Iowa Summer Writing Festival reschedules two sessions

07-10-2008 | Books

By Loren Keller

If this were a competition, the novel would place first, with the memoir coming in at second and the essay a close third

Of course it isn’t a contest, but those are the three most popular genres among participants in this year’s Iowa Summer Writing Festival, expected to draw up to 1,500 registrants.

After cancellations last month due to flooding, two new sessions have been added this month for the weekend of July 26-27 and the week of July 27-Aug. 1. Registration and orientation for all remaining sessions of the festival will be in the Old Capitol Museum on Clinton Street and Iowa Avenue.

“It’s a ridiculous thing to say among literary genres that something is making a comeback—it’s not like ‘A Chorus Line’ or ‘Cats’ or that kind of splashy comeback—it’s the essay we’re talking about. It’s a quiet comeback but a comeback nonetheless,” says Amy Margolis, director of the Iowa Summer Writing Festival.

Designed to benefit writers at all levels of experience and achievement, the festival began Monday and runs through July 25. In classes that include no more than a dozen participants, the festival brings adult writers of all ages from across the country to share, read and discuss their work under the leadership of an accomplished writer/instructor. The cost is $500 to $525 per week and $250 per weekend.

“They (the instructors) are by no means all graduates of the Writers Workshop though many of them are,” Margolis says. “There is such a rich and diverse community of literary artists right here within easy reach to draw from… but people come in from all over the place.”

About 1,200 people have signed up so far but the festival is still accepting registrations for several of its 2008 sessions. Weeklong and weekend workshops include fiction, poetry, nonfiction and playwriting.

Registration forms are available at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival web site. Registrants may sign up for only one workshop per session, but they may register for as many sessions as they wish. Payment is required at the time of registration.

Elevenses, a series of readings and discussions of literary topics that is a traditional feature of the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, will be offered at 11 a.m. weekdays, today through July 25, except for the week of June 30 through July 4, when there is no festival session scheduled due to Independence Day.

The free, public events last one hour and are held in the auditorium of the Becker Communications Building on the University of Iowa campus.

The series features issues of special interest to writers, including aspects of craft, process, the writing life and publishing. There will be a different presenter each day. Fridays in the Elevenses series are reserved for a reading by faculty of that week's festival session.

Updates on individual Elevenses events will be posted at http://www.uiowa.edu/artsiowa.

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