Join Robyn Schiff as she reads from her newest release Information Desk, a book-length poem set in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The New York Review of Books calls Information Desk “An effluvial rush of memory, desire, data, and metaphor . . . It’s bracing to encounter a mind so voracious, so unapologetic in its intelligence.”  Robyn Schiff is the author of four poetry collections, Worth, Revolver, A Woman of Property, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and most...

Please join us with poets Annelyse Gelman and Eleni Sikelianos, who will read from their latest books. Annelyse Gelman will read from Vexations, winner of the 2022 James Laughlin Award and longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award for Poetry. “Vexations is a brilliant, dizzying, necessarily unnerving take on the project of the state and the varied estrangements on which it feeds. Demanding and speculative, Gelman’s book-length poem names the absurd conditions out of which we (readers), and...

Join us for a special 5 p.m. event with graphic memoirist Amy Kurzweil, who will read from and show images from Artificial: A Love Story, which tells the story of her father, inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, and his mission to—through AI and salvaged documents—"resurrect" the identity of his father, a Viennese musician and escapee from the Nazis. Called "Far-reaching and fascinating" by New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast; Michael Chabon writes, "Kurzweil is at the peak of her powers as a...

Mary Swander says of Hand Shadow Rod, “Like one of the characters in her fairy tales, Leo takes the reader on an enchanting world tour of Eulenspiegel Puppet Theatre Company performances. With beautifully written prose and masterfully crafted block prints, Leo is the trickster in this narrative. A highly recognized puppeteer, partner, teacher, and mentor, Leo models not only artistry but entrepreneurship. You will delight in her story, how she founded her troupe and has kept it flourishing for...

CANCELED Writers’ Workshop graduate Thomas Dodson will read from No Use Pretending, winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award, a collection that encompasses diverse genres, from ecologically informed realism to a Kafkaesque fairy tale, from fabulist “weird fiction” to an episode from The Odyssey that becomes a meditation on what distinguishes human beings from animals. Says Margot Livesey, “Thomas Dodson is a writer wonderfully aware of the resources of fiction and the necessities of the world...

mahogany is about the passing of time and unimaginable loss, strength, humor, and love. The book takes its name from the dark wood prized for its durability, workability, and elegant look, and from the Diana Ross movie, whose theme song asks if what lies ahead is what you really want. This book is the third in a trilogy, and like the first two books it is steeped in pop music.  erica lewis was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is based in San Francisco. Her books include the precipice of jupiter...

UI Nonfiction Writing Program alum Micah Fields reads from his new book, We Hold Our Breath: A Journey to Texas Between Storms, on Thursday, Oct. 19 at 7 p.m. at Prairie Lights Books. This Krause Series in Contemporary Nonfiction event is sponsored by the Nonfiction Writing Program. All are welcome. We Hold Our Breath is a unique and poetic blend of reportage, history, and memoir. John D’Agata says of We Hold Our Breath, “Rather than blindly condemning its industry, its sprawl, its ugliness...

Join the African American Museum of Iowa for their brand-new book club, Book Club 802, in a reading of Rebecca Hall's graphic novel Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts.  “Powerful.... Wake is operating in the wake of slavery, and in a state of being awake to the past, a process Hall frames as both devastating and grounding."—New York Times Book Review Book Club 802 draws its name from Iowa House File 802, legislation which bans Iowa governmental entities––including K-12 schools...

Iowa City's own Tim Johnston will read from his novel Distant Sons. He will be joined in conversation by Chair of the UI English Department and host of the podcast Writing Matters, Blaine Greteman.  "Tim Johnston returns in dazzling form with Distant Sons, an intricate, haunting novel sure to resonate with fans of Dennis Lehane, Peter Heller, and James Lee Burke. Johnston's plot is tense and his pacing swift, but he's after bigger game here, with questions of identity, intentions, and legacies...

Join us for a reading and discussion, co-sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Research, to celebrate The Theory of Being: Practices for Transforming Self and Communities Across Difference, edited by a research team from the UI College of Education including Sherry K. Watt, Duhita Mahatmya, Milad Mohebali, and Charles Martin-Stanley II. The book presents a state-of-the-art, robust, and adaptable process, the theory of Being, that offers strategies for working across Difference, and...

Legendary film director Werner Herzog will receive FilmScene’s Cinema Savant award and appear in conversation to discuss his life in film. Herzog will visit as part of a five-city U.S. book tour (New York, Boston, Iowa City, Los Angeles, San Francisco), and will read from his soon-to-be-released autobiography, Every Man for Himself and God Against All: A Memoir.   The multi-hyphenate polymath Academy Award-nominated director (Aguirre, the Wrath of God; Grizzly Man, Fitzcarraldo, Encounters at...

Join us for an afternoon reading with celebrated novelist Jonathan Lethem, celebrating the release of his latest, Brooklyn Crime Novel. Percival Everett says of Brooklyn Crime Novel: “The levels of mystery here astound. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts and then the parts decide to act alone and challenge the whole. Lethem is not only interrogating the form of the crime novel, but the venture of storytelling itself. All of this while remaining a joy to read. Full of strange...

