From Sherlock Holmes to Star Trek, Nicholas Meyer’s celebrated career has spanned decades and different genres. Now, he’s making another trip back to where his storytelling journey began—the University of Iowa.
The University Libraries is hosting “Writing for Screens: A Conversation with Nicholas Meyer” on Thursday, Oct. 13, from 7 to 8:15 p.m. in Shambaugh Auditorium at the Main Library.
The director, screenwriter, producer, and best-selling author graduated from Iowa in 1968 with a Bachelor of Arts in speech and dramatic art. He also wrote film reviews for The Daily Iowan.
Meyer is known for his involvement in the Star Trek film series, writing or directing its second, fourth, and sixth films. His many other credits include authoring the best-selling novel The Seven-Per-Cent Solution: Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D. and receiving an Oscar nomination for his screenplay of the story. He also has donated his papers, which include script drafts, memos, photographs, and more to the University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections and Archives.
Meyer has shared before that “coming back to Iowa City is like coming back home” and “this is the place you go to learn to be a writer.” This time, he’s coming back home to the place that tied with Yale as the No. 2 university in the country for writing, according to the latest rankings from U.S. News & World Report—and the place that first gave him the tools to cultivate his craft.
Here are recommended viewings from Peter Balestrieri, curator of science fiction and popular culture collections at UI Special Collections:
- Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan – Meyer directed and contributed to the shooting script for the film (uncredited), which is considered the best Star Trek film by legions of Trekkers.
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home – Meyer wrote portions of the screenplay that features fun with aliens, time travel, hippies, and cosmic whales.
- The Day After – Meyer directed this television film that changed history, leading directly to U.S./Soviet nuclear disarmament(directed by Meyer)
- The Seven-Per-Cent Solution – Meyer received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for the film. The source material? His best-selling novel of the same name which has Sherlock Holmes joining forces with Sigmund Freud.
- Medici: Masters of Florence – A historical drama television series co-created by Meyer that exquisitely reproduces Renaissance Florence and the banking giants that ruled it.
You can also read more about Meyer, his career, and time at Iowa here.