Join us monthly to generate new creative writing inspired by works in the Stanley collection. A different, talented writer in our area will lead each session, offering a new prompt and a new approach to ekphrastic writing (that is, writing inspired by visual art). Bring your own notebook and pencil or computer and leave with the start of a newly written piece. Writers in all genres are welcome. Cosponsored by Iowa City Poetry.
April's workshop leader is Darius Stewart. Stewart is the author of the poetry collection Intimacies in Borrowed Light (EastOver Press, 2022) and a 2025 Stonewall Book Award-Israel Fishman Nonfiction Honoree for Be Not Afraid of My Body: A Lyrical Memoir (Belt Publishing, 2024). He holds MFAs in poetry and creative nonfiction from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin and the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa. In 2021, he received the inaugural Emerging Writer Award from the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame. He is a Lulu “Merle” Johnson Doctoral Fellow in English at the University of Iowa. He lives in Iowa City with his dog, Gizmo.
