The International Writing Program at the University of Iowa at Press Street Station

NOCCA will host guests from the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, October 3, at Press Street Station (5 Press Street).

The reading will feature:

Santiago GIRALT (playwright, screenwriter, filmmaker, fiction writer; Argentina) writes plays, screenplays, and novels, and directs films. In 2017, he was awarded the National Arts Fund Bi-Centennial Grant in Literature. His first novel, [Nelly R, the General’s Lover], was shortlisted for the 2008 Planeta International Prize; La mala memoria came out in 2015; Disparo is forthcoming. He has written and directed over a dozen films, and participated in many international film festivals. He participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.

Anne KENNEDY (fiction writer, screenwriter, poet; New Zealand) received the 2013 New Zealand Post Book Award for Poetry for The Darling North; in 2014 her novel The Last Days of the National Costume was a finalist for the New Zealand Post Book Award and was longlisted for the IMPAC-Dublin Award. In 2016 she was in residence at the Victoria University’s International Institute of Modern Letters. During her career, she has been an advocate for Maori and Pasifika voices. Her participation is made possible by Creative New Zealand.

Okky MADASARI (novelist; Indonesia) is the founder and director of the ASEAN Literary Festival. In 2012, her novel The Outcast, about an Islamic sect facing persecution by mainstream religion, received the Khatulistiwa Literary Award. The Years of the Voiceless (2010) is about struggle for justice and freedom while questioning the authority of religion; 86 (2011) addresses corruption in Indonesia; Bound (2015) tells about a life of a transgender in a religiously conservative society. She participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.

Yvonne Adhiambo OWUOR (fiction writer; Kenya) is an author, lecturer, and arts curator. Her first novel, Dust, was published by Knopf in 2014, and received the 2015 TBC Jomo Kenyatta Literature Award. In 2003, she won the Caine Prize for African Writing for her story “Weight of Whispers,” also the title of a 2003 volume. Owuor was an IWP Fall Resident in 2005, and returns as the Residency’s first Grinnell Fellow. She participates courtesy of Grinnell College.

Subraj SINGH (playwright, fiction writer, journalist, critic; Guyana) teaches at the University of Guyana and the National School of Theatre Arts and Drama, and has a weekly arts column in the Guyana Chronicle. His Rebelle and Other Stories won the 2015 Guyana Prize for Literature as the Best First Book of Fiction; his play “Masque” won the 2016 National Drama Festival Awards for Best New Guyanese Play and Best Production. He participates thanks to the William B. Quarton Fund through the Cedar Rapids Community Foundation.

Sharlene TEO (fiction writer; Singapore) won the Deborah Rogers Writer’s Award for her debut novel Ponti, to be released in 2018 and translated into six languages. She is a PhD student in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of East Anglia, where she received the Booker Prize Foundation Scholarship and the David TK Wong Fellowship. She participates courtesy of the Singapore National Arts Council.