For decades the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop has catapulted writers into successful, fulfilling careers. Based in the Dey House, at 507 N Clinton St., the program has helped five new writers be selected for the National Book Award.

This accolade is the most recent in a long line of success from the Workshop.

“This is a time of great writers. In a town like this, where literature is alive and around you, you can be very inspired,” Program Director of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop Lan Samantha Chang said.

These writers were put on the National Book Award longlist, which is a list that contains this year’s contenders for the prestigious award. Three of the five writers associated with the UI are now finalists for the award.

These finalists include Kaveh Akbar, an associate professor and director of the undergraduate English and creative writing major at the UI, for his fictional novel, “Martyr!”; Deborah Jackson Taffa, who received an MFA in 2013 from the UI Nonfiction Writing Program, is a finalist in the nonfiction writing category for her memoir, “Whiskey Tender;” and m.s. RedCherries, who earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 2021, was recognized in poetry for her debut collection “mother.”

Chang notes the remarkability of having this many people associated with the National Book Award from the program at the UI.

“Last year, there were five finalists from five different decades of the Workshop,” Chang said. “There’s a lot of great writers coming out of here, both before and now. This is a time of great writers. In a town like this, where literature is alive and around you, you can be very inspired.”

The Iowa Writer’s Workshop has produced countless exemplary writers in its time who have gone on to be Pulitzer Prize winners, National Book Award finalists, and educators in other programs across the country.

“The workshop is almost 90 years old, and I think it’s been consistently a sort of hotspot for writers who want to be in a community where they can be inspired and productive,” Chang said. “The support of writing at this university is unparalleled. A large creative community is a very rare thing. And we are extraordinarily lucky that we are a part of a place like this.”

RedCherries is a citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation and received a law degree from Arizona State University. While she was there, she took a creative writing course and was inspired to pursue a writing career. She then decided to further her education at the UI.

“Had I not gone to the Writer’s Workshop, I don’t think I would’ve written this book,” RedCherries said. “I am so proud to be among a community of alumni that are being honored along with me or that have been before. I really had to make the most of the program, and I did. My thesis became my first book. Without Iowa, an award like this would’ve never even been a consideration.”

In addition to RedCherries, the list included some faculty members from the Writer’s Workshop. Professor Elizabeth Willis was longlisted in poetry for her collection titled “Liontaming In America.” Her six books of poetry include “Alive: New and Selected Poems,” which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2016.

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“I’ve always written poetry since I was learning how to write letters, so I’ve felt it was a companion and something that I carried with me,” Willis detailed. “I’ve always been committed to it in that way, so I wouldn’t say I was in pursuit of a particular goal like getting an award as much as I was in pursuit of wanting to make the best work I possibly could and wanting to make poems that were worthy of the expenditure of natural resources that go into making a book.”

Willis works as a professor in the Writer’s Workshop and explained how being a professor and working in the program has enhanced her writing.

“There’s a sense of a collective about the workshop – that we are making something together,” she said. “So, while it helps individuals as writers, it’s also creating a community of writers that ideally is going to help you sustain your work over time.”

For individuals with ties to the Workshop, receiving accolades is not a new or uncommon occurrence. In 2023, five writers who graduated from the program were longlisted for the National Book Award in fiction, including Jayne Anne Phillips, Eliot Duncan, Mona Susan Power, Paul Harding, and Justin Torres. Harding went on to be a finalist, and Torres took home the title of National Book Award for his novel “Blackouts.”

In addition to the National Book Award longlist, Phillips received the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in fiction for her work, “Night Watch.” Phillips graduated with an MFA from the Writers’ Workshop in 1978 and has since received numerous recognitions for her writing.

Other writers longlisted for the National Book Award include Tony Tulathimutte, who earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 2012 and was noted for his work of fiction titled “Rejection.”

Regina Napolitano, a current MFA student in poetry at the workshop, explains her connection to writing and how the program has facilitated that into a craft.

“I’ve learned so much in the workshop,” she said. I’ve learned about poems and forms of poems that I didn’t know about before. There are some things I’ve learned that have really inspired me and made me aware of the larger world of poetry. The opportunity to focus on writing in itself creates growth.”

Napolitano also works as a teaching assistant at the UI and is currently teaching a poetry writing course. She notes how expressing the art of poetry to students helps hone her own writing skills.

“I think teaching is helpful in terms of the writing process,” Napolitano said. “In teaching, you’re able to identify what you’re really excited about in terms of work. Especially in poetry, a lot of people don’t care about it. So being around other people who care gives you some reassurance that what you’re doing matters.”

The winners of the National Book Award will be released at the annual ceremony and benefit dinner on Nov. 20.