Hello there!

There is so much to do (and not do) these days, and our collective bandwidths are being strained in enormous ways. At the University of Iowa, we love our writers, our programs, we love our graduates and our students -- and we love the wealth of literature that they gift us, simply by being here.

We have created "5 Reads for Friday" as an easy, laid-back series, compiling a short list of inspirational, helpful and fun treasures from our family to yours. Enjoy what you find, take what you need, and be well.

 

• From our Free Online Courses: Stories of Place: Writing and the Natural World MOOC-Pack
  
  This Massive Open Online Course Package is free and ready to use right out of the virtual box! This course focuses on using various types of creative non-fiction to tell stories about the local, the global, the invisible, and the uncertain.
  
   

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  New Eleventh Hour Podcast: Episode #128: Poetry and Questions of Peace with Zach Savich
  
  "Is peace the absence of conflict or a state that can exist within conflict? How can writing cultivate, reveal, practice, and advance personal and shared forms of peaceable assembly? What's the relationship between peace and protest, politics and private experience?"
   

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  From the Iowa Review: Margaret Atwood, Bread (1981)
  
  "The loaf of bread I have conjured for you floats about a foot above your kitchen table."  A haunting story of bread, from Margaret Atwood.
   

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  From the University of Iowa Press: Just Checking In w/ UI Press authors Ashley Wurzbacher and Connie Mutel
  
  University of Iowa Press authors share their quarantine routines, writing tips, book suggestions and playlists this week!
   

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  Iowa News: The Daily Iowan named nation’s Best All-Around Daily Student Newspaper
  
  The Society of Professional Journalists on Tuesday named The Daily Iowan the nation's Best All-Around Daily Student Newspaper in the 2019 Mark of Excellence Awards. Congrats to the Daily Iowan!

And that's it!
We hope you enjoy. And check back each week for a new list!

^{Photos by Kimberly Farmer on Unsplash, and Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash}