Customer Reviews

A Community of Writers: Paul Engle and the Iowa Writers' Workshop

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This is one of the most entertaining collections of essays that I have ever read. It gives a true behind-the-scenes look at the world-renowned Iowa Writer's Workshop. Many of the essays are tremendously funny. This book appeals to a far wider audience than just M.F.A. students. Anyone who is interested in writers and writing will find this book tremendously entertaining, informative and thought-provoking. (However, if you've ever attended an M.F.A. program, you will find this book particularly insightful.) The essays read like little stories of their own. Read this book--you won't regret it!!

This is a wonderful, wonderful book--and one that appealed to me for many reasons, some personal and some not. First, if you love reading about writers and writing (as I do), you'll love this book. Good writers and brilliant poets open their hearts in their essays and write frankly about the tough times they have gone through--e.g., the times they hated their work, the times they weren't producing anything. And also they write about the troubles and joys of being young, and what it is like to have brilliant and flawed mentors in a very special, challenging academic situation.

At first, I thought the book was meant to be an unabashed hagiography of Paul Engle. Nope. Midway through the book arrive the essays from former workshoppers who, like W.D. Snodgrass, were NOT Engle's favored proteges; those essays give you even more insight into the workshop and Engle himself.

More personally, the book brought me home to Iowa City, where I lived for over 12 happy years. Although most of the book's recollections center on the 1950s and 1960s, some of the places and businesses the writers describe in their essays thrive today.

I had a lovely time reading this book, and I think others will, too.