10 of the Best Iowa Writer's Workshop Alumni

The Iowa Writer's Workshop sponsored by the University of Iowa is a two-year residency program that has been challenging up and coming writers for the past 70 years. Many graduates who left the program with their Master of Fine Arts degree have went on to worldwide literary fame and recognition and the program has also had a surprising number of Pulitzer Prize winning authors.

Michael Cunningham

Cunningham attended the University of Iowa and received his Masters from the Writer's Workshop. He later went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for his work The Hours which was later adapted into a major motion picture starring Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman. The movie was a very solid release, but it does not compare to the quality present within the covers of The Hours. I first read The Hours the year after I graduated high school and have since considered it a benchmark for my comparisons of contemporary literature. It is a must read.

Phillip Roth

Roth was also a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop and has also won a Pulitzer Prize for the work American Pastoral. However, in this decade Roth is most known by his work The Plot Against America featuring the concept of Charles Lindbergh becoming president and negotiating with Hitler. This book hit at a time when other issues concerning Lindbergh were coming to light and was altogether timely.

Phillip Schultz

Another winner of the Pulitzer Prize, but in poetry, that graduated from the Writer's Workshop is Phillip Schultz who wrote the co-winner volume Failure. Phillip Schultz is also the founder of the Writer's Studio in New York state.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

When Kurt Vonnegut Jr. died in 2007, the literary world mourned the loss of a noted author. The more famous work written by this Writer's Workshop graduate is Slaughterhouse Five which has become a veritable classic.

Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett's release Bel Canto was a book that seemingly appeared on bookstore shelves with a new badge awarded every few weeks. It remains one of the more popular releases from the a woman who worked for Seventeen magazine and graduated from the Iowa Writer's Workshop.

William De Witt Snodgrass

Snodgrass was perhaps best known for his contributions to print media publications throughout the 1950s under his pen name of S. S. Gardons. Anyone who has perused antique books and vintage magazines has undoubtedly ran across this man and enjoyed his work. Snodgrass died in early 2009 as one of the more consistently published members of the Iowa Writer's Workshop.

A.M. Homes

A. M. Homes has a name as understated as her talent that has become more and more recognized in recent years as adaptations of her work have been undertaken. This Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate is best known for Jack,Music for Torching, and the Safety of Objects.

John Murry

John Murry is a recent (as it goes) graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop who is Australian by birth and who decided midlife to switch career paths and become an author instead of continuing with a medical career. His volume A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies has received a solid review, and it is highly likely more great work is in his future.

Kevin Brockmeier

Brockmeier was technically an instructor at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, but he is an interesting study for fans of the institution as he has published story books, children's books, and fantasy books in his relatively short life (born in 1972). Like Murry, Brockmeier will likely become a slow and steady contributor to the credibility and grandeur of the workshop.

John Cheever

From the era when short story authors were still widely published and recognized, John Cheever was a solid contributor to the genre who also published a few noted books including Bullet Park. Cheever died in 1982 after having lived a classically depicted writer's life of addiction. In Cheever's case alcohol was a somewhat consistent curse.

The Iowa Writer's Workshop has sent numerous authors out into the world and many of them have made the institution proud.
Sources:

http://www.uiowa.edu/~iww/
http://www.michaelcunninghamwriter.com/biography/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Roth
http://www.writerstudio.com/pages/
http://www.vonnegut.com/artist.asp
http://www.annpatchett.com/about.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W.D._Snodgrass
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.M._Homes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Murray_%28Australian_novelist%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Brockmeier
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cheever