Fiction writer Lan Samantha Chang was selected in April as director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Chang, an alumna and former visiting faculty member in the workshop, is currently the Briggs-Copeland Lecturer in creative writing at Harvard University. Chang’s tenure will begin in January 2006.
Chang’s predecessor was Frank Conroy, who declared his intention last summer to step down at the end of this academic year. Conroy died April 6, and as his health declined this past semester, administration of the workshop fell on an interim basis to faculty members James Alan McPherson and Marilynne Robinson.
“It is a great privilege to follow Frank Conroy as director,” Chang says. “He was my teacher and an inspiration to me, and I think of him every time I walk into a classroom.
“As a child of immigrants, I first heard of The University of Iowa as a host to writers from all over the world. This vision of Iowa as a haven for writers, given to me by my parents, has only been enhanced by my experiences as a workshop student and teacher. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to sustain and renew this extraordinary program that exists at the heart of our literary culture.”
In addition to her novel, Inheritance, and an acclaimed fiction collection called Hunger: A Novella and Stories, her fiction has appeared in Atlantic Monthly, Ploughshares, and The Best American Short Stories. Her work has been translated into more than a half-dozen languages.
Chang has been a California Book Award Silver Medalist, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and winner of awards from Greensboro Review and Transatlantic Review.
by Winston Barclay
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