University of Iowa News Release

Oct. 6, 2003

IWP Festival Explores 'Landscape And Literature' Oct. 10-12

The University of Iowa International Writing Program will host "Landscape and Literature," the 2003 edition of the Annual International Writing Program Festival, Oct. 10-12, primarily in the Iowa Memorial Union. All the events in the festival are free and open to the public.

The IWP Festival is built around Iowa's official Paul Engle Day -- the Oct. 12 birthday of the co-founder of the UI's unique residency program for global writers. This fall's subject, "Landscape and Literature," is especially appropriate, because Engle was a poet who robustly celebrated the Iowa land and landscape.

The Paul Engle Memorial Lecture will be presented by novelist and essayist Scott Russell Sanders at 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 11, in Room 101 of Biology Building East. Sanders' books include "In Limestone Country," "Terrarium," "The Country of Language" and "Secrets of the Universe."

Through nature hikes, panel discussions, readings, visual presentations, neighborhood tours, lectures and films, "Landscape and Literature" will "investigate that mysterious space where imagination and the land converge."

The weekend's many presenters and participants will include regional writers, environmentalists, farmers and naturalists, as well as IWP writers-in-residence and other artists whose works portray strange and distant landscapes.

The exhibition of landscape and floral photography by Iowa City artists Sheri Seggerman and Timothy Edberg, which has been on view in the Shambaugh House, the IWP headquarters at the corner of Clinton and Fairchild Streets, will continue through the festival.

For UI arts information and calendar updates, visit http://www.uiowa.edu/artsiowa. To receive UI arts news by e-mail, ur-acr@uiowa.edu.

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"LANDSCAPE AND LITERATURE"
(all events in the IMU unless otherwise indicated)

FRIDAY 10 OCTOBER

1 p.m. -- "Little Things: Writing on the Prairie": Christopher Merrill
" Paul Engle: A Reading and Discussion": Robert Dana

2:10 p.m. -- "Mapping Racial Boundaries in Antebellum St. Louis": Barbara Mooney
Storytelling: Kelly Carey

3:20 p.m. -- "Agriculture, Farming, and Rural Communities: Social, Spiritual, and Literary Perspectives"

7 p.m. "Writing from the Region," A Literary Reading: Mary Swander, Michael Carey, Ray Young Bear

SATURDAY 11 OCTOBER

9 a.m. -- Bus tour of Iowa City neighborhoods: "Story Telling in the Urban Environment, " Jim Throgmorton. Leaves from IMU.

1 p.m. -- Slideshow: Joni Kinsey
International Writing Program Talk: Gregory Norminton

2 p.m. -- Iowa Panel
Open Studio at Univ. of Iowa Museum of Art: Chris Cozier

3 p.m. -- International Writing Program Talk: Won-Chung Kim, L. Dashnyam
Lecture: Anju Dhadda Misra

4 p.m. -- Reading: David Hamilton

5 p.m. -- Reading: James Alan McPherson

8 p.m. -- Paul Engle Memorial Reading: Scott Russell Sanders, in 101 Biology Building East

SUNDAY 12 OCTOBER

9 a.m. -- Fieldtrip to Red Bird Farm. Leaves from IMU.

12:45 p.m. -- "German Romanticism, Caspar David Friedrich, and the Landscape as Seen": David Klemm

1:45 p.m. -- Reading: James Galvin, Marilynne Robinson

STORY SOURCE: University of Iowa Arts Center Relations, 300 Plaza Centre One, Suite 351, Iowa City, IA 52242-2500.

MEDIA CONTACT: Winston Barclay, 319-384-0073, winston-barclay@uiowa.edu

PHOTOS of the photo exhibition are available at http://www.uiowa.edu/artsiowa/photos.html.