The University of Iowa’s International Writing Program (IWP), in conjunction with Room 220 and the Community Book Center, presents an open roundtable discussion with a group of accomplished authors from around the globe on Friday, September 30, at 5 p.m. at the Community Book Center (2523 Bayou Rd.).
The Iowa IWP has brought international writers to study as part of the university’s prestigious writing program since 1967. One of the IWP’s stated goals is to “introduce talented individuals to American life,” and to do so the program takes the writers out of the cornfields on week-long excursions to cities like San Francisco and New Orleans. The writers will be in town Tues. – Sat., Sept. 27 – Oct. 1, touring the city, taking in some live music, and dropping into classes at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, the Bard Early College program, and Loyola University New Orleans. They’ll also be in attendance at Michael Martone’s reading at the Antenna Gallery on Thursday, Sept. 29, at 7 p.m., as well as the Community Book Center event.
The discussion at the Community Book Center on Friday will be an informal event, and will provide members of the New Orleans writerly and readerly communities an opportunity to converse with this diverse group of professional international authors about issues both individual and universal, that affect New Orleans or the writers’ home countries, or both and everyone in between. The event is free, and will likely prove the international literary event of the season.
Participating writers’ biographies:
