Chris Merrill – an author, poet and translator, Founder and Director of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa visited Yekaterinburg on March 30-31. He met with the members of the Yekaterinburg division of the Russian Writers Union and young playwrights – pupils of Nikolay Kolyada. He also made a presentation on using creative writing exercises for Yekaterinburg teachers of foreign languages and answered numerous questions asked by the students of the Foreign Languages Institute at the Ural State Pedagogical University.
Chris Merrill also gave a public lecture of writer’s residencies in the US as part of the “Semi-Open Mondays” lecture cycle in the National Center for Contemporary Art. In the course of his presentations Chris Merrill told the audience how the writers from around the globe interact with each other during their residencies in the University of Iowa as well as create new literary works and take part in master-classes. An avid discussion followed touching on the subjects of mutual influence of Russian and American literature, writer’s block, peculiarities of the literary translation and collaborative writing. Every year the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa welcomes authors who publish their work and students from all over the world to take part in an exchange program “Between the Lines” funded by the US Department of State.
