Teen Writer Elizabeth Beckman Returns from International Creative & Cultural Exchange, Pen in Hand

17-year-old Elizabeth Beckman, a junior at The Lawrenceville School, is back home after spending two weeks in Iowa City, Iowa, home of the famed Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the only UNESCO City of Literature in the United States. Elizabeth traveled to Iowa City to take part in Between the Lines (BTL) Russia, a creative writing and cultural exchange program that brings twenty talented 16-19-year-olds from Russia and the United States together for intensive creative study. Elizabeth, an aspiring writer, was one of ten American students selected for the competitive program, which is organized by the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program in partnership with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.

INTENSIVE CREATIVE WRITING WITH AN INTERNATIONAL TWIST

In Iowa, Elizabeth participated in daily writing workshops and seminars, attended literary events, and even gave a public reading of her work at local literary landmark, The Haunted Bookshop. Rooming in dorms on the University of Iowa campus, Elizabeth exchanged cultural knowledge and vocabulary with the Russian students, learned traditional games, sampled Russian pancakes (called “blini”), and also befriended fellow American students from Ohio, Connecticut, Maryland, New York, California, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa.

To generate new ideas and material for writing, Elizabeth and her peers, led by BTL instructors (American poet Kiki Petrosino and Russian novelist Alan Cherchesov), toured the Figge Art Museum, attended rodeo and mutton bustin’ events and sampled the fried jello at the nearby Washington County Fair, and enjoyed a bonfire and hayride at a local farm.

Amid these activities, Elizabeth still managed to carve out time to write. “Creative writing is my passion—it’s the lens through which I see the world…BTL was an opportunity to alter this lens, to see the world more clearly,” she says. “By forming relationships with like-minded peers from different corners of the globe and immersing myself in all things writing, I developed not only my writing, but how I think.”

Elizabeth plans to continue work on the writing projects she began at BTL, including an ekphrastic poem inspired by artwork at the Figge Museum. "Between the Lines was a great experience," she said of the program, which will begin accepting applications for summer 2014 early next spring.