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A vibrant history of the renowned and often controversial Iowa Writers’ Workshop and its celebrated alumni and faculty
As the world’s preeminent creative writing program, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop has produced an astonishing number of distinguished writers and poets since its establishment in 1936. Its alumni and faculty include twenty-eight Pulitzer Prize winners, six U.S. poet laureates, and numerous National Book Award winners. This volume follows the program from its rise to prominence in the early 1940s under director Paul Engle, who promoted the “workshop” method of classroom peer criticism.
Meant to simulate the rigors of editorial and critical scrutiny in the publishing industry, this educational style created an environment of both competition and community, cooperation and rivalry. Focusing on some of the exceptional authors who have participated in the program—such as Flannery O’Connor, Dylan Thomas, Kurt Vonnegut, Jane Smiley, Sandra Cisneros, T. C. Boyle, and Marilynne Robinson—David Dowling examines how the Iowa Writers’ Workshop has shaped professional authorship, publishing industries, and the course of American literature.
A vibrant history of the renowned and often controversial Iowa Writers’ Workshop and its celebrated alumni and faculty
As the world’s preeminent creative writing program, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop has produced an astonishing number of distinguished writers and poets since its establishment in 1936. Its alumni and faculty include twenty-eight Pulitzer Prize winners, six U.S. poet laureates, and numerous National Book Award winners. This volume follows the program from its rise to prominence in the early 1940s under director Paul Engle, who promoted the “workshop” method of classroom peer criticism.
Meant to simulate the rigors of editorial and critical scrutiny in the publishing industry, this educational style created an environment of both competition and community, cooperation and rivalry. Focusing on some of the exceptional authors who have participated in the program—such as Flannery O’Connor, Dylan Thomas, Kurt Vonnegut, Jane Smiley, Sandra Cisneros, T. C. Boyle, and Marilynne Robinson—David Dowling examines how the Iowa Writers’ Workshop has shaped professional authorship, publishing industries, and the course of American literature.
David O. Dowling is associate professor at the University of Iowa’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. His previous books include Literary Partnerships and the Marketplace and Emerson’s Protégés. He lives in Iowa City, IA.
“[A] history of America’s most famous creative-writing program . .
. [that] opens with the boozing, brawling John Berryman—he of the
‘blow-torch approach’ to teaching—receiving a punch from a
student.”—Hermione Hoby, New Yorker
'I read this in two or three days because I just couldn’t stop ...
If you’ve ever been interested in MFA programs or even just Iowa’s
infamous workshop, this is a must-read.' - Jaime Herndon, Book
Riot
“This book provides readers with a rich history of how the nation’s
most important writing program has had an outsized impact on
American literary and commercial culture.”—David Haven Blake,
College of New Jersey
“David Dowling’s A Delicate Aggression is irresistible reading. It
is a fascinating window into the intimate workings of evolving
talent and cross-hatching of competition and support in literary
communities.”—Shirley Goek-Lin Lim, University of California, Santa
Barbara
“A fascinating look at the way writers are taught how to teach
themselves how to write. I spent six years in a similar workshop
and can still hear their voices in my head.”—Steve Berry, author of
The Malta Exchange
“Here lie the Workshop’s secrets, its lore, its pride and
exclusions, its intimacies and competitions, its ‘innovations of
the business of letters,’ its unapologetic and promising
talents.”—Annie Liontas, author of Let Me Explain You
“David Dowling’s A Delicate Aggression isn’t just a meticulously
researched and elegantly wrought history of the Iowa Writers’
Workshop. It is also an essential and acute portrait of American
literature since World War I. And beyond that it is a compelling
portrait gallery of some of this country’s most interesting
literary personalities, an insider’s travel guide to Iowa City, and
a compelling and propulsive read.”—Nickolas Butler, author of
Shotgun Lovesongs
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