LitCity

Grace and Rubie’s restaurant was a women-only establishment that once existed on North Linn Street in Iowa City’s Northside.

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• T.C. Boyle: Grace and Rubie's Restaurant

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Known as the Afro House, this space provides a supportive and inclusive environment and programs that empower students, faculty, staff, and community members to excel in their endeavors, stretch themselves to experience diversity, engage in activism, make positive choices, and serve their communities. African American Studies examines the shared experiences of African-descended people throughout the diaspora. Drawing on a rich tradition of scholarship, teaching, and civic engagement, the faculty introduce students to the foundations of African American Studies (AAS) and collaborates with them to develop projects and analyze information that leads to new intellectual perspectives. The African American Studies major involves three core areas of study:  history, religion, and the diaspora; literature and performing arts; and media, politics, and social institutions.

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• Margaret Walker Visits with Students on the UI campus

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Dave’s Fox Head (402 East Market Street), on the corner of Market and Gilbert streets, has been the “Workshop bar” since at least the 1980s. From the outside it appears to be little more than a shack, and its interior has remained completely unchanged since I first stepped foot inside in the late 1970s. It’s a simple tavern—a couple of rows of scarred wooden booths, a jukebox, and a pool table. It could be 1945 or 2012 or, judging from the jukebox selection, 1967 onward. Being inside Dave’s is a little like being inside a Raymond Carver story, and although it’s often full of writers, I don’t think anyone ever actually writes in Dave’s.

- From City Guide: Iowa City by Jan Weissmiller

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• Frank Conroy at the Foxhead

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The original Donnelly’s Pub was on Dubuque Street, now at 110 East College Street, where Workshop writers Robert Lowell and John Berryman met in the 1950s, followed by John Irving and Kurt Vonnegut in the sixties. From City Guide: Iowa City by Jan Weissmiller:

The antique bar at Micky’s was moved from the original Donnelly’s Pub on Dubuque Street, now at 110 East College Street, where Workshop writers Robert Lowell and John Berryman met in the 1950s, followed by John Irving and Kurt Vonnegut in the sixties. If you order a Guinness, be assured that Dylan Thomas had more than one there before you.

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• Robert Dana at Donnelly's Pub
• Robert Lowell and John Berryman at Donnelly's Bar
• Tomaž Šalamun meets Anselm Hollo at Donnelly's Pub

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Downtown Iowa City is the economic and cultural engine of the Iowa City community. It is home to a wide variety of independent, locally-owned boutiques and shops , as well as some of the very best dining and entertainment options in the state. Culture and entertainment options abound. Whether visitors are seeking live music, theater, art galleries, films, or impromptu on-street jams, a five-minute walk through Downtown Iowa City will offer all of the above and more.

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• T.C. Boyle on Downtown Iowa City

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The English-Philosophy Building, known on campus as EPB, has been home to these two humanities departments and the Department of Linguistics since its construction, and to the Department of Rhetoric since 1970. From City Guide: Iowa City by Jan Weissmiller:

Just west of the Main Library is the English-Philosophy Building. From the time it was built in the late 1960s until 1997 it housed the Workshop. Its gray, utilitarian classrooms were the location of much beauty and heartbreak. Its small lounge on the third floor was the space where visiting writers for all those years endured the question and answer sessions that take place the morning after heralded readings. I have heard Robert Hass, Louise Glück, James Tate, James Merrill, John Ashbery, W. S. Merwin, Seamus Heaney, and Helen Vendler all answer questions in that room. Brilliant questions from brilliant students as well as questions such as, “Do your ideas just come to you or do you make them up?”

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• A History of Writers in the English Philosophy Building
• Carolyn Kizer's work in the Iowa Review
• Frank Conroy at the English Philosophy Building
• Gail Godwin at the English-Philosophy Building
• James McPherson Reading, 1981

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The Java House is a cafe on the east side of Iowa City, where writers gather to work, write and meet.

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• Marvin Bell: First Ave Java House

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The legendary bar known as Gabe’s Oasis, first started as Gabe and Walker’s back in the early 70′s and, while it has gone through many transformations, it is strangely the same.  This place has operated for years bringing some of the best live music available to Iowa City. Gabe's brings high quality local, regional and national shows to Iowa City, with a beer garden out back and two floors of music and social space.

