Iowa Alumni Events

Thursday

9:00am

Activating the Experimental Impulse: Prompts & Provocations
315 BCC
Presenter: Lucy Ives (MFA 2005)

Collaborative Translation: Creativity & Praxis
314 BCC
Sponsored by ALTA
Presenter: Mary Jo Bang (former faculty)
Moderator: Cynthia Hogue (UI Press author)

Here Goes the Neighborhood: Hyperlocal Literature for Art & Action
316 BCC
Presenter: Asali Solomon (MFA 2004)

Little Magazines in Urgent Times: Editing for Community & Change
307 BCC
Presenter: Dora Malech (MFA 2005)
Presenter: Nina Lohman (UI Press author, faculty)

Start-Up Literary Centers on Campus: Years 1 & 5
320 BCC
Presenter: Alexander Chee (MFA 1994)

10:35am

Fifty Years of Gargoyle: A Celebration of Gargoyle Magazine & Richard Peabody
328 BCC
Presenter: Rita Dove (MFA 1977)

Shaping the Narrative: African Literature for a Global Audience
323 BCC
Presenter: Tramaine Suubi (MFA 2023)

12:10pm

How to Resist AI in Writing & Teaching
310 BCC
Sponsored by the Authors Guild
Moderator: Vauhini Vara (MFA 2010)
Presenter: Carmen Machado (MFA 2018, visiting faculty)

“They’ll Never Write a Poem”: Neurodivergent Poets on Their Writing Lives
Ballroom I, BCC
Sponsored by Sarabande Books
Presenter: Lauren Haldeman (BA 2001, MFA 2006)

Present Tense: Writing Jewish Stories for Today
Ballroom II, BCC
Sponsored by Jewish Book Council
Moderator: Josh Rolnick (UI Press author)

12:30pm

Book Signing: The Perils of Girlhood
U of Nebraska Press, Bookfair
Author: Melissa Fraterrigo (BA 1995)

1:45pm

The Art of Editing Translations: Exploration & Guidance
323 BCC
Sponsored by CLMP
Presenter: Michelle Gil-Montero (MFA 2007)
Presenter: Johannes Goransson (MFA 2000)

Johns Hopkins University: Join the Literary Legacy
324 BCC
Moderator: Dora Malech (MFA 2005)

Material Encounters: On Teaching the Multimodal
315 BCC
Presenter: Sarah Minor (faculty)

3:20pm

Improbable Pedagogies: Workshop-Based Approaches to Teaching Speculative Fiction
301 BCC
Presenter: Ron Tanner (MFA 1986)

Authoritarians in the Lusophone World: Models of Opposition for American Writing
325 BCC
Presenter: Casey Walker (MFA 2014)

ADHD & the Writer: Strategies to Harness Your Superpower
328 BCC
Presenter: Marcus Burke (MFA 2012)

Dorothy Allison: Breaking Down Barriers for Women Writers
327 BCC
Presenter: Carmen Machado (MFA 2018, visiting faculty)

Jewish Writers Caucus
307 BCC
Presenter: Josh Rolnick (UI Press author)

Not an MFA 2.0: Navigating Scholar-Writer Identity in the Creative Writing PhD
323 BCC
Presenter: Ariel Katz (MFA 2019)

Say My Name, Say My Name: Reclaiming Identity in the Face of Violence
315 BCC
Presenter: Felicia Zamora (UI Press author)

Friday

9:00am

Flashes of Truth: A Celebration & Examination of the Flash Essay Form
301 BCC
Presenter: Jane Wong (MFA 2010)

Lessons Learned: What the Short Story Can Do for the Novel
321–322 BCC
Presenter: Marguerite Sheffer (UI Press author)

Poetry & the Sacred
328 BCC
Presenter: Philip Metres (UI Press author)

Words from the Deep, Dark Woods: Using Fairy Tales as Foil & Fuse
315 BCC
Presenter: Emily Perez (UI Press author)

10:35am

Contemporary Disability Poetry
Bookfair Stage
Moderator: Stephen Kuusisto (MFA 1980)

Said & Unsaid: Crafting Silence in Poetry
302 BCC
Moderator: Allison Adair (MFA 2002)
Presenter: Sandra Lim (MFA 2004)

Picture Writing Inside Out: Four Women on Making Comics
315 BCC
Moderator: Jesse Lee Kercheval (MFA 1986)

Un/Holy Acts: Religious Violence, Sacred Texts & Religious Poetry
328 BCC
Presenter: Kazim Ali (2025 IWP)

12:00pm

Book Signing: Field Guide to Falling Ill
Yale Review, Bookfair
Author: Jonathan Gleason (MFA 2022)

