During the third annual Iowa City Book Festival, University of Iowa alumni (from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and Nonfiction Writing Program) shared their work in readings all over Iowa City, as dozens businesses hosted authors and similar reading events, capping the three-day celebration of the written word in this UNESCO-stamped City of Literature: "Two doors down North Linn Street from the poetry reading, a sizeable but quiet crowd crammed itself in a corner of a coffee shop, T'Spoons, where members of UI's undergraduate nonfiction writing program read aloud essays.

Poets & Writers Magazine features the Iowa Writers' Workshop 75th Anniversary this month in the article, Writers’ Workshop at Seventy-Five: "This year the oldest graduate creative writing program in the United States turns seventy-five. In June the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, alma mater of writers ranging from John Irving to Flannery O’Connor, Jorie Graham to Michael Cunningham, celebrated the anniversary with a reunion of faculty and alumni that brought together some of the most recognized names in literature today. T. C.

Iowa City Book Festival's twitter novel unfolds this weekend! Follow @NovelIowaCity or help write the book with #icbfn tweets. Novel Iowa City begins at noon today -- multiple authors writing a single novel, 140 characters at a time, simultaneously using Twitter. Everyone is welcome to contribute to the novel -- simply tweet your contribution and use the tag #icbfn.

The 2011 Iowa City Book Festival (ICBF), presented by the University of Iowa Libraries, will celebrate reading, writing, and books Friday–Sunday, July 15–17, with best-selling authors, hands-on book arts, kids’ activities, music, and more. The ICBF will begin Friday, July 15, with a fund-raising dinner in the Main Library. Saturday, July 16, is festival day in Gibson Square with booksellers, music, children’s activities, food vendors, book arts demonstrations, and readings and panel discussions. Sunday, July 17, will be “A Day in the City of Literature.” Local businesses of all kinds throughout Iowa City will participate by hosting readings and special activities all day.

Iowa Summer Rep 2011, “About My Family,” will continue Tuesday–Sunday, July 5–10, with performances of Paul Zindel’s Pulitzer Prize–winning lyrical drama The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds and the evergreen two-person musical comedy I Do! I Do!. The Effect of Gamma Rays… will be held at 8 p.m., Tuesday and Thursday, July 5 and 7, in the David Thayer Theatre of the University of Iowa Theatre Building. I Do! I Do! will be staged at 8 p.m., Wednesday, July 6, and Friday–Sunday, July 8–10, in Theatre B of the UI Theatre Building.