On March 6th, the University of Iowa will be hosting “Homecoming,” a literary reading and social at the annual Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) conference in Baltimore, MD. Join us for a cocktail hour and reading as we celebrate 50 years of Iowa's Nonfiction MFA program and 90 years of the Iowa Writers' Workshop! The event will feature Carmen Maria Machado, Alexander Chee, Paul Harding, Sarah Minor, Lauren Haldeman, and Rodney Dailey II.

The event will take place at Checkerspot Brewing Company 1421 Ridgely St, Baltimore, MD 21230. Doors open at 7pm, with readings starting at 8pm. Admission is free and open to all AWP attendees. Light hors-d'oevres provided! We hope you will join us to celebate Iowa's writing legacy and future!

Alexander Chee is a poet, journalist, and author of the novels Edinburgh (2001), The Queen of the Night (2016), and How to Write an Autobiographical Novel (2018). He is a graduate and former professor at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. 

Rodney Dailey II is a current Writers’ Workshop MFA poetry student from Boston, MA. His work has been published in Gully Magazine, Rampage Party Press, Copenhagen Literary, and Elderly Magazine.

Lauren Haldeman is the author and illustrator of the graphic novel Wild That We’re Alive (2026) and Team Photograph (2022) and the poetry collections Instead of Dying (2017), and Calenday (2014). 

Paul Harding is the author of two novels, Enon and Tinkers, which was awarded the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize. He is a graduate and former professor at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. 

Carmen Maria Machado is the author of Her Body and Other Parties (2017), In the Dream House (2019), and The Low, Low Woods (2020) and is a graduate of the Writers’ Workshop. 

Sarah Minor is a writer and interdisciplinary artist and the author of books Slim Confessions: The Universe as a Spider or Spit, Bright Archive (2020), and the hybrid chapbook, The Persistence of The Bonyleg: Annotated (2016). She teaches at the University of Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program.