The Writers' Workshop presents a Q&A session with Latasha N. Nevada Diggs. A writer and sound artist, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs is the author of TwERK (Belladonna, 2013). Her interdisciplinary work has been featured at the Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Walker Art Center. A Cave Canem fellow, Diggs is the recipient of numerous awards, including ones from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Jerome Foundation, and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council...

Professors Natalie Lira and Angela Hume will talk about their new books, Laboratory of Deficiency and Deep Care. They will engage in conversation about reproductive justice on the topics of abortion and the history of sterilization. Natalie Lira is Assistant Professor of Latina/Latino Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of Laboratory of Deficiency. "Lira's multilayered research and analysis provide a powerful model for understanding and challenging the...

Agricultural and antitrust policy expert Austin Frerick will read from his new book on the titans of today’s food industry, Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America's Food Industry. He will be joined in conversation by Gazette reporter Erin Jordan. Hailed as “An urgently important book,” by Eric Schlosser, Publishers Weekly says, “In this eye-opening debut study, Frerick, an agricultural policy fellow at Yale University, reveals the ill-gained stranglehold that a handful of companies...

Writers' Workshop graduate Jane Huffman will read from her new book of poetry, Public Abstract, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize selected by Dana Levin. "In Jane Huffman’s poems, I feel the impassioned psychic venturing of Emily Dickinson, the wit of Kay Ryan, the fragmented surreal of Jean Valentine, and the playfulness and bravado of Gertrude Stein. Public Abstract is a striking debut." —Dana Levin Jane Huffman is a doctoral student in poetry at the University of Denver. She is...

Sarah Rose Etter will read from her best selling novel, Ripe, which was named a Best Book of the Year by Time, Huffington Post, and Kirkus. This novel, now available in paperback, has been A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, a Roxane Gay Audacious Book Club Selection, and a Marie Claire Book Club Pick. Etter will be joined in conversation by author Carmen Maria Machado. “Sarah Rose Etter is electric on everything from tech culture’s toxic absurdities to bone-deep loneliness to the...

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...

Writers' Workshop alum Cristina Henríquez will read from her powerful new novel about the construction of the Panama Canal, The Great Divide, which was named a most anticipated book by The Washington Post, Elle, Book Riot, Electric Literature, Goodreads, The Everygirl, Lit Hub, The Millions, and Reader’s Digest.  She will be joined in conversation by author and Writers' Workshop Director Lan Samantha Chang. "Against the backdrop of the construction of the Panama Canal, Cristina Henríquez’s...

The Writers' Workshop presents visiting poetry instructor Shane Book, who will give a talk on film adaptation and screen three short films. Shane Book's first volume of poetry, Ceiling of Sticks (University of Nebraska Press, 2010) won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize and the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award and was a Poetry Society of America “New Poet” Selection. Excerpts from Ceiling of Sticks received The Malahat Review Long Poem Prize and a National Magazine Award. His...

Join us for a reading and discussion, co-hosted by Prairie Lights, to celebrate Christopher Goetz’s recent book, The Counterfeit Coin: Videogames and Fantasies of Empowerment. Goetz is an associate professor and head of film studies in the Department of Cinematic Arts. After the reading, Corey Creekmur, associate professor in the departments of Cinematic Arts and English, will join Goetz for a conversation and Q&A with the audience. A reception will follow the event. Thursday, March 21, 2024 7...

Join the libraries of Johnson County for the latest Local Libraries LIT author event featuring Grace M. Cho. This is a free virtual event, with registration required. Grace M. Cho's work sits at the crossroads of creative nonfiction and interdisciplinary scholarship, exploring the ways in which residues of state violence and historical trauma permeate the intimate spaces of the here and now. As a sociologist, she approaches storytelling as an opportunity to broaden the lens through which...

Writers' Workshop alumni Nam Le and Daniel Khalastchi will read from their new books of poetry. Nam Le will read from 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem. "With a cool outsider’s eye, Nam Le takes the English language to pieces and reassembles it with a virtuoso ease not seen since Finnegans Wake. There is wit aplenty, of a dancing, ironic kind, but the fury and the bitterness that underlie 36 Ways come without disguise, as do its moments of aching love and loss. Nam Le is a poet working at the...

Writers' Workshop graduate and New York Times bestselling author of Olga Dies Dreaming Xochitl Gonzalez will read from her new novel, Anita de Monte Laughs Last. She will be joined in conversation by author Kevin Brockmeier. Anita de Monte Laughs Last has been called by LitHub, "a dynamic exploration of love, art, and power," and has been called "incandescent" by Publisher's Weekly. "Funny, piercing, and full of moxie, Anita de Monte Laughs Last is unsparing in its assessment of what goes on...

