What IS Screw Iowa?
From chapter one to the end, the sincere desire to help writers leaps off the pages ofThe End of the Book: Writing in a Changing World. The authors cut to the chase with advice and personal experiences about writing groups, workshops, publishing, and much more. You don’t want to miss the practical wisdom and encouragement they have to share! –Wanda D. Kimball, Baltimore
Brimming with optimism while floundering in a sea of rejection letters, Nina, Marni, Lauren, Mariana and Melissa each traveled to the 2004 University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival hopeful to find the inspiration and resources to pursue the writing life. They left Iowa seven days later with critiques on twenty pages of their unpublished novels, the email and street addresses for their fellow writers from “Revising the Novel,” and tote bags full of recommendations and suggestions. Who knew that those email addresses would become the most valuable acquisition after a week of rubbing shoulders with U of Iowa’s prolific MFA instructors?
After a year of exchanging their writing long-distance and nurturing one another through the pain of rejection and revision, these five women wanted more one-on-one help with their writing. After asking U of Iowa to offer a different style of workshop to better suit their needs as writers and receiving polite rejection, they didn’t despair. All they needed was one another to support their work, so they formed their own workshop—Screw Iowa! Screw practicality, screw distance and screw the hassles of daily life! Leaving behind five husbands, ten sons, one daughter, four dogs and a cat, Nina, Marni, Lauren, Mariana and Melissa joined forces in June 2005 and began The Screw Iowa! Writers Workshop.
The five ladies meet annually after reading one other’s entire works in progress, spending a day in intense, page-by-page, line-by-line critique. Whether you are a poet, essayist, novelist or hack, your writing life can benefit from the Screw Iowa! method.
How can you be a successful writer in a changing publishing world? The answer is by connecting, working with other writers who share your passion and your goals. Together writers can overcome the hurdles that face—and so often defeat—the solitary writer. The Screw Iowa Writers Workshop book The End of the Book: Writing in a Changing World addresses:
- how to find a writing group to sustain your writing life
- the values that underlie group work
- how to give—and receive—the kind of feedback writers need to edit their work
- how to overcome writer’s block
- how to find opportunities to put your writing skills to work
- the best way for you to get your work into print, from blogging to print on demand services to starting your own press
The book explains how to troubleshoot and resolve conflicts in writing groups. It provides concrete examples so that you can see how the editing process works. It advises the best way to attend a writing workshop, and guides you through the process of hosting your own. Most important of all, through the Screw Iowa Writers Workshop book and website, you have access to the step-by-step process you need to keep on writing, day after day, until you have achieved your goals.
They’re so cool they even have their own logo!
