2024 International Writing Program panel Balancing life as an artist Balancing life as an artist /

Streaming video - 2024

A conversation between four IWP 2024 Fall Residency writers and Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor Jennifer Croft on the theme of "Balancing Life as an Artist" followed by Q&A. This event is supported by University of Iowa International Programs and the Stanley-UI Foundation Support Organization. Lisa Allen-Agostini (fiction writer, poet, editor; Trinidad and Tobago) is the author of the historical noir novella Death in the Dry River (2024), the young adult novel Home Home (2020), and the domestic noir novel The Bread the Devil Knead (2021), which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2022. She is currently working on a memoir in poetry and a novel set in the world of steelpan, which is the nat...ional instrument of her homeland. Her participation was made possible by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. Putra Hidayatullah (nonfiction and fiction writer, art curator, educator; Indonesia) is the author of a short story collection entitled Kebun Jagal [The Butcher’s Garden] (2023). His nonfiction writing has appeared in Artlink, Curatography, The Jakarta Post, and Check-In, while his fiction has been published in InterSastra, Porch Litmag, and Koran Tempo, among others. He served as a harvester for the international art exhibition documenta fifteen in Germany. He is currently writing a novel. His participation was made possible by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. Mélanie Werder-Avilés (playwright, theatremaker, scholar; Spain) is the author of the plays *Buena suerte, chica; Sharenting; Nutella Days; and Tiradísimo de Precio [Dirt-cheap]; among others. Her play La Protagonista won the Lope de Vega award. She has been selected as a resident playwright at the Spanish National Drama Centre and has been a member of the International Summer Workshop at the Sala Beckett. She has been awarded the Carlota Soldevila Fellowship by the Teatre Lliure de Barcelona and is a member of the SGAE Playwriting Laboratory and the ETC of Contemporary Creation at the Sala Cuarta Pared in Madrid, among others. She is currently researching documentary theatre practices as a predoctoral fellow at the Complutense University of Madrid. Her participation was made possible by the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain in Washington DC and supplemental monies from the IWP. Daryl Li (nonfiction and fiction writer; Singapore) is the author of two collections of creative nonfiction—The Inventors (2023) and Tenderly, Tenderly (2024)—as well as a forthcoming short story collection, Minor Illusions. He was a finalist for the Georgia Review Prose Prize, and his work has been longlisted for both the Australian Book Review’s Calibre Essay Prize and the same publication’s Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. In 2013, he received a Golden Point Award for a short story in the English category. He is currently at work on a full-length nonfiction project as well as an essay collection. His participation is funded by the National Arts Council Singapore. Jennifer Croft won a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship for her novel The Extinction of Irena Rey, the 2020 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing for her illustrated memoir Homesick and the 2018 International Booker Prize for her translation from Polish of Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights. She is also the translator of Federico Falco’s A Perfect Cemetery, Romina Paula’s August, Pedro Mairal’s The Woman from Uruguay, and Olga Tokarczuk’s The Books of Jacob (a finalist for the Kirkus Prize). In 2023, she received an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma with her husband and twins. more