Application for Iowa City, Iowa, Usa to the Unesco Creative Cities Network
APPLICATION FOR IOWA CITY, IOWA, USA TO THE UNESCO CREATIVE CITIES NETWORK submitted on december 19, 2007 by the literary community of iowa city The Iowa Writers’ Workshop developed out of an idea, originally implemented in 896 at the University of Iowa, to teach “Verse Making.” By the 90s, the university had taken the radical step of granting graduate student credit for creative work. In 94, the first Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing was awarded. By the end of that decade, Flannery O’Connor was a member of the Workshop, which was fast becoming a national institution… . The Workshop jettisoned genius and ignored literary theory because, like the centuries-old tradition of rhetoric, it believed in the words of Paul Engle, that writing was a “form of activity inseparable from the wider social relations between writers and readers,” and that the nurture and love of literature could “materially affect American culture.” Tom Grimes, The Workshop creative theme: Literature point person: Christopher Merrill Director International Writing Program Shambaugh House 430 N. Clinton Iowa City, Iowa 52242 management team: Christopher Merrill, Director, International Writing Program Russell Valentino, Director, Autumn Hill Books Amy Margolis, Director, Iowa Summer Writing Festival Steering Committee: Ethan Canin, Novelist and Professor, Writers Workshop, UI Jim Harris, Owner, Prairie Lights Bookstore Susan Shullaw, Vice President, UI Foundation Jonathan Wilcox, Chair, English Department, UI James Elmborg, Chair, School of Library Science Alan MacVey, Director, Theater Department, UI Robin Hemley, Director, Nonfiction Writing Program, UI Ross Wilburn, Mayor, Iowa City Dale Helling, Interim City Manager, Iowa City Joshua Schamberger, President, Iowa City/Coralville Convention and Visitors Bureau Contents i.
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