For several generations, Anne Frank has been a household name—the WWII diarist whose posthumously published book has been translated into more than 70 languages. But do younger generations know her story? When they encounter her, what resonates with them? In this conversation, we'll consider Anne's legacy and the ways her experience as a refugee, a person in hiding, an advocate for human rights, and a joyful creative spirit can speak to new generations. Speakers will include: Kirsten Kumpf...

Creating Meaningful Writing Tasks: Breaking Assignments into Smaller Parts How do we design meaningful formal writing assignments that engage and motivate our students?  How do we use smaller writing-to-learn tasks that scaffold and prepare them for those formal assignments as well as inform us instructors how they are learning what we are teaching?  How do we build multimodal elements into assignments to expand meaning-making opportunities?  This workshop will focus on designing and...

Mary Jo Bang in conversation with Timothy Donnelly September 23, 2021 - 7:00pm Prairie Lights Virtual - Zoom Please join us for a reading and conversation with Mary Jo Bang to celebrate the release of Purgatorio. She will be joined in conversation by Timothy Donnelly. To join this virtual event, register here. Award-winning translator Susan Bernofsky says of the book, “After Mary Jo Bang’s brilliant time-traveling Inferno, I couldn’t wait for her Purgatorio, which turns out to be every bit...

Iowa City Queer Home CookOUT Tour August 21, 2021 - 4:00pm High Ground Cafe Join us at High Ground Cafe to celebrate the release of the Home is Where You Queer Your Heart anthology at the Iowa City Queer Home CookOUT Tour!  Foglifter, the San Francisco Bay Area’s premier non-profit LGBTQ+ literary arts press, announces the Queer Home CookOUT Tour. Foglifter road trips across the country to collaborate with local bookstores and the contributing writers of the Home is Where You Queer Your...

LaTanya McQueen in conversation with Rachel Yoder August 5, 2021 - 7:00pm Prairie Lights Virtual - Zoom Please join us for a reading and conversation with LaTanya McQueen  to celebrate the release of When the Reckoning Comes. She will be joined in conversation by Rachel Yoder. To join this virtual event, register here. Laura van den Burg,  author of The Third Hotel says of the book, “LaTanya McQueen writes brilliantly and incisively about the haunted histories that lurk behind landscapes...

NIGHTBITCH by Rachel Yoder Outdoor Reading and Book Release Party July 30, 2021 - 7:00pm 5th floor patio of the Chauncey Please join us with Iowa City debut author Rachel Yoder on the 5 th floor patio of the Chauncey Building on Friday, July 30 at 7pm for a reading, conversation, signing, and book release party for Nightbitch. Ticket badges are required and can be picked up while they last at Prairie Lights. The event is generously hosted and sponsored by The Tuesday Agency. Rachel will be...

Simon Van Booy in conversation with Sarah Braunstein July 28, 2021 - 7:00pm Prairie Lights Virtual - Zoom Please join us for a reading and conversation with Simon Van Booy to celebrate the release of Night Came with Many Stars. He will be joined in conversation by author Sarah Braunstein. To join this virtual event, register here. Dani Shapiro, author of New York Times Bestseller Inheritance says of the book, "I have long loved the work of Simon Van Booy, and this spare, gorgeously-written...

More details and registration available at http://www.signmeup.com/7Q2VTG7. Zoom link will be send to all registrants before the course occurs. The University of Iowa is known nationally as "The Writing University," and our institution boasts a rich tradition of great writing and an early and enduring commitment to the creative arts. Iowa’s tradition of writing has been guided by the principle that, though writing is a solitary practice, it’s one significantly enriched by interaction with...

Between the Lines: Peace and the Writing Experience Faculty Reading July 18, 2021 - 8:00am Prairie Lights Virtual - Zoom Join IWP online for a reading with acclaimed writers from North Macedonia, Pakistan, Bulgaria, and the U.S. all in one (free) session through  Prairie Lights Bookstore! These four authors – Rumena Bužarovska (IWP Fall Resident ’18 #NorthMacedonia,   U.S. Embassy North Macedonia), Mary Hickman (U.S.), Shandana Minhas (FR ’13 #Pakistan,   U.S. Embassy Pakistan), Vladimir...

More details and registration at http://www.signmeup.com/7S2VTG7 The University of Iowa is known nationally as "The Writing University," and our institution boasts a rich tradition of great writing and an early and enduring commitment to the creative arts. Iowa’s tradition of writing has been guided by the principle that, though writing is a solitary practice, it’s one significantly enriched by interaction with other writers. There has also been a growing focus in recent years on how writing...

Willa Richards in conversation with Fatima Farheen Mirza July 15, 2021 - 7:00pm Prairie Lights Virtual - Zoom Please join us for a reading and conversation with Willa Richards to celebrate the release of The Comfort of Monsters. She will be joined in conversation by Fatima Farheen Mirza. To join this virtual event, register here. Elizabeth Wetmore, New York Times bestselling author of Valentine says of the book, "On its face, The Comfort of Monsters is a riveting page-turner that begs to be...

Judy Polumbaum, Alexander Wolff and Brett Dakin July 14, 2021 - 7:00pm Prairie Lights Virtual - Zoom Please join us on Zoom for readings and a conversation with three nonfiction authors – Alexander Wolff, Brett Dakin, and Judy Polumbaum – whose new books revolve around family histories in which resistance to various forms of political depravity plays a key role. To join this virtual event, register here. The New York Review of Books calls Alexander Wolff's Endpapers ,"Revelatory, riveting...