The Iowa City Book festival presents an afternoon reading of The Unsettled by Writers' Workshop graduate Ayana Mathis, whom Yiyun Li has described as "one of the most brilliant writers working in today's America." "[A] powerful book.” —Marilynne Robinson Mathis’ first novel, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie was a New York Times bestseller, an NPR Best Book of 2013, the second selection for Oprah’s Book Club 2.0. and has been translated into sixteen languages. Her nonfiction has been published in...

Join us with the Iowa City Book Festival this Thursday afternoon for a reading of Mindy Mejia's thriller To Catch a Storm.  “Mejia delivers her best work yet in this propulsive, intelligent page-turner. . . Mejia gives Eve and Jonah uncommon depth, which makes their potentially clichéd skeptic/believer dynamic feel surprisingly fresh. . . This indelible thriller has series potential.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)  Mindy Mejia is a CPA and a graduate of the Hamline University MFA program...

The Iowa City Book Festival presents Writers' Workshop graduate Eskor David Johnson, who will read from his debut novel Pay As You Go.  “A madcap odyssey through the hellscape that is the metropolis of the near future. […] Like Dante, Slide wanders in circles, soaking in weirdness, tragedies, and occasional flashes of beauty. And like Joyce, Johnson builds a world that, for all its improbabilities, is recognizable. […] An inventive, beautifully written debut that will leave readers wanting more...

Join us with the Iowa City Book Festival this Thursday morning for a reading of Whalefall, with Iowa's own Daniel Kraus.  "GRAVITY meets 127 HOURS at sea in Daniel Kraus 's astounding new book Whalefall. Easily one of my favorite novels of the year." —Gillian Flynn “A crazy, and crazily enjoyable, beat-the-clock adventure story about fathers, sons, guilt and the mysteries of the sea . . . [Kraus] brings the rigor of a scientist and the sensibility of a poet to his descriptions of the undersea...

Hear Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate, renowned novelist, and Oscar award-winning screenwriter John Irving (67MFA) read from his latest novel, The Last Chairlift, during this special evening at Hancher Auditorium, which will include a chat between the author and Workshop Director Lan Samantha Chang. Irving studied under writer Kurt Vonnegut at Iowa and served as an Iowa Writers’ Workshop instructor from 1972 to 1975. While on campus, the avid wrestler struck up a lifelong friendship with famed...

Join us with the Iowa City Book Festival at the Old Capital Museum, Senate Chamber at 6:20 p.m. for Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: “Translation! Ever New, Ever Elusive” Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak will give the inaugural Weissbort-Spivak Lecture in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the MFA in Literary Translation at the University of Iowa.

The Iowa City Book Festival presents Writers' Workshop faculty member Tracie Morris, who will share her latest poetry collection, Human/Nature.  "Tracie Morris is the genius poet of the double-dutch: crafted, elegant, urgent, playful, fun, and musically timed. In human/nature poems, Morris dismantles gentrification, climate violence, space/history travel, ancestry, and inspires us to look at our relationship to what we call 'nature,' and what we deem 'human.' Our memories are stirred toward ice...

2023 is the 400th Anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio—the first collected edition of his works, and the first publication ever of plays including Macbeth and The Tempest. Why are we still reading and performing his works all these years later? How do we situate Shakespeare’s plays in a contemporary context? Join us for a roundtable discussion on Shakespeare in the 21st century. At this conversational panel, scholars will discuss Shakespeare in the context of race, prisons, and contemporary...

Coralville Public Library Special afternoon event at the Coralville Public Library! The Iowa City Book Festival presents author Marta McDowell, who will talk about her new book, Gardening Can Be Murder: How Poisonous Poppies, Sinister Shovels, and Grim Gardens Have Inspired Mystery Writers. "What could be more intriguing than a murder in the garden? In her newest book, Marta McDowell takes us on a delightfully diabolical romp through the role of horticulture in crime fiction. From deadly seeds...

The Writers' Workshop presents a Q&A with Garth Greenwell. Garth Greenwell is the author of What Belongs to You, which won the British Book Award for Debut of the Year, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and was a finalist for six other awards, including the PEN/Faulkner Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, it was named a Best Book of 2016 by over 50 publications in nine countries, and is being...

The Writers' Workshop presents a Q&A with Vauhini Vara.  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 Department of English welcomes Ida Cordelia Beam Speaker, Jane Smiley, to speak on Thursday, Oct. 5 at 7 p.m. Jane is a Pulitzer-Prize winning author and alumni of the University of Iowa's Department of English. A reception will follow. Her visit is made possible with the support of the Provost's office and the Department of English.

Join us for an evening with Writers’ Workshop graduates and poets Michael Dumanis and Johannes Göransson. Jericho Brown calls Michael Dumanis’s Creature “a brilliant book, a gift that fills needs we didn’t know we needed. This book is a word-drunk movement. I am so envious that I didn’t write it.” Michael Dumanis is the author of the poetry collections Creature (Four Way Books, 2023) and My Soviet Union (University of Massachusetts Press, 2007), winner of the Juniper Prize for Poetry. Born in...