As a recent Iowa grad, I was somewhat floored by USA Today's list of who's up for Workshop Director Frank Conroy's job: Richard Bausch, Lan Samantha Chang, Jim Shepard, and -- in a death-blow to Iowa's "naturalistic fiction" reputation -- experimental writer Ben Marcus. Expect weekly follow-ups as the competition for "one of the most influential positions in the academic and literary world" (according to the AP, at least) unfolds.