12:10pm

Assimilation Blues: Citizenship & Belonging in Indigenous Fiction
317 BCC
Presenter: Eliana Ramage (MFA 2018)

Know Your Rights: What to Look for in Book Contracts
310 BCC
Sponsored by Authors Guild & Association of American Literary Agents
Presenter: Michael Gross (MFA 1980)

Speculating the Machine: How Fiction Writers Are Rendering a New AI Reality
321–322 BCC
Presenter: Allegra Hyde (UI Press author)

1:45pm

War & the Living World: The Intersection of History, Biology & Poetry
Bookfair Stage
Presenter: Sean McLain Brown (MFA 1993)

Writing from the Big Brain: Somatic, Spiritual & Visionary Writing Pedagogies
325 BCC
Presenter: Helen Betya Rubinstein (MFA 2015)

Rewriting Stories That History Forgot
308 BCC
Presenter: Rebecca Lehmann (MFA 2005)

Liberated Spaces: Black-Owned Publishers & Booksellers Speak!
327 BCC
Presenter: Haki Madhubuti (MFA 1984)

Slow Down: Patience, Poetry & Poets
328 BCC
Presenter: Linda Gregerson (MFA 1977)
Presenter: Philip Metres (UI Press author)

2:30pm

Book Signing: Continental Drift
Main Street Rag, Bookfair
Author: Tim Bascom (MFA 2004)

The Classroom as a Site of Freedom: Emergent Strategy, Transgressive Possibility
323 BCC
Presenter: Helen Betya Rubinstein (MFA 2015)
Presenter: Catina Bacote (MFA 2014)

LGBTQ Publishing Professionals on Queer Books
327 BCC
Presenter: Jules Wernersbach (UI Press author)

3:20pm

Twist! New Directions for Teaching Poetic Turns
302 BCC
Moderator: Michael Theune (MFA 1996)

Script Curious: How Book Writers Can “Beat Their Own Path” into Screenwriting
316 BCC
Presenter: David Shields (MFA 1980)

Saturday

9:00am

Childfree & Childless Women Writers: Writing Against Gender Norms
324 BCC
Presenter: Jane Huffman (MFA 2017)

The Essay for Writers Who Work in Multiple Genres
326 BCC
Presenter: Dini Parayitam (MFA 2014)
Moderator: Kyle Minor (MFA 2013)

The New Embodied Lyrics of Wild, Wild Tech
309 BCC
Presenter: Urayoán Noel (UI Press author)

POV Sluts
328 BCC
Presenter: Jeffrey Xiong (graduate and adjunct professor)

Writing Into Our Ancestors’ Voices for a Twenty-First-Century America
302 BCC
Moderator: Jill Bialosky (MFA 1983)

Here to Stay: Black YA Novelists Telling the American Story Their Way
320 BCC
Presenter: Kim Johnson (MFA 1978)

How Form Informs the Form: Received & Original Forms in Manuscript Organization
327 BCC
Presenter: Rebecca Lehmann (MFA 2005)

10:35am

Gritty & Dirty: Writing Plot
310 BCC
Presenter: Asali Solomon (MFA 2004)

The Overturning Anthology: A Reading of Fiction, Creative Nonfiction & Poetry
324 BCC
Presenter: Mary Jo Bang (former faculty)

12:10pm

The Tenderness of Truth: Writing About Loved Ones in Memoir
301 BCC
Presenter: Jill Bialosky (MFA 1983)

More than the Sum of Its Parts: Crafting & Revising Your Poetry Manuscript
317 BCC
Presenter: David Groff (MFA 1981)

Reading & Writing in Times of Political Upheaval
308 BCC
Presenter: Maggie Messitt (UI Press author)

1:45pm

Art Under Threat? The Use of AI in Creative Writing
Ballroom II, BCC
Sponsored by PEN America
Presenter: Vauhini Vara (MFA 2010)

The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University: An Eightieth-Anniversary Reading
325 BCC
Presenter: Michael Dumanis (MFA 1999)

Building Voices & Community: How to Establish a Youth Poet Laureate Program
329 BCC
Moderator: Rachel Morgan (MFA 2002)

Magics, Myths & Realities in the Mississippi Delta
320 BCC
Presenter: Michael Copperman (UI Press author)

3:20pm

Writing Solutions When the World Is on Fire
302 BCC
Presenter: Maggie Messitt (UI Press author)

Chosen Family, Narrative Possibility: The Expansive Literature of Friendship
327 BCC
Presenter: Paul Lisicky (MFA 1990)

The Beautiful Room Is Emptier Now: A Tribute to Edmund White
301 BCC
Presenter: Alexander Chee (MFA 1994)