NUI GALWAY graduate and award winner poet Martin Dyer has been awarded a place on the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.
Martin joins a distinguished group of Irish writers such as John Banville, Sebastian Barry, Eavan Boland, and Harry Clifton who were invited to the programme at the early stages of their careers, as well as such figures as the Nobel Prize-winning Turkish novelist Ohran Pamuk, Kurt Vonnegut and Raymond Carver.
The semester-long programme is structured to allow extensive writing time, engagement with artists, guest readings and lectures, as well as two domestic tours of the USA. Iowa City is the only US city to have been designated a UNESCO City of Literature. In the US Martin will be a Literary Ambassador for Dublin UNESCO City of Literature, which supported his nomination to the International Writing Program.
Martin won the Patrick Kavanagh Award for Poetry in 2009 and the Strokestown International Poetry Award in 2001. His debut collection of poetry, Maiden Names, published by Galway company Arlen House earlier this year, has been described by poet Bernard O’Donoghue as “a thrilling new development in Irish poetry”.
