The University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine will host a three-day conference focusing on the links between the science of medicine and the art of writing.
The University of Iowa is among the nation’s premier centers for creative writing, and its programs attract writers from all over the world. A dozen Pulitzer Prize-winners, numerous National Book Award recipients, and four recent US Poet Laureates have attended the University of Iowa. The University is home to the International Writing Program, the Nonfiction Writing Program, the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, and the Iowa Review. It is also home to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the first creative writing degree program in the United States, and the model for contemporary writing programs.
Some events are open to the public
For all events, visit our program page.
Keynote Presentation
| 6:00 — 8:00Friday, April 20, 2012Main Library Shambaugh AuditoriumPresented by the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine Writing and Humanities Program and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Open to the public. |
 Philip Levine, MFA, US Poet Laureate:
The Doctor of Starlight [Keynote Presentation] We have no description just yet. Check back soon!Philip Levine was born in Detroit in 1928, to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, and educated at Wayne University (now Wayne State), the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and Stanford University. He is the author of twenty collections of poetry, and his honors include the Pulitzer Prize, two National Book Awards, and two National Book Critic Circle Awards. He is the current United States Poet Laureate. |
Featured Presentations
| 12:45 — 2:00Thursday, April 19, 2012MERF 2117Open to the Public. |
 Nellie Hermann, MFA, Columbia University:
Writing in the Clinical Context and Beyond [Featured Presentation]Creative writing is often thought to only belong in the world of the "artist," the MFA program, or the publishing world. But when practiced in alternative contexts, the true potential of creativity as a tool becomes apparent. This talk will center on the reasons WHY we write, how writing creatively can alter our conceptions of ourselves and our experiences, and what writing can offer us in a clinical context. What can writing and sharing in groups do for us in a professional context? How might we alter the forms of the stories we tell in order to change our understanding of these stories? What does writing creatively do for us that is different and valuable for understanding our world? I will share examples of writing done in the clinical world, as well as my own story, as a means of illustrating the power of the creative imagination as a tool that everyone can use.Nellie Hermann is author of the novel, The Cure for Grief, which received national acclaim in Time Magazine, Elle, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications. Her short story "Can We Let the Baby Go?" won first prize in Glimmer Train's 2008 "Family Matters" competition and was published in 2010. She teaches at Barnard College and is the creative director of The Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. |
| 12:45 — 2:15Friday, April 20, 2012MERF 2117Open to the Public. |
 David Watts, MD:
What Literature Can Do For Medicine [Featured Presentation] There can be little argument as to the value of literature in our lives. But I will argue that its richness is only beginning to be appreciated as important to the education and sustenance of medical professionals and its potential is vastly underutilized. Beginning with what is lacking in the training and behaviors of medical professionals we will build a case that poems and stories are an integral part of the medical experience and are an important tool for releasing our potential to operate at our fullest as comforters and healers. David Watts is a gastroenterologist at the UCSF School of Medicine, a poet, a classically trained musician, a television producer/host and occasional NPR commentator. Seven books of his poetry have been published (two under his avant-garde pseudonym), along with two books of short stories (Random House and U. Iowa Press). He has been selected as one of America’s Best Doctors by three separate organizations, has invented the Third Eye Retroscope manufactured by Avantis Medical Equipment Company of Sunnyvale, California and has organized and leads a summer writing workshop, The Healing Art of Writing, for those committed to the subject of illness and healing. His jazz-poetry ensemble, Free Radicals, just released its new CD. |