The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a graduate-level creative writing program. At 87 years, it is the oldest writing program offering a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in the United States. Its acceptance rate is between 2.7% and 3.7%. On the university's behalf, the workshop administers the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism and the Iowa Short Fiction Award.
Louise Doughty is an English novelist and screenwriter. She is best known for her bestselling novels, including Apple Tree Yard. She has also worked as a cultural critic for newspapers and magazines. Her weekly column for The Daily Telegraph was published as A Novel in a Year in 2007. Doughty was the presenter of the BBC Radio 4 programme A Good Read in 1998 to 2001.
Christian Karlson "Karl" Stead is a New Zealand writer whose works include novels, poetry, short stories, and literary criticism. He is one of New Zealand's most well-known and internationally celebrated writers.
Madeleine Thien is a Canadian short story writer and novelist. The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Literature has considered her work as reflecting the increasingly trans-cultural nature of Canadian literature, exploring art, expression and politics inside Cambodia and China, as well as within diasporic East Asian communities. Thien's critically acclaimed novel, Do Not Say We Have Nothing, won the 2016 Governor General's Award for English-language fiction, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards for Fiction. It was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize, the 2017 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, and the 2017 Rathbones Folio Prize. Her books have been translated into more than 25 languages.
Elizabeth McCracken is an American author. She is a recipient of the PEN New England Award.
Alexander Chee is an American fiction writer, poet, journalist and reviewer.
Christopher David Castellani is the author of four novels and artistic director of the creative writing non-profit GrubStreet.
Stephen Harrigan is an American novelist, journalist and screenwriter. He is best known as the author of the bestselling The Gates of the Alamo, for other novels such as Remember Ben Clayton and A Friend of Mr. Lincoln, and for his magazine work in Texas Monthly.
Yiyun Li is a Chinese-born writer and professor in the United States. Her short stories and novels have won several awards, including the PEN/Hemingway Award and Guardian First Book Award for A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, the 2020 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award for Where Reasons End, and the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for The Book of Goose. Her short story collection Wednesday's Child was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She is an editor of the Brooklyn-based literary magazine A Public Space.
Deb Olin Unferth is an American short story writer, novelist, and memoirist. She is the author of the collection of stories Minor Robberies, the novel Vacation, both published by McSweeney's, and the memoir, Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War, published by Henry Holt. Unferth was a finalist for a 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award for her memoir, Revolution.
The Michener Center for Writers is a Masters of Fine Arts program in fiction, poetry, playwriting, and screenwriting at the University of Texas at Austin. It is widely regarded as one of the top creative writing programs in the world. Bret Anthony Johnston is the current director of the program. Previously, James Magnuson ran the program for more than 20 years. UT Resident English Department faculty include Elizabeth McCracken, Edward Carey, Roger Reeves, and Michener Center faculty include Amy Hempel, Joanna Klink and rotating guest faculty.
Adam Johnson is an American novelist and short story writer. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2012 novel, The Orphan Master's Son, and the National Book Award for his 2015 story collection Fortune Smiles. He is also a professor of English at Stanford University with a focus on creative writing.
American Short Fiction is a nationally circulated literary magazine founded in 1991 and based in Austin, Texas. Issued triannually, American Short Fiction publishes short fiction, novel excerpts, an occasional novella, and strives to publish work by both established and emerging contemporary authors. The magazine seeks out stories "that dive into the wreck, that stretch the reader between recognition and surprise, that conjure a particular world with delicate expertise—stories that take a different way home."
Maria Joan Hyland is an ex-lawyer and the author of three novels: How the Light Gets In (2004), Carry Me Down (2006) and This is How (2009). Hyland is a lecturer in creative writing in the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester. Carry Me Down (2006) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Hawthornden Prize and the Encore Prize.
The Sunday Times Short Story Award also known as the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award and later the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award, was a British literary award for a single short story open to any novelist or short story writer from around the world who was published in the UK or Ireland. The winner received £30,000, and the five shortlisted writers each received £1,000. A longlist of 16 was also announced. The award was established in 2010 by The Sunday Times newspaper with backing by EFG Private Bank. In 2019, award sponsorship changed to Audible, which withdrew its sponsorship after the 2021 award. It has been called the richest prize in the world for a single short story.
Paula Jane Kiri Morris is a New Zealand novelist, short-story writer editor and literary academic. She is an associate professor at the University of Auckland and founder of the Academy of New Zealand Literature.
Rob Magnuson Smith is a novelist, short story writer, journalist, and university lecturer. A dual citizen of the United States and the United Kingdom, Smith currently resides in Cornwall.
Sarah Quigley is a New Zealand writer.
Daisy Johnson is a British novelist and short story writer. Her debut novel, Everything Under, was shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize, and beside Eleanor Catton she is the youngest nominee in the prize's history. For her short stories, she has won three awards since 2014.
Kathleen Alcott is an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist from Northern California. She has taught Creative Writing and Literature at Columbia University and Bennington College. Her work has been translated into Dutch, Italian, Korean, French, Turkish, and Chinese.
