Please join us with former Iowa Citian, Kathy Taylor, who will read from her novel, The Birthing House. This literary historical novel follows a woman’s journey of healing and discovery through her writing. It features explorations of heart, mind, and body, richly textured with friendships, memories, dreams, and layers of history. Two timelines alternate, twenty years apart. Synopsis: In 1980, after a recent miscarriage, Clare Muller arrives in the fairytale town of Marburg, Germany with her...

Kristin Lansing-Stoeffler will read from The Shadows Could Not Reach Her, published by Ice Cube Press. The Shadows Could Not Reach Her is a study of meaning-making in the form of essays, poems, and paintings. A lifelong artist, Lansing-Stoeffler was born and raised in Iowa and grew up visiting farms in Northeast Iowa, where her family hails from. It was this place, and these people, that inspired her to paint landscapes. “I knew what a traditional landscape should look like, but I hoped that I...

Writers’ Workshop graduate Kiley Reid will read from her fresh and provocative novel Come & Get It, one of the most anticipated books of the year and a New Yorker Best Book of the Week. Set in 2017 at the University of Arkansas, Come & Get It is about a residential assistant and her messy entanglement with a professor and three unruly students. In a NYT Book Review, Julia May Jones calls Reid “a social observer of the highest order,” and NPR says, ”Reid nails the anxiety about the future (and...

Award-winning journalist Carvell Wallace will read from and talk with author Darius Stewart about his memoir, Another Word for Love. In Another Word for Love, Wallace excavates layers of his own history, situated in the struggles and beauty of growing up Black and queer in America. “Another Word For Love is generous in how genuine the journey, the offering feels. Walking alongside a writer who is attempting to come to terms with the enormity of their survival, its joys and aches. And through...

Please join us with Trans Handy Ma'am, Mercury Stardust! This is a free event, and we will have copies of her #1 New York Times Bestselling Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair. Mercury will give a reading/talk about the book, meet fans, and sign books. Please join us! The event will begin at 7 p.m., seating will give priority to those who have pre-registered and arrive early. To pre-register, click HERE. Seating will be available starting at 6:20 p.m. Walk-ins will also be...

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 and adult writers in all genres are welcome. Write at the Stanley meets every fourth...

Iowa City native Colin Hamilton will read from his new book, The Discarded. "In Hamilton's metafictional work, an unnamed librarian reflects on books pulled from the library's shelves and relegated to obscurity—and, by extension, the purposes of libraries in general. Hamilton's clear devotion to "the morgue" of discarded books is oddly inspiring; there's something mesmerizing about the collective encyclopedia of knowledge they comprise as a whole, even if many of the parts seem less than...

The Writers' Workshop presents Alexander Chee. To subscribe to a weekly emailing list of Writers' Workshop events, please fill in the linked form or email iww@uiowa.edu with “Events Mailing List Subscribe” in the subject line.

The Writers' Workshop presents visiting instructors Shane Book and Sarah Mathews. To subscribe to a weekly emailing list of Writers' Workshop events, please fill in the linked form or email iww@uiowa.edu with “Events Mailing List Subscribe” in the subject line.

Writers' Workshop alumni Jorrell Watkins and Romeo Oriogun will read from their poetry. Jorrell Watkins will read from Play/House, published by Northwestern University Press. “The ideas of 'play' and 'house' are interwoven gradually in Jorrell Watkins’ debut collection, with the changing light stretching and bending the shadows of masculinity, familial intimacy, and societal violences. Through his intense play with the vernacular and syntax of blk English, Watkins defamiliarizes urban Southern...

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 and adult writers in all genres are welcome. Write at the Stanley meets every fourth...

Iowa Writers’ Workshop alum, Margaret Yapp will read from Green for Luck: Poems. Katie Berta will read from Retribution Forthcoming: Poems (Hollis Summers Poetry Prize winner). To subscribe to a weekly emailing list of Writers' Workshop events, please fill in the linked form or email iww@uiowa.edu with “Events Mailing List Subscribe” in the subject line.

Iowa Writers’ Workshop alum Mario Duarte will read from his new book published by Ice Cube Press, My Father Called Us Monkeys. “Mario Duarte juxtaposes innocent voices against tragic and tender moments while giving us a moving snapshot of a young Mexican American boy growing up in the Midwest. Duarte’s eye for scenic landscape and his ear for captivating dialogue stand out in this debut short story collection.”—Jose B. Gonzalez Mario Duarte is a Mexican American poet and fiction writer whose...

The Writers' Workshop presents a reading with poet, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge. From https://www.ndbooks.com/author/mei-mei-berssenbrugge/: Mei-mei Berssenbrugge was born in Beijing and grew up in Massachusetts. She is the author of thirteen books of poetry, including Hello, the Roses; Empathy; and I Love Artists. Her collaborations include Endocrinology with Kiki Smith and Hiddenness with Richard Tuttle, as well as performances with Morita Dance Company, Blondell Cummings, and Davide Balula. In...

