KINGSTON, Jamaica – Jamaican author and poet, Kei Miller has been selected as one of 17 persons worldwide to participate in the prestigious International Writing Program (IWP) at the University of Iowa in the United States.
Kei’s nomination for the program was advanced through the Cultural Affairs Section in the Office of Public Affairs at the US Embassy. This is the first time that a Jamaican has been selected for the IWP at the University of Iowa which is the premier center for creative writing.
The project which is a three-month residency program is designed for established and emerging creative writers — poets, fiction writers, dramatists, and non-fiction writers. The aim is to introduce these talented individuals to American life, to enable them to take part in American university life, and to provide writers with time in a setting congenial to their efforts, for the production of literary work.
Kei holds a Master of Arts degree in Creative Writing from Manchester Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom and was a student in the Department of Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies, Mona. In 2002, Miller won the Jamaica Observer Literary Prize for fiction and also the prize for poetry. His first collection, Kingdom of Empty Bellies was published in 2005 and the following year, he was awarded the Vera Ruben Fellowship to attend Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, New York. His collection of short fiction, The Fear of Stones and Other Stories was published in 2006 and short-listed for a Commonwealth Writers First Book Prize.
The Journal of Commonwealth Literature recently hailed him as “as one of the finest Caribbean poetic talents to have appeared in recent decades.” His fiction has been widely praised for its daring interrogation of Jamaican homophobia and religious intolerance. Miller is also editor of the anthology New Caribbean Poetry published in 2007 and new collection of his own poetry, There Is An Anger That Moves will appear later this year.
Kei Miller
In responding to news of his selection for the program, Kei stated, “Iowa has a strange reputation it seems – known equally for corn, and writing. Every writer I know dreams of going to Iowa. We dream that one day we might be good enough to be invited to the University there.
Even when we don’t confess the dream, it’s there. So this fellowship is, quite literally, a dream come true.”
He further noted, “Because I’m always writing about Jamaica I’ve begun to find this process useful – immersing myself here for a long while, and then leaving – going far away in order to write it. The distance offers a wider perspective. And then with the luxury of your own room, your own computer, the luxury of not having to think about bread and butter issues, the luxury even of all that corn… so there is absolutely nothing else to do but write – these are good things for a writer.”
The criteria for selection for the International Writing Program include the publication of one volume or the equivalent in works that have appeared in significant publications (anthologies, journals, literary magazines) over a period of at least two years. Participants in the IWP will be involved in various literary activities such as giving and attending talks, readings and meetings with well-known and emerging visiting American writers. Each writer also has the opportunity to present his or her work in a public forum and to use their time as they wish, to write or to conduct research.
The IWP works closely with the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the Non-Fiction Writing Program, the Master of Fine Arts Program in Translation, and the Playwrights Workshop, as well as academic programs in Film Studies, Comparative Literature, and African, Asian, and other literatures.
Invitations to participate in classroom discussion as lecturers, or in conferences, are often extended to IWP writers.
The 2007 residency will take place August through November. Since 1967, over a thousand writers from more than 120 countries have attended the IWP at the University of Iowa. The U.S. Department of State is a major source of support for the program.
