Join us monthly to generate new creative writing inspired by works in the Stanley collection. Each session will be led by a different talented writer from our area, who will be offering a new prompt and a new approach to ekphrastic writing (writing inspired by visual art). Bring your own notebook and pencil or computer and leave with the beginning of a newly written piece. Co-sponsored by Iowa City Poetry. Teen and adult writers in all genres are welcome.

Write at the Stanley meets every fourth Sunday of the month.

Jan. 22: David Duer

Born in Akron, Ohio, David Duer recently retired from teaching English language arts at Washington High School in Cedar Rapids. He’s now a volunteer art docent at both the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art and the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. His work has been published in Ascent, English Journal, Exquisite Corpse, Little Village, Poetry, and elsewhere. A chapbook of his poetry, To Bread, was published by Coffee House Press.

Feb. 26: DK Nnuro  

DK Nnuro is a Ghanaian-born writer and a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He has taught novel writing at the University of Iowa and is currently curator of special projects at the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art. He lives in Iowa City, Iowa. His debut novel, What Napoleon Could Not Do, will be published on Feb. 7, 2023, by Riverhead Books.

March 26: Jennifer Colville

Jennifer Colville is the director of PorchLight Literary Arts Center, a community literary salon in Iowa City, and is the founding editor of Prompt Press, a project connecting visual artists, book artists, and writers. She leads creative writing workshops on “The Inventive Female Voice” and the intersection of writing and visual art. Elegies for Uncanny Girls, a collection of her short stories, was published in 2017 by Indiana University Press. She is a 2022–2023 Iowa Artist Fellow.

April 23: Lenore Maybaum

Lenore Maybaum earned her PhD in language, literacy, and culture at the University of Iowa with a focus on language acquisition, critical theory, and cultural studies. Her interests include French New Wave, film studies, the American novel, writing center theory and pedagogy, and Greek tragedy. She directs the Iowa City campus Writing Center and teaches Elements of Writing and Forms of Fiction: American Dreams. Her most recent publication—an essay exploring creative and maternal caregiving practices—can be found in “New Maternalisms”: Tales of Motherwork (Dislodging the Unthinkable).

May 28: Lisa Roberts

Lisa Roberts has taught literature and writing at universities in Hong Kong, Virginia, Las Vegas, and Nebraska. After moving to Iowa, she worked as assistant director of the Iowa Youth Writing Project. Today she is the director of Iowa City Poetry, a community arts organization that shares literary resources with writers of all ages, incomes, and identities. Her poems have appeared in Plainsongs, The Untidy Season: An Anthology of Nebraska Women Poets, and Little Village. She has performed spoken-word poems at a variety of shows, including Was the Word, Voicebox, The Hook, and Poetry in Motion.