About IWCA

The International Writing Centers Association, a National Council of Teachers of English affiliate, was founded in 1983. IWCA fosters the development of writing center directors, tutors, and staff by sponsoring events, publications, and other professional activities; by encouraging scholarship connected to writing center-related fields; and by providing an international forum for writing center concerns.

If you work in a writing center or study writing centers, we hope that you’ll join IWCA. Membership rates are affordable. Members are eligible to apply for our grants, join our mentor matching, make a nomination for our awards, register for our events, serve on the IWCA board, and post to the IWCA job board.

The IWCA is led by the IWCA Board and has seventeen affiliate groups. If you’re new to writing center scholarship and work, be sure to visit our resources page.

IWCA is Accepting Nominations for the 2025 Muriel Harris Outstanding Service Award

Named after its first recipient and given at every other International Writing Centers Association (IWCA) conference, the Muriel Harris Outstanding Service Award (MHOSA) recognizes a writing center professional for outstanding and sustained service that has had an enduring impact on the writing center community over the course of their career in significant and broad-based ways.
We encourage all members of the writing center community to consider nominating, or re-nominating, an individual whose professional service in the form of leadership, scholarly contributions, mentoring, and teaching have had an enduring impact on the field and merit recognition in the form of this award.
Nominations should be sent electronically to Michael Pemberton, Chair of the committee, at michaelp@georgiasouthern.edu. They should be sent as a single PDF document with pages numbered, and should include the following materials:
  • A letter of nomination that includes the name and institution of the nominee, your personal knowledge of or experience with the nominee’s service contributions to the writing center community, and your name, institutional affiliation, and email address.
  • Supporting documents (maximum of 5 pages; approx. 3000 words). These documents may include an abbreviated curriculum vitae that emphasizes writing center work, published material, or original work by the nominee.
  • Letters of support (optional but limited to 2)
If you have previously nominated a deserving candidate, please consider submitting an updated nomination. All materials must be received by Michael Pemberton by June 15, 2025. The winner of the Award will be announced at the 2025 IWCA Conference in Cincinnati, OH, October 16-18, 2025. Read about the history of the MHOSA in Writing Lab Newsletter 34.7, pp. 6-7.