Here’s to a great class of writers!

Josh, a poet and photographer, offered to take free portraits of his fellow Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduates. He told them he wanted to do it so, when their books came out, he could be a part of them.

That’s the supportive environment my daughter Molly found when she came to Iowa City in 2023.

She went in search of instruction, she found inspiration.

Her instructors and classmates offered each the thorough feedback writers solicit in formal workshops. That kind of valuable insight takes time, and not every writer is willing to pull away from their own work to help a fellow writer improve. This group did that with the kind of precision and enthusiasm that elevates everyone’s work — writer, reader, listener, reviewer and even casual passer-by who overhears the comments and files them away.

You expect that when you attend a writing program like the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, the first in the world to offer an MFA and the alma mater of so many gifted authors.

But, this class offered each other even more.

They cooked for each other, played music, shot pool, danced. Under the rickety stairs of her rental house deck, Molly and her friend Woody hosted epic barbecues. She sent us pictures of the food, which we appropriately complimented. But, the faces in those pictures drew my attention more, because they exuded such kindness and joy.

I’m not sure any pursuit in this world is a solitary as writing, and any more necessary element to that pursuit than human interaction. Appleton native Lan Samantha Chang, who has run the Iowa Writer’s Workshop since 2006, understands that dichotomy and how to capitalize on it to encourage talent.

She and her team select students from all over the world, who come to Iowa City to hone their craft. Two years after she took the helm of the Writer’s Workshop, Iowa City was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site for literature. It’s proudly, and importantly, held that distinction since.

In 2024 alone, the program listed a Pulitzer Prize winner and three finalists among its many award recipients. It’s graduates include Flannery O’Connor, Kurt Vonnegut, John Cheever, Jane Smiley, Raymond Carver, Tracy Kidder and eight National Poets Laureaute.

A 2005 Pulitzer Prize winner, novelist and Writer’s Workshop graduate Marilynne Robinson, addressed the 2025 graduating class Saturday afternoon.

“I’m looking into the faces of the future of American Literature,” she said.

As the grateful mother of one of those graduates, I can tell you that future is in the hands of some very good people.