<p>First of all, do you have class every day or only on the weekdays?</p>
<p>You have class every day, but on the first weekend, there is a change of schedule. Students sign up for a "Dunk Tank" activity of their choice (e.g. Magazine Interviewing, Songwriting, etc.) and are involved in that for an entire day. So that provides a nice change of pace. </p>
<p>Can you give me like an example of a typical day (with times and stuff)? </p>
<p>It depends really on what you decide to "major" in (Fiction, Poetry, Creative Writing). I took Creative Writing, which I thought was the best deal, as it covered a holistic study of both prose and poetry. This is what my own timetable looked like.</p>
<p>6:15 - 8:30 Breakfast, I think I went once.
8:50 Awakened by Boston, my beloved roommate.
9:00 - 9:55 Stretch. Creative writing exercises are given by different teachers every day. My teacher, Lewis, gave the best one: write the worst possible dialogue ever. The background story of the dialogue: an adopted boy meets his biological parents for the first time...at a Wendy's.
10:00 - 11:30 Lit Seminar OR Missions Inscribable (This alternates). If Lit Seminar, you join with your small group to talk about stuff written by people who really matter, and we dissect their craft to the very fundamentals. If Missions Inscribable, you split up into new groups with a different teacher each time, and set off on adventerous writing activities. One I remember involved being blindfolded and choosing two random lines from random books in the public library, and writing a story with one of the lines as the beginning, and the other as the end.
11:30 - 2:00 Lunch. Mediocre food from the university cafeteria, same as any other cafeteria.<br>
2:00 - 4:00 Workshop. Burn and tear apart works written by each other. It's good to get your work so thoroughly analyzed and critiqued; not only do you get a sense of how others respond to your work, but you learn how your craft of writing, specifically, can be improved.
4:00 - 10:00 Mess around. Basically do whatever you want - cards, pool, computer lab, hit the town, hang out, talk. This was what made Iowa gold. The students you find yourself with are all ridiculously amazing, knowledgable, witty people. It's awe-inspiring. There are occasionally some organized trips to movies, parks, cemeteries, etc. The usual, you know.
10:00 - ? Time to go to your floor and bond with the rest of your gender (males to one floor, females to the other). Amazing experience - I've never laughed so much in my life. Hilarious stories, great guitarists, what more can you want? Reading others' work could be horrible, though. I never read during the afternoon or evening, so I'd often stay up until 1 or 2AM reading 40-80 pages for seminar and workshop.</p>
<p>Two weeks seems kind of short... Do you feel like it was long enough to really improve your writing?</p>
<p>I don?t think it could have been much longer, in fact. Routine will take its toll, eventually. Two weeks is a decent amount of time that allows you to have fun, be interested, and learn. The writing/reading done is very intensive, so I do believe that lots of learning is done here. The point of Iowa is to spark inspiration, so that you will want to explore writing even after the program is over. That is, at least, what happened to me. </p>
<p>How many people are in a class?</p>
<p>Around ten, perhaps? The small classes are great. </p>
<p>What's the best thing about IYWS? And the worst thing?</p>
<p>Best: Endless conversation about not only literature, but also everything else worth talking about (and not worth talking about). Worst: The living conditions (and rules about curfew and gender-mixing and such), even though they weren't that bad. More annoying than bad. The rules weren't too strictly enforced, either, which was great.</p>
<p>*What are the dorms like? And the food? What's Iowa like? *</p>
<p>The dorms are mangeable. You have a sort of bunk bed, where you sleep on the top, and you have a desk on the bottom. The toilets/showers are shared by the dorm, but it?s not especially bad or bothersome. The food, as said above, is only alright. Being a university cafeteria, there is some variety for choice. There are some good places around town, but it can be pricey. </p>
<p>As someone coming from a big city, coming to Iowa was a hell of a change. Certainly no skyscrapers or huge crowds to be found here. Iowa City itself is not cornfields and tractors, but there is certainly a lot of that beyond the limits of the city. The city is small and collegiate, with some very, very good bookstores around. </p>
<p>What do you do in your spare time? Do you get a lot of homework? Do you do more reading or writing? If you could do it again, would you?</p>
<p>Spare time can be used for absolutely anything. Some play a menacing game of pool, some leaf through pages upon pages of Faulkner or Carver, some go out to hazy cafes and have glorious conversation. Homework is writing and reading. I think the load may be heavy, but it is completely manageable, not to mention fun. </p>
<p>I did an equal amount of reading and writing. As a short story writer, I found myself writing four to eight double-spaced pages every two or three days. Intensive, to be sure.</p>
<p>I'd do it again, for sure. </p>
<p>Anything else you would like me to know?</p>
<p>All the teachers and counsellors are conversational, hilarious, and not to mention literary geniuses (all being graduates of the actual Workshop). Among the students themselves, you will find guitarists, philosophers, artists, and more. The people you find yourself with are what make Iowa the amazing experience it is.</p>
<p>When did you get your acceptance from the studio, and how difficult is it to get in if you're not a competition-winning/etc type writer, but more of one who does it for a hobby?</p>
<p>I received my acceptance sometime in May, I think. It might be different, though, since I?m studying abroad. </p>
<p>It is certainly not an elitist sort of program. At Iowa, you?ll find writers that have penned 500-page books, as well as writers that just enjoy scribbling poetry in their freetime. I felt none of that intensive competitive atmosphere here.</p>
<p>Hope that helped!</p>