration and suggests ways to break free of strict "ideas" about writing. She presents examples and ideas on how writers can nurture and cultivate their writing process. Caryl Pagel introduces Mary Allen in this edition of the Iowa Summer...

In this Writing University podcast, David Bouchier addresses the struggle of a word-loving writer to be concise. Bouchier discourages "flabby writing" and suggests instead going on a "word diet" to avoid verbosity. Bouchier also advocates a habit of "writing long and cutting ferociously" and editing from the perspective of a potential reader.

In this Writing University podcast, Marcos M. Villatoro discusses the advantages of writing without waiting for the elusive "muse" to strike. Villatoro claims that inspiration springs from a writer's own work ethic, the physical act of writing, and the work itself. Villatoro also offers advice on using criticism to one's advantage and how to decipher the inevitable rejection letter, suggesting tha...

Venise Berry offers advice on how to "bring the world into your writing." Berry advises writers to leave their own comfort zone of familiar communities and characters and purposely inject voices from a wide spectrum of experience. Berry asserts that a writer's job is to help the audience learn by making realistic, diverse characters "accountable to society."

Sands Hall imparts her unique perspective as novelist, playwright, director, and actor in this lecture on scene and character building. Hall discusses the differences between writing for print and the stage and shares techniques for making "the black marks on the paper jump off the page." Hall offers examples from her career of creating a theatrical or fictional world populated by recognizable and...

In this podcast, recorded on 6/19/07 at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival Elevenses novelist and poet Jim Heynen discusses the relationship between content and form. Heynen advises writers to revisit thematic "obsessions" and to attempt "re-exploring the