Nesrin Mostafa takes in the aroma of a book embedded with spices from her home in Egypt. Her husband, Islam Aly, made each part of the book by hand—creating the paper from flax fibers and spices, fabricating the cover, and binding the pages.

Learning time-honored traditions, students in the University of Iowa Master of Fine Arts in the Book Arts program also push the boundaries of book culture, embrace digital creativity, and engage the public in discussions about the role of books in our society.

The Center for the Book is an interdisciplinary program housed in the Graduate College. In addition to the Master of Fine Arts in Book Arts, the center offers a graduate certificate in Book Studies, and a joint Master of Arts in Library and Information Science and graduate certificate in Book Studies. “Kim Merker, and all of us who followed him, have been working for 26 years to graduate our first MFA class. What makes this moment truly significant is not that it finally marks the end of working toward the MFA,” says Tim Barrett, Center for the Book director. "Instead, these first four graduates—Islam, Eli, Jill, and Katharina, and the work they’ve accomplished—embody, finally, the beginning. This is where we’ve always wanted to be.” The UI’s rich history and ongoing vibrancy as a writing university create the perfect incubator for scholars in the Center for the Book, which was founded by Kim Merker in 1986.