The David Lynch Foundation and Prairie Lights Bookstore cordially invite you to POETRY RX: How Poetry Can Heal and Bring Joy to Your Life, featuring world-renowned psychiatrist, Norman E. Rosenthal, M.D., Prairie Lights Bookstore owner and published poet Jan Weissmiller, along with moderator Bob Roth, CEO of The David Lynch Foundation. To attend this virtual event, register here. Imagine your therapist writing a prescription for “Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson or a...

Larissa Pham will read from and talk about her glorious new memoir, Pop Song: Adventures in Art and Intimacy.  She will be joined in conversation by Jenny Zhang. Already hailed as A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of the Year, and One of The Millions’ Most Anticipated Books of the Year (among other lists!),"Pham reinvents the memoir in a stirring debut that explores the power of language, art, and love . . . This is a masterpiece." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) Pop Song is a book...

Please Join Black Lives Matter at School activists and educators for a conversation about the new uprising for educational justice in Iowa, sponsored by Black Lives Matter at School-Iowa, Prairie Lights Bookstore,  and Haymarket Books. Education activists Lisa Covington, Jesse Hagopian, Denisha Jones, Lucket Kiche, and Matè Muhammad, in conversation about Black Lives Matter at School: An Uprising for Educational Justice, and the struggle against systemic racism in schools, how we can win real...

Second-year students from the MFA in Spanish Creative Writing will share a selection of creative work they did during their time in Iowa. This event celebrates the experience of studying the MFA and writing in Iowa City. Students Christian De León, Juan Díaz Ortiz, Leticia Fernández-Fontecha and Yamila Transtenvot will be presented by fellow MFA students or alumni and then will read excerpts from their creative work in Spanish. An English version of these excerpts will be read subsequently.  

Please join us with Writers @ Grinnell for their 2021 Distinguished Author Lecture: Telling the Stories Only You Can Tell. The event will also include the presentation of Grinnell's 2020-2021 English Department Writing Awards. Alexander Chee is the author of the novels Edinburgh and The Queen of the Night, and the essay collection How To Write An Autobiographical Novel, all from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He is a contributing editor at The New Republic, and an editor at large at VQR. His essays...

Please join us for a virtual reading and conversation with Donika Kelly and Mark Wunderlich to celebrate their new books of poetry published by Graywolf Press.  Donika Kelly will read from The Renunciations,  and Mark Wunderlich will read from God of Nothingness, winner of the UNT Rilke Prize and the Lambda Literary Award. Oprah.com calls The Renunciations, "a lionhearted odyssey through the self, a casting aside of old mythologies and traumas in search of new stories fashioned from love and...

Please join us to celebrate the release of Turning Pointe: How a New Generation of Dancers Is Saving Ballet from Itself with a reading from author Chloe Angyal and conversation with Brandon Taylor, author of Real Life. Every day, in dance studios all across America, millions of little girls line up at the barre and take ballet class. Their time in the studio shapes their lives, instilling lessons about gender, power, the value of their bodies and minds, and their place in the world both in and...

Please join Prairie Lights and the Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program for a special pre-release book event for distinguished professor Meenakshi Gigi Durham, who has served the program as interim director for the past year.   To join this virtual event, register here. Me Too: The Impact of Rape Culture in the Media, will be published in June 2021.  Catherine Rottenberg, University of Nottingham calls Durham's Me Too “An accessible and thorough interrogation of the media, rape culture, and MeToo."...

Please join Prairie Lights and the Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program for a special pre-release book event for distinguished professor Meenakshi Gigi Durham, who has served the program as interim director for the past year.  Me Too: The Impact of Rape Culture in the Media, will be published in June 2021.  Catherine Rottenberg, University of Nottingham calls Durham's Me Too “An accessible and thorough interrogation of the media, rape culture, and MeToo."  and says, "The book does a fantastic job of...

Please join us for a special Prairie Lights Virtual event on Zoom for Amy Klobuchar in conversation with Art Cullen. Klobuchar and Cullen will talk about the newly published ANTITRUST: Taking on Monopoly Power from the Gilded Age to the Digital Age, by Amy Klobuchar. “The effects of monopoly power can be felt everywhere raising all sorts of questions for the American economy. Why do farmers pay so much for seeds and fertilizer? Why is health care so expensive? And why are so few incentives in...

Please join us for a reading and conversation with Geoffrey Nutter and Matthew Rohrer to celebrate their new books of poetry, Giant Moth Perishes out on May 4 in hardcover and paperback, and The Sky Contains the Plans, released in paperback April 7. John Ebersole of Kenyon Review says of Geoffrey Nutter's work, “For years now, Nutter has been quietly writing some of the most beautiful poems in America.” Geoffrey Nutter has published five books, including The Rose of January and Cities at Dawn ...

Please visit https://engagement.uiowa.edu/workshops-and-events to register. UI Arts Share, a program in the Office of Community Engagement, is presenting a virtual student reading, Writers Unmuffled, Thursday, April 29 @ 6:30pm. During this Zoom event, five University of Iowa graduate student writers (from a variety of genres), will each give a five to eight minute reading and will field questions from the Zoom audience. Come join us as these writers allow their imagination to unmask for an...

Roxane Gay is a bestselling, award-winning author, professor, editor, and social commentator. Local Libraries LIT is thrilled to present Roxane Gay during a unique hour-long online program featuring a reading of her work and opportunity to interact.  Roxane Gay won the Paul Engle Prize presented by the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature in 2016. She is the author of several bestsellers, including Bad Feminist, Difficult Women, and Hunger. She is also the first Black woman to become a lead...