Lan Samantha Chang of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop joins AUP's Summer Creative Writing Institute

Lan Samantha Chang is the author of the short story collection Hunger, as well as the novels Inheritance and All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost. She is an English professor at the University of Iowa and the first female and the first Asian-American to be Director of the renowned Iowa Writers’ Workshop. We were able to speak with Professor Chang while she was in Paris, participating in AUP’s 2017 Summer Creative Writing Institute.

Please describe, in your own words, what you do and why.

I’m a novelist, a short story writer, and a teacher. As an immigrant to the US, I grew up in Wisconsin with the perspective of an outsider. Our family was extremely close—I think we were pretty much the only Asians in our town—and so I spent a lot of my childhood with my sisters, observing this new culture. I soon felt driven to put my thoughts on paper.

How did you come to connect with AUP and its Creative Writing Program?

I’ve always loved Paris. When I’m here, I feel connected to a larger writing culture. I came to Paris for the first time in the summer of 2013 to lead a workshop for the Paris Writers’ Workshop, which was started by WICE, a nonprofit that offers cultural and educational programs to Paris’s international community. I met a lot of great writers through WICE, as well as the American Library of Paris, which gave me a fellowship in 2015. One of these writers was Jeffrey Greene, who contributed to WICE’s summer sessions, which were usually held on AUP’s campus. He was the one who got me involved with AUP.

What made you want to attend an MFA program as part of your training as a writer?

I was a self-identified writer without a community: I felt the need to establish myself. I chose the Iowa Writers’ Workshop because it was fully funded and because it was a studio-oriented program, where my professors and peers would read my writing as fellow writers instead of critics. Here, I found an intense, gifted, brilliant community, who understood that writing could be the most important thing in the world. I’d found my creative family.  

What are you hoping to instill and accomplish with the Iowa Writers’ Workshop?

More than anything, I want to attract the strongest writers that we can find, while increasing the overall diversity of our program. I’ve heard from many students of color that part of their initial hesitation about coming to Iowa stems from their apprehension of how they’ll be treated in the Midwest, in a geographically isolated town like Iowa City. I always encourage applicants to visit us in Iowa City before making their decision because I’m realizing that few people know much about the place. Did you know that we’re a UNESCO City of Literature? That Iowa City has a great writing culture, which it really works to celebrate and promote? That there are writers’ quotes stamped into the sidewalk? 

What are your thoughts on how perceptions of MFA programs have shifted since you were a student in an MFA program to now being at the head of an MFA program?

They have changed drastically. When I was applying to MFAs, there was no stigma attached to them and there were also far fewer programs in existence. I think I understand why the overall perception of MFAs has changed: American society has become obsessed with quantitative analysis, which means that it’s difficult to justify spending two years of your life on something that might not end up being financially rewarding. However, I am a firm believer in the idea that there is far more to life than this sort of quantitative approach: I believe in a life of reading and writing.

What advice would you give to writers who are just starting out on their career paths?

Read. A LOT.