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• T.C Boyle: Gabe's

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Half a block west is George’s Buffet (312 East Market Street), another bar that hasn’t had a makeover the entire time that I’ve been in town. It, too, is a hangout for writers, although it is more apt to include a mix of blue-collar and academic regulars than Dave’s [Fox Head] is. There’s no pool table in George’s, but there are hamburgers and cheeseburgers that have quite a reputation. I haven’t had one in a couple of decades, but from all appearances they haven’t changed: a soft white bun and a piece of juicy (greasy) meat with your choice of condiments wrapped in wax paper, no sides allowed. Recently I picked up a friend in town from L.A., and the first thing he wanted when he stepped off the plane was a hamburger from George’s.

- From City Guide: Iowa City by Jan Weissmiller

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Before the construction of Halsey Hall, the women’s gymnasium had been confined to a small space in the basement of Schaeffer Hall known as the Crypt. With a new building and the advent of Elizabeth Halsey as director of women’s physical education (a post she held from 1924 until 1956), the athletic life of female students at the University of Iowa was transformed.

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• Mildred Wirt Benson at Halsey Hall

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Around the corner from Dave’s at 214 Linn Street is the Hamburg Inn, an Iowa City institution since 1937 famous for pancakes and eggs. The Hamburg is open twenty-four hours a day and has a long history with writers. On April 24 a local historian, Marybeth Slonneger, released The Burg, a history of the inn with essays by a selection of writers, including poet Marvin Bell and novelist Mary Helen Stefaniak.

- From City Guide: Iowa City by Jan Weissmiller

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For 80 years, Iowa City has been teaching the world to write. The Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa pioneered the teaching of creative writing at the university level. Dozens of creative programs within the university and the city followed. The newest chapter in this tradition is Iowa City’s designation as a UNESCO City of Literature.

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• "This Was Iowa"
• Abraham Verghese meets John Irving
• Andre Dubus and Robert Lacy at Marv's Tavern
• Charles Wright on his first year at the Workshop
• Gerald Stern, Haki R. Madhubuti, Marvin Bell, and James Galvin reading

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The Iowa Memorial Union, or IMU, at University of Iowa opened in 1925. The building currently houses a number of student clubs and the Iowa House Hotel. From City Guide: Iowa City by Jan Weissmiller:

If you exit the north entrance of the English-Philosophy building and cross Iowa Avenue, you can walk along a river path ... that eventually leads to the Iowa House Hotel (125 North Madison Street), where John Cheever and Raymond Carver both lived while they taught at the Workshop in the fall of 1973. No biography of either of them neglects to mention the degenerate drinking they engaged in when they lived there.

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• Charles Wright, Donald Justice and Marvin Bell at the IMU
• John Cheever and Raymond Carver at the Iowa House
• Marvin Bell and Donald Justice: Iowa Memorial Union
• Raymond Carver and Donald Justice at the Iowa House
• Robert Dana, Robert Lowell in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop

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The Dey House is the home of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. From City Guide: Iowa City by Jan Weissmiller:

... cross the river, and follow Dubuque Street to Church Street. There, if you turn right, you’ll pass the University president’s mansion and come upon Dey House, set on a grassy knoll overlooking the river. In 1997 the Writers’ Workshop relocated from the English-Philosophy building to this nineteenth-century house. The Frank Conroy Reading Room, which was completed in 2006, has vaulted ceilings and a magnificent library. A host of memorable readings by authors such as Robert Hass, Gurganus, D. A. Powell, and Dora Malech have taken place there.

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• Abraham Verghese's first class at the Workshop
• Andre Dubus in Iowa, with Paul Engle
• Anselm Hollo meets Alice Notley
• Carolyn Kizer at the Iowa Writers' Workshop
• Conversations: Interview with Abraham Verghese

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This apartment in Iowa City's Northside neighborhood is where John Berryman lived during part of his time teaching at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

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• John Berryman's Apartment on Jefferson Street

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Once located on the west side of Clinton St., Kenney’s Bar was a very popular place for the Writer’s Workshop participants at this time. “Since my Iowa days I’ve heard that Kenney’s has appeared more in American novels than any other bar.” - Philip F O'Connor, “The Fellowship” A Community of Writers: Paul Engle and the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. The former location of Irene Kenney's Bar in now Hill's Bank in downtown Iowa City. Inside the lobby at Hill's Bank, a large photograph shows the block of South Clinton in the early 1960s: in the photograph, you can see Irene Kenney's bar in the lower right-hand corner.

