Books by David O. Dowling

A vibrant history of the renowned and often controversial Iowa Writers' Workshop and its celebrated alumni and faculty

Surviving the "Essex" tells the captivating story of a ship's crew battered by whale attack, broken by four months at sea, and forced-out of necessity-to make meals of their fellow survivors.

In the late 1830s, Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet, lecturer, and leader of the Transcendentalist movement, publicly called for a radical nationwide vocational reinvention, and an idealistic group of collegians eagerly responded. This book tells the history of professional and personal relationships between Emerson and his proteges.