The Blog

self-portrait as a young woman

Sydney Mayes

We are delighted to present Sydney Mayes's poem "self-portrait as a young woman," winner of the David Hamilton Undergraduate Creative Writing Prize. This prize is sponsored by anonymous donors who wish to honor the mentorship and support they and other students at the University of Iowa received from Emeritus Professor of English David Hamilton. In addition to publication online, Mayes will will be awarded a $500 scholarship. 


                                —after Auguste Rodin’s Young Woman

you know when i was younger i was a pageant winner

in the winter i will move to tennessee with my breasts

and my books stack up all around me how many sonnets

can one have a glass a quiet hour a pink sash and trophy

case by case basis they’ll evaluate applications for financial

Winners of the 2023 Iowa Review Awards

TIR Staff

The results are in: we are very excited to announce the winners of the 2023 Iowa Review Awards! The work of the winners will be published in our Winter 2023/2024 issue. Thank you to everyone who participated in the contest, and a huge thank you to our contest judges: Lauren Haldeman (poetry), Brandon Taylor (fiction), and Sarah Minor (nonfiction). Meet our winners:

POETRY

Interview with Daisy Hernández

Victor Resendiz

Daisy Hernández is the author of The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation’s Neglect of a Deadly Disease, which won the 2022 PEN /Jean Stein Book Award and was selected as an inaugural title for the National Book Foundation’s Science + Literature Program. She is also the author of the award-winning memoir A Cup of Water Under My Bed and coeditor of Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism. Daisy is an Associate Professor in the English Department at Northwestern University. TIR intern Victor Resendiz talked with Hernández via email about " Soursop," her story in issue 51/2 of The Iowa Review, and The Kissing Bug.

Winners of the sixth Veterans’ Writing Contest

TIR Staff

The Iowa Review is excited to announce the winners and runners-up of our sixth Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans, judged by Jerri Bell. The work of all winners and runners-up will be published in the Spring 2023 edition of the magazine. Thank you to all those who entered the contest, and thank you all for your service. Included below are the winners, Bell's comments on the winning work, and a brief bio about each writer.

First Place:

Moth

Yunong Guo

We are delighted to present Yunong Guo's story "Moth," winner of the David Hamilton Undergraduate Creative Writing Prize. This prize is sponsored by anonymous donors who wish to honor the mentorship and support they and other students at the University of Iowa received from Emeritus Professor of English David Hamilton. In addition to publication online, Guo will will be awarded a $500 scholarship. 

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