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• Charles Wright at the Iowa Writers' Workshop
• John Berryman at Kenney's Bar
• Philip Levine at Kenney's Bar

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Home to the residents of the International Writing Program for many years, the Mayflower Residence Hall is a multi-suite building located on the Iowa River.

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• Orhan Pamuk at the International Writing Program
• Rita Dove at Mayflower Dorm

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Located in the heart of downtown Iowa City, Micky's is a local favorite, serving great sandwiches, burgers, salads and specialties in a neighborhood-style restaurant and bar. From City Guide: Iowa City by Jan Weissmiller:

The first is Micky’s Irish Pub (11 South Dubuque Street). The antique bar at Micky’s was moved from the original Donnelly’s Pub on Dubuque Street, now at 110 East College Street, where Workshop writers Robert Lowell and John Berryman met in the 1950s, followed by John Irving and Kurt Vonnegut in the sixties. If you order a Guinness, be assured that Dylan Thomas had more than one there before you.

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The present North Hall was built to house University High School, an experimental school founded in 1916. Until it closed in 1972, the school’s core faculty of graduate students provided an evolving, progressive curriculum to children from Iowa City and its nearby environs. Now home to the School of Social Work and the Center for the Book, North Hall has a small café, Wild Bill’s, that employs and benefits persons with disabilities. From City Guide: Iowa City by Jan Weissmiller:

Just north of the Iowa Memorial Union is North Hall, home to the Iowa Center for the Book (216 North Hall), founded by Merker, a student—along with Justice and Levine—in Berryman’s 1950s workshop. Tim Barrett, the MacArthur award–winning papermaker who was recently the subject of the New York Times Magazine article “Can a Papermaker Help to Save Civilization?” works there, preserving, documenting, and demonstrating centuries-old hand-papermaking practices, alongside former Iowa Center for the Book teacher Shari DeGraw, who does beautiful work with the Empyrean Press.

An unpretentious and relatively utilitarian building, North Hall continues Main Campus North’s string of red-brick buildings designed by Proudfoot, Bird and Rawson. With its modest entrance bay and the restriction of detailing to limestone quoins, it is also one of the least ornamented. Both the upper and lower entrances are crowned by plaques announcing the building’s former life as a school, and North Hall as a whole has a reticence in keeping with that history. One whimsical and enigmatic touch, a pair of doubled X’s, is executed in brickwork on the east façade.

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• Broadside of a Louise Glück poem at the UI Center for the Book

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• Haki R. Madhubuti speaks at the University of Iowa

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The Quonset Huts acted as temporary structures on the University of Iowa campus, and were the location of Iowa Writer's Workshop classes in the early 1950's. They remained on the east side of the Iowa River after World War II. "None of the classrooms in these huts had air conditioning," writes Workshop graduate Robert Dana of the buildings "and when the rain drummed down on them, all talk ceased [...] Nonetheless, the workshop quarters were basically humble.."

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• Charles Wright remembers his teacher Donald Justice
• John Berryman's class at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, with students Philip Levine, Robert Dana, Donald Justice, W.D. Snodgrass
• Robert Dana on the Quonset Huts
• Robert Penn Warren Visits Paul Engle in Iowa City

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A mellow mainstay for writers, with refined bar bites and a large list of draft & bottled beers, in wood-paneled digs.

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• John D'Agata: NWP Reading Series at the Sanctuary Pub

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Shambaugh Auditorium is one of the main venues for readings hosted by the Workshop. When Live From Prairie Lights was broadcasted on the radio, we often held readings there too. J. M. Coetzee and Susan Sontag read there. I have heard John Ashbery read there on more than one occasion, and it was where I first heard Donald Justice read. That, for me, was a life-changing event. I felt “the top of my head coming off”—before I’d heard Emily Dickinson’s famous phrase—and the experience remains the standard by which I’ve measured all other readings. I would recommend or, if I may, insist that everyone go the Academy of American Poets website to hear Donald Justice read. In addition to being a perfect poet, his voice is an instrument. I’ve never heard a poet read with more nuanced control of the speaking voice.

