Events Calendar

A conversation between four IWP 2024 Fall Residency writers on the theme of "Why I Write," followed by Q&A. Free pizza will be provided to those who attend in person. This event is supported by University of Iowa International Programs and the Stanley-UI Foundation Support Organization.

Join us in Meeting Room A of the Iowa City Public Library, or watch live online via the ICPL YouTube channel: youtube.com/user/thelibrarychannel

Sabyn Javeri (fiction and nonfiction writer, translator; Pakistan, UK & UAE) is the author of the short story collection Hijabistan (2019) and the novel Nobody Killed Her (2017). She is the editor of volumes 1 and 2 of the multilingual Arzu Anthology of Student Writing (2018–2019) as well as the creative nonfiction anthology by Pakistani women writers entitled Ways of Being (2023). Her fiction has been published in The London Magazine, Litro, Wasafiri, Oxonian Review, and more, while her nonfiction has appeared in The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, South Asian Review, and 3 Quarks Daily, among others. She currently teaches writing at New York University, Abu Dhabi. Her participation is made possible by a gift from the estate of William B. Quarton to the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation.

Han Junghyun (fiction writer; South Korea) is a novelist. Her debut short novel [The Language of Adolf and Albert] won the Dong-a Ilbo New Writer’s Contest in 2015. In 2019, she won the Today's Writer Award for her novel [Juliana Tokyo]. In 2020, she won the Young Writer's Award and the Queer Literature Award for her queer romance [Our Wish is a Science Boy]. In 2021, she won the Kim Yu Jeong Literature Award and the BUMA Democratic Uprising Literary Award for [Kyoko and Kyoji]. Her participation was made possible by a grant from Arts Council Korea.

Yuten Sawanishi (fiction writer, scholar; Japan) is the author of Furamingo no mura [The Village of Flamingos] (2011), which received the Subaru Literary Prize; Moji no shōsoku [Letters of Letters] (2017); and Ame to karasu [Rain and Raven] (2018). His story “Filling Up with Sugar” appears in The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories, which was edited by Jay Rubin with a preface by Haruki Murakami. Sawanishi teaches at Ryukoku University and serves as a coordinator of the Kyoto Writers Residency. His participation was made possible by the University of Iowa's Center for Asian and Pacific Studies (CAPS) and the Stewart Memorial Fund.

Nada Alturki (nonfiction writer, poet, journalist; Saudi Arabia) is a reporter for the English-language daily newspaper Arab News and has contributed to several regional and international publications, including Canvas Magazine, Voice of America, and The National. She is also a co-founder of Gen INK, a Riyadh-based writing collective dedicated to creating a meaningful space for Saudi writers to connect, and contributed a chapter to the textbook Women Community Leaders and Their Impact as Global Changemakers (2022). Alturki is currently writing a collection of poems inspired by her life in Saudi Arabia and time spent in the U.S. Her participation was made possible by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.