Each year dozens of Iowa faculty, staff, students, and alumni get their work published, win prizes, draw accolades, and earn awards. Here are some highlights from the many writing and writing-related programs in the 2017–18 academic year.

UI faculty and students have designed a web-based game that can be played by anyone with a smartphone and a Fitbit.

So many serious writers are now fixing their sights on television that the University of Iowa, home of the venerable Iowa Writers’ Workshop, has launched a postgraduate TV-writing fellowship and will begin a workshop focused on the specialization this fall.

UI faculty have won grants through the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development program.

UI alumni and Bettendorf, Iowa, natives Scott Beck and Bryan Woods are finalizing a deal with Twentieth Century Fox to adapt Stephen King’s “The Boogeyman” for a new horror film. Beck and Woods’s script for this year’s A Quiet Place, co-written by director and co-star John Krasinski, made $328 million.

University of Iowa alumnus and Cedar Rapids native Jeff Tomsic's feature film directing debut, Tag, opened third at the box office, raking in $14.6 million—more than half of its $28 million price tag—in its first weekend.

Research by Paula Amad, associate professor and department chair of the Department of Cinematic Arts, is quoted in an article by Time magazine about the history of aerial imaging.

Hancher Auditorium and Voxman Music Building on the University of Iowa campus were named winners of the prestigious 2018 American Architecture Awards for the best new buildings designed and constructed by American architects in the U.S. and abroad and by international architects for buildings designed and built in the United States.

Jennifer Croft, who earned an MFA from Iowa in 2003, has been awarded the Man Booker International Prize along with Polish author Olga Tokarczuk, whose novel “Flights” Croft translated into English.

The University of Iowa is leading a movement to change the way science is taught at K–12 schools statewide. With funding from the National Science Foundation, educators at the UI are revising the science curriculum and recruiting and training teachers to better educate Iowa children in the sciences.

University of Iowa alumna Jennifer Croft was named a recipient of the Man Booker International Prize for works of translated fiction on May 22 for her English-language translation of Flights, by Polish author Olga Tokarczuk. Croft received an MFA in literary translation from the UI in 2003.

A new University of Iowa–led study reports educational opportunities and higher incomes may be key to closing the health gap between most black and white Americans. Researchers say socioeconomic factors, mainly wealth and education, influenced the differences in health behaviors between the groups more than other variables.