Despite cuts, 23 writers arriving this week for UI International Writing Program residency

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In defiance of the odds, the esteemed University of Iowa International Writing Program is bringing 23 writers from abroad, including Saudi Arabia, Israel, Kosovo, and Spain, to Iowa City on Wednesday for a 10-week fall residency.

After the U.S. Department of State on February 26 withdrew the IWP’s almost $1 million in subsidies through the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, it was a difficult task for the program’s skeleton staff to assemble this year’s crop of novelists, poets, journalists, and playwrights.

The IWP, the oldest and largest multicultural writing residency in the world, was forced to cancel its summer youth program, dissolve its exchange programming for American writers, end its distance learning courses, and discontinue a mentorship program for displaced or sheltering writers due to federal cuts, citing the grants’ inability to further agency priorities or align with agency priorities and national interest.

For this term’s reduced cohort of 23, or roughly two-thirds of its typical 35 writers, program director Christopher Merrill gathered a patchwork of grants, gifts, and foreign support in an attempt to save the IWP’s core fall residency program, which for 58 years has hosted more than 1,600 writers from more than 160 countries.

It’s kind of amazing that all of the writers were granted visas, Merrill remarked. To be honest, it was surprising that no one expressed any reservations about visiting the United States at this time. I was speculating that some writers might be cautious about coming here at this time, and the fact that they haven’t expressed any worries excites me especially because, in my opinion, their spirit of curiosity and adventure has triumphed over any worries they may have had about their physical health here.

Florida megadonor Hugh F. Culverhouse Jr., a former Miami-based U.S. attorney who pledged the matching gift in the spring after learning of the crippling cuts, contributed $250,000 to the IWP’s halved budget.

According to Merrill, we’ve had some success obtaining individual awards. Additionally, we hope that our sincere efforts will impress Hugh Culverhouse Jr. and have resulted in a number of multiyear promises of assistance.

Merrill stated that his short-term goal is to continue IWP programming through grants, charity, and partnerships, such as with Beyond Baroque, a 57-year-old poetry theater in Venice, California, which has committed to collaborate with the IWP on some digital offerings.

“I have hoped that we will survive for a few years and figure out how to fund the program. I also hope that some sanity will return to Washington at some point and that we might see a different way of thinking in the State Department,” he said. The experiment in liberty that we have been doing for the past 250 years may come to an end if there is not a dose of reality at some time.

Quite terrible

The UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences last week announced the conclusion of its Magid Center for Writing, the center’s Iowa Summer Writing Festival, and the Iowa Youth Writing Project. This week, news broke that an IWP fall residency cohort would be arriving with intentions to stay through October 30.

The college announced that both of those Magid-based programs will be withdrawn at the end of the year due to continuous financing issues.

The establishment of the Office of Writing and Communication, which the university disclosed on July 24, will mark the center’s conclusion, as these programs make up the majority of Magid Center projects.

With effect from January 1, UI authorities relocated the undergraduate writing credential to the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and appointed Daniel Khalastchi as the new executive director of the Magid Center for Writing.

Furthermore, the provost’s office will continue to house the new Office of Writing and Communication, which will include the Iowa Young Writers Studio, a Magid-based creative writing program for high school students.

According to Merrill, the news of the Summer Writing Festival’s demise is very awful. I am aware of how crucial it has been to provide a venue for writers of all genres to share in the Iowa magic. The loss of the Magid Center is quite concerning, but I am happy that the Iowa Writers Studio is still operating.

Writers arriving

Merrill mentioned that among the 23 foreign authors coming to the city this week are a Saudi novelist best known for her first book, Girls of Riyadh, a South Korean playwright, and a poet from Ukraine.

Rajaa Alsanea, who received her dental training at Northwestern University, is taking time off from her full-time clinical job in Riyadh to attend the UI residency.

https://iwp.uiowa.edu/residency/participants is the link to the participant list.

Vanessa Miller writes for The Gazette on higher education.

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