Camille Dungy has been named the 13th recipient of the Paul Engle Prize, presented by the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature organization. Dungy will receive the prize at a ceremony at the Coralville Public Library on Thursday, Nov. 14, at 7 p.m. Following the ceremony Dungy will speak about her work and experiences. A reception will follow with books available for sale from Prairie Lights Book Store. This event is free and open to the public. The prize, established in 2011, honors an...

Poets Shane Book and Mark Levine will read from their work. Shane Book will read from All Black Everything (Kuhl House Poets, 2023). Mark Levine will read from Sound Fury (Univ. of Iowa Press). “All Black Everything proposes an expansive, global poetics, which is equally a poetics of Black diasporan fluency. All Black’s poems ride the crosscurrents of history and popular culture through African America, the Caribbean, West Africa, the United Kingdom, and Canada. As references whirl and...

Visit Coralville Public Library for an evening with Mary Engle Burge as she shares her childhood experiences as a close observer of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in the 1940s and ’50s. Mary’s rich stories stem from her interactions with the six writers who lived with the Engles, as well as many others who visited for shorter stints. After school, she spent countless afternoons at the Iowa Writers Workshop quonset hut, keenly observing her father and forming vivid memories of the community. The...

Join us with the IWP Sunday Afternoon Reading Series featuring 2024 Fall Residency writers Nurit Kasztelan (poet, fiction writer, editor, bookseller; Argentina), Saad Z. Hossain (fiction writer; Bangladesh), and Writers’ Workshop MFA candidate Camila Urioste (poet, playwright, fiction writer; Bolivia). Nurit Kasztelan (poet, fiction writer, editor, bookseller; Argentina) is the author of the novel Tanto (2023), which was the recipient of an honorable mention for the National Award for...

Two powerful poets perform live at The Hancher on Friday night, Nov. 8, then lead workshops on Saturday afternoon, Nov. 9. Mic Check Poetry Fest is a two-day celebration of spoken word and its power to bear witness, create community, and inspire change. The festival is packed with a variety of events, from performances by Iowa spoken word poets to a showcase highlighting nationally-acclaimed artist Rudy Francisco, making it unlike any other festival in Iowa. In the true spirit of spoken word...

Club Hancher hosts day one of a two-day celebration of spoken word and its power to bear witness, create community, and inspire change. 

Club Hancher hosts day one of a two-day celebration of spoken word and its power to bear witness, create community, and inspire change. 

The Writers' Workshop presents a reading by visiting faculty members, Margaret Ross and Ada Zhang. Margaret Ross is the author of A Timeshare. Her poems and translations have appeared in The New Republic, The Paris Review, and POETRY, and have been recognized by a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, a Fulbright arts grant, and residencies from Yaddo. Ada Zhang's short stories have appeared in A Public Space, McSweeney’s, American Short Fiction, and elsewhere. The Sorrows of Others, her first story...

Please join us for the IWP Sunday Afternoon Reading Series! This week’s event features IWP Residents Sabyn Javeri (Pakistan, UK & UAE) and Okamoto Kei (Japan), and Writers’ Workshop MFA candidate Joshua Balicki (USA). Sabyn Javeri (fiction and nonfiction writer, translator; Pakistan, UK & UAE) is the author of the short story collection Hijabistan (2019) and the novel Nobody Killed Her (2017). She is the editor of volumes 1 and 2 of the multilingual Arzu Anthology of Student Writing (2018–2019)...

The Writers' Workshop presents a reading with Mona Susan Power. Mona Susan Power is the author of four books of fiction, including The Grass Dancer (a National Bestseller awarded a PEN/Hemingway Prize), Roofwalker (a collection of stories and essays awarded the Milkweed National Fiction Prize), Sacred Wilderness (a novel which received the Electa Quinney Award), and A Council of Dolls (winner of the Minnesota Book Award and High Plains Book Award, longlisted for the National Book Award and the...

Join the long, rich, historical tradition of artists creating in our spaces. Professional, aspiring, and amateur artists alike, make our museum your muse. The return of this popular program series welcomes guests into the Museum of Natural History's magical gallery spaces after-hours to work on sketching or writing projects with other campus and community artists. Tell a friend, grab a notebook, and join us on the first Friday of each month. We'll provide a new inspo prompt for each session...

The Writers' Workshop presents a Q&A with Mona Susan Power. Mona Susan Power is the author of four books of fiction, including The Grass Dancer (a National Bestseller awarded a PEN/Hemingway Prize), Roofwalker (a collection of stories and essays awarded the Milkweed National Fiction Prize), Sacred Wilderness (a novel which received the Electa Quinney Award), and A Council of Dolls (winner of the Minnesota Book Award and High Plains Book Award, longlisted for the National Book Award and the...

