The sixth annual Mission Creek Festival is proud to announce its lineup of literary events alongside the slate of musicians performing from March 28th to April 4th. Integral throughout the six years of the festival, writers, small presses, and literary journals from across the country will, in 2011, continue the growing presence of the literary arts participating in the festival. The lineup includes a special edition of the radio show Sound Opinions, a reading presented by the esteemed literary journal Granta, a performance by writer/filmmaker John Waters, and the first annual Mission Creek Festival Literary Crawl which will feature several writers reading all across downtown Iowa City! EVENTS >> Tuesday, March 29th – Prairie Lights, 7pm – Deb Olin Unferth (Vacation; and Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War) and Katie Crouch (Girls in Trucks; and Men and Dogs) are two young female writers shaping a scene they've only recently become a part of, with a combined five books since 2007. And in the end, these two friends kick off a furious week of literary programming for the festival. Come see it all begin. On Wednesday, March 30th, Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis of the Chicago radio program Sound Opinions will host an event at The Mill. Kot and DeRogatis are two of the country’s most respected music critics. They have written for publications such as Rolling Stone, Spin, and Vibe. Kot wrote Learning How to Die, an acclaimed biography about Wilco, and DeRogatis penned Let It Blurt, the definitive book about pioneering music critic Lester Bangs. Sound Opinions has been hailed as one of contemporary music’s most vibrant, cutting-edge rock and roll talk shows. Thursday, March 31st – Motley Cow Café, 5pm – Mission Creek Happy Hour will feature a reading by Benjamin Hale (The Evolution of Bruno) and members of the Brooklyn rap group Das Racist, who will be performing that evening as part of the festival, as well. Located in one of the area’s finest restaurants, Motley Cow will be serving up food and drink specials for the event. On Thursday, March 31st, Iowa Press Poetry Award winner Julie Hanson will read from her poetry collection “Unbeknownst” upstairs at Prairie Lights, 7pm. On Friday, April 1st, three young literary talents will be read at Prairie Lights: Tao Lin, Lindsay Hunter, and Ted Thompson. New Yorker Tao Lin is one of the most progressive, controversial figures in contemporary American Literature. He’s published one collection of poems on Action Press, and five works of fiction, all through Melville House Publishing. Chicago writer, and founder of the Quickies Reading Series, Lindsay Hunter has turned heads with her debut novel Daddy’s, a novel Prairie Lights’ own Paul Ingram has said “If Help is the alpha of Southern Lit, Daddy’s is the Omega.” Also, Writer’s Workshop graduate Ted Thompson will read from a novel due out on Reagan Arthur Books in early 2012. Also on Friday, April 1st, acclaimed filmmaker and writer John Waters will perform his one-man show This Filthy World. Saturday, April 2nd – The Mill, 8pm – Mission Creek is proud to announce, and welcome actress and poet Amber Tamblyn to town. While Amber’s recent successes include films such as 127 Hours and the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants series, Tamblyn has also published four books of poetry - the reading for her latest collection, Bang Ditto, packed the house at Prairie Lights – and she frequently performs on stage as part of “The Drums Inside Your Chest.” Joining her onstage will be her long-time friend and poet-performer-stalwart Mindy Nettifee (Sleepyhead Assassins), and local writer-performer Idris Goodwin. This event, like all others on the literary lineup, is entirely free to attend. On Saturday April 2nd, we are proud to announce a special reading presented by UK’s Granta magazine and featuring writers Sam Lipsyte, Benjamin Percy, Dora Malech. Granta’s editor John Freeman will host this reading. Fresh off the popularity of their recent issues on Pakistani literature and the top young Spanish language writers, Granta is the hottest literary journal around. For further literary digestion, Sam Lipsyte (Venus Drive; The Ask) will read from stories that American author Jonathan Ames has said “come at you like a fist, they knock you around, they make you wince, they make you look away, and then they make you look back.” Ben Percy has been published everywhere and in every form; his short stories, nonfiction, and radio pieces can be found in everything from the Paris Review to The Wall Street Journal to NPR, and that’s nothing to say of the success of his last novel, The Wilding, out on Graywolf Press. Hardly any other poet around grabs audiences as quickly and deftly as Dora Malech - if you didn’t know about her before, now you know. Also on Saturday, April 2nd, Mission Creek adds a Literary Crawl to its traditional slate of readings! Following the Second Annual Small Press and Literary Journal Book Fair on Saturday, April 2nd, the Lit Crawl will showcase the talents of literary entities and writers from across the Midwest and the Northeast, at a number of venues and business across campus and downtown Iowa City. One crawl, three rounds, six locations, and more than 25 writers will appear. Also, the locations for Saturday’s Lit Crawl have been finalized: 5:00 – 5:45pm Nemesis Tattoo – hosted by Black Ocean Press Times Club – hosted by Wag’s Revue Dublin Underground – hosted by Quickies! 6:00 – 6:45pm RSVP – hosted by Rescue Press Home Ec – hosted by Defunct Magazine Teaspoons – hosted by the Iowa Review 7:00 – 7:00pm Georges – hosted by Monsters of Poetry Foxhead – hosted by MAKE Magazine Confirmed Writers, Journals, & Presses: John Waters Sound Opinions featuring Greg Kot & Jim DeRogatis Sam Lipsyte Tao Lin Benjamin Percy Lindsay Hunter Dora Malech Ben Hale Daniel Khalastchi Nick Twemlow Marc Rahe Shane McCrae Ted Thompson Monsters of Poetry Quickies Reading Series Iowa Youth Writers Project Granta Magazine The Iowa Review Rescue Press Black Clock MAKE Magazine Monsters of Poetry featherproof Hell Yes Press PANK Magazine Black Ocean Press Flim Forum Defunct Magazine Wag’s Revue Quickies! Canarium Press POETRY Magazine Blue//Green Press Further Adventures Press Human 500 Lightful Press Catenary Press UI Center for the Book Iowa Youth Writing Project UNESCO City of Literature Contact: brian@missionfreak.com Website: www.missionfreak.com