The Writing University Podcast
The Writing University podcast features recordings of illuminative craft talks from the renowned writers, novelists, poets, and essayists who present at the Eleventh Hour Lecture Series during the University of Iowa's Iowa Summer Writing Festival.
- Update frequency
- every 5 days
- Average duration
- 48 minutes
- Episodes
- 128
- Years Active
- 2007 - 2023
Episode 112: Writing with Death Looking Over Your Shoulder - Lori Erickson
Death has haunted the work of countless authors. And even if we’re not writing about death directly, it often overshadows our creations, as we deal with the loss of loved ones and the inevitability o…
00:47:52 |
Wed 25 Jul 2018
Episode 111: The Life-Altering Magic of Revision - How Revisiting, Reassessing, and Reframing a Story Just Might Change Your Life - Hope Edelman
Getting a story onto the page is a necessary first step. Then the heavy lifting, both outer and inner, can begin. While the facts of a real-life or fictional event may remain static from draft to dra…
00:45:46 |
Mon 23 Jul 2018
Episode 110: Me, Myself, and I - The Transformative Power of Reflection in Nonfiction - Juliet Patterson
We often think about the tool of reflection in writing as a mode of thought or tone of voice we employ when we ruminate, meditate, contemplate, or explain—in short, when we provide what Phillip Gerar…
00:34:01 |
Sun 22 Jul 2018
Episode 109: On the Feminine vs. the Masculine Narrative Voice - Mieke Eerkens
During workshops, it often becomes clear how heavily the “feminine” voice—characterized by multi-angled, expansive prose and a focus on the emotional realm—is criticized in writing, and the “masculin…
00:32:49 |
Wed 18 Jul 2018
Episode 108: Making and Breaking Taboos - Charles Holdefer
Writers frequently confront taboos—cultural, religious, and sexual—in their work. These taboos are also reinforced by the publishing process. When is it OK to offend? When is it gratuitous? Are you b…
00:40:20 |
Mon 16 Jul 2018
Episode 107: Gratitude for Time - Poetry and Moments of Thanks - Zach Savich
In this lecture, we’ll consider some recent poems in which gratitude emerges from or exists alongside difficult experiences. How do moments of acute gratitude interact with loss, grief, memory, and o…
00:45:01 |
Sun 15 Jul 2018
Episode 106: Titles - Diana Goetsch
Giving a piece of writing a title is a proper and necessary act—otherwise we’d have, “Untitled,” by Homer, not to be confused with Leo Tolstoy’s great work, “Untitled.” Yet titling is not generally s…
00:43:45 |
Sat 14 Jul 2018
Episode 105: Writing Under the Influence - Gordon Mennenga
Lord Byron said, "We of the craft are all crazy." Maybe, maybe not. This talk will examine the forces that influence what we write, why we write, when we write, and where we write. Drugs, drink, depr…
00:56:09 |
Wed 11 Jul 2018
Episode 103: The Story Lens - Sandra Scofield
Beneath our writing is a deep sense of self that informs the way we organize experience and shape meaning. Autobiographical writing heightens our awareness of life's patterns and themes, concepts tha…
00:36:10 |
Mon 09 Jul 2018
Episode 104: Writing Resistance - Suzanne Scanlon
Much of my favorite work to read and to teach can be considered “resistant narratives”—work that responds to and rewrites the narratives we have received from a culture that often wishes to reduce an…
00:37:29 |
Mon 09 Jul 2018
Episode 102: Why Not Quit? Tips for Becoming a Durable Writer - Tim Bascom
Talent is important in creative writing, but resilience is critical. Writing is a lonely endeavor with much rejection. Even worse, our projects are often so long-term that they require the staying p…
00:33:24 |
Wed 27 Jun 2018
Episode 101: The Small [And Pixelated] Made Large - From Grievance To Groundbreaking Change - Amy Butcher
This lecture will consider the act of naming. How do we choose the names we give to the characters and figures in our stories and poems?
How does a name give a character charge, or mark it, or e…
00:22:04 |
Wed 20 Jun 2018
Episode 100: Writer as Witness - Katie Ford
The best essays, according to John D’Agata, Director of the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program, are a “mind on a page.” According to Bernard Cooper, they magnify “some small aspect of wh…
00:46:34 |
Mon 18 Jun 2018
Episode 98: The Everyday Writing Retreat - Mary Allen
We often think of writing as something we’ll really get to do later, when life slows down and we have more time to devote to it. Writing retreats, those programs or places that offer endless space to…
00:32:00 |
Wed 19 Jul 2017
Episode 97: The Crying Room - Reconsidering the Writing Workshop - Sabrina Orah Mark
This lecture will consider what is at the heart of critique and discuss the relationship between the workshop and places of worship, confessional boxes, crying rooms, hospitals, wombs, therapist offi…
01:13:22 |
Mon 17 Jul 2017
Episode 96: Echo, Letter, Tweet - Writing as Correspondence - Michael Morse
In this Eleventh Hour, poet Michael Morse will discuss how a work of writing can inhabit its contemporary situation by addressing a distant practitioner or piece—as an inspiration, a model, or even a…
00:47:24 |
Wed 12 Jul 2017
Episode 95: The Novel Continuum - Sandra Scofield
Readers and writers often refer to novels in a binary way. They think of them as being either commercial (popular) or literary (artful). It’s a false dichotomy that sets you up to feel defensive, no …
00:44:55 |
Mon 10 Jul 2017
Episode 92: How to Write the Ten-Minute Play - Kelly Dwyer
How to Write the Ten-Minute Play: Kelly Dwyer
00:45:01 |
Wed 28 Jun 2017
Episode 91: Where Experience Starts - The Image - Juliet Patterson
Where Experience Starts: The Image: Juliet Patterson
00:27:09 |
Mon 26 Jun 2017
Episode 90: Nerve - Some Kinds of Courage Necessary for Writing - Lon Otto
Nerve: Some Kinds of Courage Necessary for Writing: Lon Otto
00:55:45 |
Mon 26 Jun 2017
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