Take class once a week this month 7–9 p.m. or drop in on one class! Classes: 10/19, 10/23, and 10/30. Drop-in prices are $20! The blank page can feel like a glass wall we’re required to scale. We might wonder where to begin, what to include, and how we’ll ever find our voices. We are adept at narrativizing our own lives — even the dullest, most dreadful experiences become fodder for a good bar stool story — and yet, when confronted with a blank page, our skill and our joy too often abandon us...

Tuesday, Oct. 29, 7–9 p.m., IWP writer and Jenny Colville will lead a discussion on writing as curating. Location: Porchlight 1019 E Washington St. Iowa City, IA 52240

Join us for the International Writing Program's Prairie Lights Reading Series this Sunday to hear readings by two 2024 Fall Residency writers and one Iowa Writers' Workshop MFA student. Yu Yoyo (poet, fiction writer; PRC) is the author of the poetry collections [Seven Years] (2012), [Me as Bait] (2016), [Wind Can’t] (2019), [Against Body] (2019), and [A Cat Is a Cloud] (2021). The Poetry Translation Centre published her first English poetry collection, My Tenantless Body, in 2019, with...

Jenny MacBain-Stephens and Chris Eck will host a spooky reading. Location: Porchlight 1019 E Washington St. Iowa City, IA 52240

Write at the Stanley: A Generative Writing Workshop is back for the Fall Semester! Join us monthly to generate new creative writing inspired by works in the Stanley collection. Each session will be led by a different talented writer from our area, who will be offering a new prompt and a new approach to ekphrastic writing (writing inspired by visual art). Bring your own notebook and pencil or computer and leave with the beginning of a newly written piece. Co-sponsored by Iowa City Poetry. Teen...

Long Project Check in at Porchlight. Location: Porchlight 1019 E Washington St. Iowa City, IA 52240

Take class once a week this month 7–9 p.m. or drop in on one class! Classes: 10/19, 10/23, and 10/30. Drop-in prices are $20! The blank page can feel like a glass wall we’re required to scale. We might wonder where to begin, what to include, and how we’ll ever find our voices. We are adept at narrativizing our own lives — even the dullest, most dreadful experiences become fodder for a good bar stool story — and yet, when confronted with a blank page, our skill and our joy too often abandon us...

Free Generative writing workshop! Co-hosted with Iowa City poetry! Location: Porchlight 1019 E Washington St. Iowa City, IA 52240

Poetry in Public celebrates our community’s rich literary tradition and local writing talent by displaying poems by writers of all ages. Hear from some of the 2024 Selected Poets. This event is live and in-person, and will be streamed live at: https://www.youtube.com/thelibrarychannel Featuring special guest Iowa Student Poet Ambassador Tanya Rastogi. Presenting Poets: Lucas Askelson, "Big and Small" Melodee Bashir, "A December Walk with Leo" Jacquelyn Bengfort, "The Secret Universal Order...

Take class once a week this month 7–9 p.m. or drop in on one class! Classes: 10/19, 10/23, and 10/30. Drop-in prices are $20! The blank page can feel like a glass wall we’re required to scale. We might wonder where to begin, what to include, and how we’ll ever find our voices. We are adept at narrativizing our own lives — even the dullest, most dreadful experiences become fodder for a good bar stool story — and yet, when confronted with a blank page, our skill and our joy too often abandon us...

Join author James Fitzmaurice in Shambaugh Auditorium in the Main Library for a conversation about his new young adult novel, Hobgoblin Gennel, moderated by Library and Information Science graduate student Theo Prineas. Light refreshments provided. In this off-beat tale of adventure, teenagers Irie and Fred are fast friends. Irie, of Afro-Caribbean heritage, was born in Sheffield where they both live. Fred is an expat American transplanted from Yuma, Arizona, with a keen interest in Sheffield’s...

With his signature crackling prose, literary master Chris Offutt has staked out his own territory in crime fiction, a place of familial allegiances, old wounds, and revenge — the code of the hills. His new book, a sharp, twisty southern noir with echoes of James Sallis and Daniel Woodrell, will force Mick to face up to the way of life he thought he’d escaped. Chris Offutt is the author of two collections of short stories, three memoirs, and six novels. His books have been translated into 12...

Cinematic Poetics Poets Hannah Bonner, Julia Anna Morrison, and Perry Janes read from their work and discuss the intersections of film and poetry. Location: Ulysses Modern Lounge at The Chauncey 2:30–3:30 p.m. Guests: Hannah Bonner, Julia Anna Morrison, Perry Janes FREE and open to the public