Join co-editors Ryan Allen and Brain Hazlett along with contributors Connie Mutel and John T. Price for a fascinating evening on western Iowa's Loess Hills. On Common Ground: Learning and Living in the Loess Hills examines the many sides of this rare wind-borne natural area found only in Iowa and China. The evening discussion will be moderated by former University of Iowa Press Director Holly Carver. "On Common Ground is a rich mix of insightful natural history, visual arts, poetry, and...

Carolina Hotchandani and Kelly Rose Hoffer will read from their debut poetry collections. Carolina Hotchandani will read from The Book Eaters. “Carolina Hotchandani’s The Book Eaters is that rare debut: one that satisfies the heart and head in equal measures. In these subtle, lyric poems, Hotchandani explores the loss of a father’s language and memory, a loss complicated by Partition, emigration, and the body’s own failures, even by narrative itself, which threatens to revise and reimagine the...

Writers' Workshop alum and New York Times best-selling author Leslie Jamison will read from her highly anticipated memoir, Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story. She will be joined in conversation by Kaveh Akbar. “In Splinters, Jamison offers a riveting portrait of rupture that is at once a page-turner about divorce, a romance about parenthood, a mystery of self after splintering, and a promise that however many times we break or are broken, art and love will never fail to mend us.” ―Melissa...

Poets Christopher Merrill and Christopher Bolin will read from their new books of poetry. Christopher Merrill will read from On the Road to Lviv. Prismatic and polysemous, On the Road to Lviv invites us on an odyssey across Ukraine in the hour of war. "This chronicle/ Took shape the day the war began, which was/ My 65th birthday," writes legendary traveler, war correspondent, memoirist and poet Christopher Merrill. At once deeply personal yet rooted in history so recent you can almost see the...

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...

The UI Nonfiction Writing Program presents the book launch for Nonfiction, the Teaching of Writing, and the Influence of Richard Lloyd-Jones, edited by NWP Alumni Laura Julier & Douglas Hesse. This special event, held Friday, Feb. 23 at the Nonfiction Writing House (530 N. Clinton St.), features NWP alumni Laura Julier, Douglas Hesse, John T. Price, Tom Montgomery Fate, and writer Patricia Foster, who was a professor in the NWP for 25 years. 

Iowa Writers' Workshop graduate Christina Cooke will read from her enthralling debut novel, Broughtupsy. She will be joined in conversation by fellow alum Sarah Thankam Mathews. (Broughtupsy is) “A luminous tale of a latter-day Antigone who navigates grief, love, death, sex, violence, language, queerness, race, and three countries with courage, joy, and a tender heart. Broughtupsy is an instant classic and Christina Cooke brings beauty and truth to every page.”—Stacey D'Erasmo Christina Cooke's...

Join us for a reading and discussion, co-sponsored by Prairie Lights, to celebrate Margot Livesey’s new novel, The Road from Belhaven. Livesey is professor of fiction in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the author of 10 other books. After the reading, Lan Samantha Chang, Writers’ Workshop program director and Elizabeth M. Stanley Professor in the Arts, will join Livesey for a conversation and Q&A with the audience. Appetizers and wine will be available.               Monday, Feb. 19, 2024       ...

Join Johnson County Libraries for the latest virtual Local Libraries LIT event, featuring Rich Benjamin. Rich Benjamin keenly and deftly observes modern society, culture, and politics. His cultural and political analysis appear regularly in public debate. Rich is the author of Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America, which was selected as an Editor’s Choice by both Booklist and The American Library Association. This groundbreaking study is one of few to have...

The writing community is gathering in Kansas City, Missouri, next month—and it’s a perfect time to connect with your fellow Hawkeyes!   Join Iowa alumni and friends and faculty, staff, and students from the university writing community. Hors d'oeuvres and nonalcoholic beverages will be provided.  This event will help kick off the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) Conference, which will be held Feb. 7–10 in Kansas City, Missouri.  We hope you can join us!  

Come celebrate the Chinese New Year at Prairie Lights! Writers' Workshop alum Aaron Hwang will read from and talk about his books The Chinese Zodiac: And Other Paths to Luck, Riches & Prosperity and a brand new children's version, A Kid's Guide to the Chinese Zodiac: Animal Horoscopes, Legendary Myths, and Practical Uses for Ancient Wisdom. In the books, Hwang explains that the Lunar New Year is an ideal moment to celebrate a new year, the coming of spring—and the new Zodiac animal that governs...

Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award-Winning author Kij Johnson will read from her short story collection, The Privilege of the Happy Ending, published by Small Beer Press. "Ursula Le Guin comes immediately to mind when you turn the pages of Kij Johnson's first book of short stories, her debut collection is that impressive. The title piece has that wonderful power we hope for in all fiction we read, the surprising imaginative leap that takes us to recognize the marvelous in the everyday."—Alan...

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...