Please join us for our annual IWP Sunday Afternoon Reading Series! This week’s event features IWP Residents Siddharth Dasgupta (India) Essay Liu (Taiwan), and Grigor Shashikyan (Armenia). An accompanying student from either the Writers' Workshop or the Iowa NWP will be announced soon.
Siddharth Dasgupta (novelist, poet, journalist; India) is the author, most recently, of The Sacred Sorrow of Sparrows — a collection of stories fed by the textures and human splendor within grief; and All These Streets We’ve Known By Heart, which was shortlisted for The Tagore Prize, among others. He is currently working on a gathering of short stories, one of human beings trying to find salvation in the dramas and the bodies and the cities and the coastal empires they know as home. His participation is made possible thanks to the generous support of Hugh F. Culverhouse, Jr. and other donations made to the International Writing Program.
Essay Liu (screenwriter, fiction writer, nonfiction writer; Taiwan) was born in 1980, from Changhua, Taiwan. She has won the Golden Horse Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, the Taipei Film Festival's Best Screenplay, the United Literature Novel Newcomer Award, the Lin Rongsan Literature Award for Essays, etc. Her works include: Seven Days In Heaven(父後七日), Dear Child（親愛的小孩), Wish You Were Here Too（希望你也在這裡), and more than ten others. She also teaches scriptwriting courses in universities and workshops. Her participation is made possible by a grant from Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture.
Grigor Shashikyan Գրիգոր Շաշիկյան (pen name Grig) Գրիգ (fiction writer, literary critic; Armenia) is the author of three books, two of which — Հիսուսի կատուն [Jesus' Cat] (2015) and Friedensdorf [Peace Village] (2023) — have been bestselling books in Armenia for years. He has received more than a dozen national and international awards, the most notable of which include: “Youth Prize of the President of the Republic of Armenia,” “HOTLIST independent publishers competition,” and “Coburger Rückert-Preis.” He is currently working on a collection of short stories. His participation is made possible thanks to the generous support of Hugh F. Culverhouse, Jr. and other donations made to the International Writing Program.