A Note from the Directors
Granfalloon and Bloomington Handmade Market will take place at the same time as the conference with exciting events on campus and at venues around downtown Bloomington.
History
The Indiana University Writers’ Conference is the second oldest in the United States. 2025 marks the 85th anniversary of the conference which, since its inception, has stood for literary excellence. We are proud to boast a faculty that has included lauded writers of the post-WWII years, such as Katherine Anne Porter, Lillian Hellman and Stephen Spender, as well as 20th century icons Raymond Carver and Kurt Vonnegut.
Recent faculty have served as Poets Laureate and received some of the most prestigious literary prizes. We have 26 faculty members who have won Pulitzer Prizes, such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Héctor Tobar, Tyehimba Jess and Ursula K. Le Guin. We have also hosted 26 faculty members who were winners of the National Book Award, including Gerald Stern, Jean Valentine, Mark Doty and Terrance Hayes.
Beyond our tremendous faculty, we have been honored to reach and preserve relationships with writers at every stage of their development across the country. Our intention is to foster creativity and community through craft-based workshops and classes that facilitate learning and artistic friendships. We also emphasize a supportive environment for writers of color, LGBTQIA writers, and writers from outside the academy to feel seen and heard.
Format
Each summer, the conference invites gifted writers of fiction, poetry and nonfiction to teach workshops and craft classes over the course of four days. The workshops consist of three-hour sessions held each morning in which students exchange manuscripts and offer feedback on the work of their peers under the guidance of their instructor. At the end of each day’s workshop, students are invited to lunch talks where the faculty discuss their publishing experiences and answer questions from attendees.
The afternoons are comprised of three, one-hour classes led by additional faculty on topics ranging from story structure and the ethics of writing nonfiction to crafting compelling images in poems. Each evening is capped off by a reading and from conference faculty.
We hope you join us for all the great experiences we have planned!
COVID-19
IUWC is committed to creating a safe and comfortable environment for us to be together. To that end, we will continue to monitor COVID-19 developments and observe Indiana University protocol. We will post updates and communicate any changes as necessary.
The IUWC Team
Bob Bledsoe, Director
Bob is Director (he/him) of the Indiana University Writers’ Conference. He has been awarded a fellowship at The MacDowell Colony, and his writing has appeared in Ploughshares, Potomac Review, Fifth Wednesday Journal, Exit 7, Ms. Magazine, and The Habit of Art: Best Stories from the Indiana University Fiction Workshop.
Teja Sudhakar, Associate Director
Teja (they/them) is an MFA candidate in Poetry. A native of Chennai, India, and long-time resident of Lexington, Kentucky, their work explores queer and immigrant narratives of the transnational South. Teja’s work has been published or is forthcoming with FRONTIER Poetry, The Georgia Review, Salt Hill Journal, and others. They now live and write in Bloomington with their cat Soup.
Sophia Nguyen, Intern
Sophia (she/her/hers) is a junior studying English with a concentration in creative writing and minoring in Comparative Literature and Japanese. Her interests lie in fiction and poetry. Several of her poems have been published in IU’s Asian Artist Highlight and Yearning zines. In addition to IUWC, she has worked with the Indiana Review literary journal and the Victorian Studies Journal as an editorial intern. When Sophia isn’t writing, she is either lifting or working at the SRSC.
Anastasia Spahr, Intern
Anastasia (she/her/hers) is a senior majoring in English (with a Creative Writing Concentration) and also French. She is minoring in Political Science and plans to pursue a career in law, in addition to her dream of being an author. Her work has been published in the Canvas Creative Arts Magazine and displayed at the HHArt Showcase. She writes both long- and short-form fiction, as well as poetry. She also serves as President of Bookmarked (a book club at IU) and Co-Editor in Chief of the Publishing and Editing Club’s literary journal, An Inkslinger’s Observance.
Madeline Bykowski, Intern
Madeline (she/her/hers) is a junior studying English. She enjoys writing fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. She is the chief copy editor of Collins Living Learning Center’s publication The Pipe and The Barrow. Similarly, she looks forward to publishing her writing in The Pipe and The Barrow and The Dancing Star. In her free time, Madeline enjoys learning about sustainability and working on her crochet projects. She is very excited to be a new intern for IUWC.
Kat McAlpine, Intern
Kat (she/her) is a Junior studying English with a concentration in creative writing. Attending the 2024 IUWC has pushed her to surround herself with the work she loves, and interning for the IUWC is her first step towards doing that. Her creative writing is mainly fiction with a focus on magical realism. Her love of fiction has led to an interest in academic writing, and she is now in training to become a WTS tutor. In her free time, Kat loves to paint and spend time with her cat.