Events and Programming

The Free Generative Writing Workshops

Alongside Iowa City Poetry, PromptPress co-sponsors The Free Generative Writing Workshops. These workshops provide space for career writers, curious beginners, and writers of all income levels and stages of life. The goal of the Free Generative Writing Workshop is to make it easy to meet and learn from some of the most talented teachers living in the Iowa City area.

For each workshop, a teacher presents a prompt inspired by their own preoccupations, passions, or interests. These prompts have run the gamut of writing from Tarot cards, to finding inspiration in the villanelle; from ekphrasis to open letters of resistance to government officials. It has been an adventure, and we hope you join us as we continue to be inspired by the creative concentration of participants, and the powerful beginnings the workshop generates.

Join us the third Sunday of every month from 5:30 - 7:00 at Public Space One (229 N. Gilbert St.) in Iowa City.

PromptPress for Teens and Teachers

Iowa City-based PromptPress supports teen artists and writers through workshops and publishing opportunities. 

Each summer, PromptPress partners with the Iowa Youth Writing Project to offer the week-long Image+Word Summer Camp.

This camp is designed for teenage writers who are captivated by images as well as for visual artists who can’t get enough of words. Throughout the week, teens create photo-booth-narratives, carve poems, and dabble in the world of Zines. In addition, campers will collaborate with local visual artists and writers while composing a narrative built entirely inside a shadowbox. Campers are given the unique opportunity to publish their work on Teen Prompt. The camp concludes in a private gallery show for teens and their families at Public Space One.

Art Sparks

Art Sparks is a biannual joint fundraising venture for the Iowa Youth Writing Project and PromptPress. Beginning with a series of workshops, teen writers are invited to generate creative responses to local artist’s visual work. These responses are then displayed alongside the original artwork at the benefit art show and silent auction. All participating teens are invited to read their work the evening of the event. In addition to the night of celebration, all responses are published on Teen Prompt.