- From City Guide: Iowa City by Jan Weissmiller

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The Shambaugh House is the home of the International Writing Program (IWP) on the University of Iowa campus. From City Guide: Iowa City by Jan Weissmiller:

Catty-cornered across the street from the Dey House is the Shambaugh House, home to the International Writing Program. Founded in 1967 by Paul Engle, it currently brings in forty writers—recent visitors include Hans Castellanos Moya and Etger Kerret—from countries all over the world for ten-week residencies each fall. Prairie Lights hosts readings by the fellows each Sunday afternoon during their tenure.

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• Mo Yan at the International Writing Program
• Paul Engle Creates the International Writing Program
• Tomaž Šalamun at the Shambaugh House
• W.S. Merwin Q & A at the Shambaugh House

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Saint Mary’s Parish of Iowa City is a Eucharistic community located in Iowa City's Northside neighborhood. The church was built in 1840 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

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• Flannery O'Connor: St. Mary's Church

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• Andre Dubus and Kurt Vonnegut
• Richard Yates, Paul Engle, Kurt Vonnegut, Andre Dubus and Robert Lacy in Iowa City

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The Englert Theatre is a community arts center and performance space, enhancing the vitality of Iowa City’s historic downtown by preserving its last historic theater.

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• Cathy Park Hong at the Workshop 75th Anniversary Panel

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The Iowa River meanders south through Iowa City and the University of Iowa Campus.

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• Gail Godwin recalls the Iowa River

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Built 1913 by a group of prominent Iowa City businessmen, the Jefferson Hotel's “modern” appointments, such as an electric elevator, an artesian well, telephones, electric lights, and hot and cold running water, made it a premier hotel in Iowa early in the century.

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• John Berryman Stays at the Jefferson Hotel
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• Robert Lowell at the Jefferson Hotel

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A casual eatery with a mix of American & Italian fare, plus a bar, patio seating & frequent music, the Mill Restaurant is a classic Iowa City establishment in downtown.

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• DeWitt Henry on James McPherson as a teacher
• Jane Smiley: The Mill
• Juan Philipe Herrera at the Mill
• T.C. Boyle & Raymond Carver at the Mill

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Together, Old Capitol Museum and the Museum of Natural History (next door in Macbride Hall) form the University of Iowa Pentacrest Museums. Old Capitol Museum has been in operation since 1976, when the building reopened after a major renovation. It is the only National Historic Landmark in Iowa City. Throughout its long history, the building has served as a seat of the territorial and state governments, a university building serving numerous schools and colleges, administrative offices, and finally a museum. From City Guide: Iowa City by Jan Weissmiller:

Built in 1840, the Old Capitol building has been beautifully restored. The first-floor museum often features exhibits related to the Workshop. A gorgeous spiral staircase leads to the original Senate chambers, where literary events are frequently held. Recent events include a retirement celebration for long-time Iowa Review editor David Hamilton and an evening with Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Natasha Trethewey, sponsored by the Derek Project, a nonprofit organization that introduces students from the Iowa City Community Schools to a well-known author.

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• Margaret Walker Honored in Iowa City with Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award

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• The Parties at the Vonnegut Mansion

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Several generations of workshop students lived in this house, starting with Jane Smiley in the 1970s to Zach Savich, Matt Miller and others in the 2000s.

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• Jane Smiley: The Writers' Farmhouse

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A tinted-glass atrium on the building’s river side provides access to all three stages, and the terrace in front accommodates outdoor dining during summer repertory.

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• Tennessee Williams performs at the University of Iowa

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Home to many readings and events for writers in Iowa City, Van Allen Hall is a manifestation of both the University of Iowa's strong support of the sciences and the critical importance of its namesake’s work. An observatory is visible above the roofline, and the building’s auditorium — a single-story, slab-roof-covered auditorium attached to a multi-use, multistory structure - makes Van Allen visually consistent with other buildings on the Iowa Avenue Campus.

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• Carolyn Kizer reads at the University of Iowa
• John D'Agata, Live from Prairie Lights, February 10, 2010
• John Irving: Van Allen Hall
• Louise Glück reading at the University of Iowa
• Philip Levine reading, The University of Iowa, late 20th century

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