Join the libraries of Johnson County for the latest Local Libraries LIT author event featuring Virginia Sole-Smith. This is a free virtual event, with registration required. As a journalist, Virginia Sole-Smith has reported from kitchen tables and grocery stores, graduated from beauty school, and gone swimming in a mermaid’s tail. Virginia’s latest book, Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture, investigates how the “war on childhood obesity” has caused kids of all ages to absorb a daily...

National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” award-winner Sarah Braunstein will read from her new novel, Bad Animals. She will be joined in conversation by author Rachel Yoder. "Bad Animals opens with a delightful shock, and then the fun begins. With deft, sly, loving insight into the human animal and its genius for self-deception, Braunstein ratchets up and sustains this extraordinary novel's elegance and complexity until the last, beautiful sentence." —Kate Christensen Sarah Braunstein is the author...

The Writers' Workshop presents a reading by Ida Beam Visiting Lecturer, Karen Russell. Karen Russell is the author of five books of fiction, including the NYT bestsellers Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove. She is a MacArthur Fellow and a Guggenheim Fellow, and the two-time recipient of the National Magazine Award for Fiction, the Shirley Jackson Award, the 2023 Bottari Lattes Grinzane prize, the New Yorker's "20 under 40" award and the National Book Foundation's "5 under 35" award...

Free copy of Design Social Change: Take Action, Work Toward Equity, and Challenge the Status Quo for the first 30 attendees! What motivates you as a changemaker? What forces are preventing you (and others) from thriving? These questions are essential to the work of creating social change, and they are exactly what Lesley-Ann Noel asks you to explore in her new book, Design Social Change: Take Action, Work Toward Equity, and Challenge the Status Quo (Ten Speed Press, 2023). In the book and at...

A Virtual Curator Talk with Eric Ensley and Emily Martin Join Eric Ensley and Emily Martin, co-curators of Making the Book, Past and Present, for a behind-the-scenes look at their Main Library Gallery exhibition. Find out how they decided which Special Collections & Archives materials to share with visitors, discover more about some of the curators' favorite items, and learn why it is so important to show modern book art in conversation with historic books.  Registration is required to attend...

The Writers' Workshop presents a Q&A with bestselling author, James Patterson From https://www.jamespatterson.com/landing-page/about-james/ James Patterson is the most popular storyteller of our time. He is the creator of unforgettable characters and series, including Alex Cross, the Women’s Murder Club, Jane Smith, and Maximum Ride, and of breathtaking true stories about the Kennedys, John Lennon, and Tiger Woods, as well as our military heroes, police officers, and ER nurses. Patterson has...

The Ancient Exchanges speaker series presents poet and translator Dan Beachy-Quick, who will talk about his work. Dan Beachy-Quick's translations from ancient Greek include the lyric collection Stone Garland and The Thinking Root, a collection of fragments of early philosophy (both from Milkweed Editions), as well as most recently Wind--Mountain--Oak: The Poems of Sappho (Tupelo Press, 2023). Of his approach to translation, Beachy-Quick writes, "There are depths within the denotative life of...

The Mission Creek Festival Presents Cindy Juyoung Ok and Thea Brown, who will read from Ward Toward and Loner Forensics. This is a free event, all are welcome! Cindy Juyoung Ok is the author of Yale Younger Poets Prize-winning Ward Toward, selected by Rae Armentrout. A MacDowell Fellow, Kenyon Review Fellow, and poetry editor at Guernica magazine, she is a former high school science teacher and now teaches creative writing at Kenyon College. Her poems are out now or soon in New England Review,...

This special 7:30 p.m. Mission Creek Festival event celebrates something you may not know some of your favorite authors are interested in: gaming. Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games, published by Graywolf, celebrates this sophisticated medium and considers its lasting impact on our culture and ourselves. “[Video games] raise profound questions for the humans who find themselves enraptured by these digital puzzles, adventures, and battles lighting up their computers, televisions, or...

The annual Lit Walk returns to MCF this year with three rounds of speakers at your favorite local hotspots! Bringing Iowa City to life in new ways, hear an unexpected variety of work from a mix of talented local and out-of-town writers. For complete lineup, check the 2024 Mission Creek Festival Website! Lit Walk Round 1 Featured literary event: Literary crawl through downtown Iowa City Venues: Willow & Stock / Revival Date: Friday, April 5 Doors: 5 p.m. The annual MCF Lit Walk returns in...

Writer Deborah Taffa, a graduate of the Nonfiction Writing Program and MFA director of the Institute of American Indian Arts, will read from her debut book Whiskey Tender at Prairie Lights Books on Friday, March 31 at 5:30 p.m. This event, which is open to the public, is part of the NWP Alumni Reading Series.