Events Calendar

Oct 6, 2024

4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

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Join us for the International Writing Program's Prairie Lights Reading Series this Sunday to hear readings by two 2024 Fall Residency writers and one University of Iowa MFA student. Phodiso Modirwa (poet, nonfiction writer; Botswana) is the author of Speaking in Code, a chapbook published by Akashic Books as part of the Tisa: New-Generation African Poets box set. She performed at the inauguration ceremony of the current president of Botswana, and her work has received the Botswana President...

Oct 7, 2024

5:30 PM

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Playwrights Workshop Reading: Sundown on Eternity By Darrin Terpstra The end of days has come and gone, and the Lord has seen fit to give Judas a second chance. Too bad Judas is too busy having an existential crisis to appreciate it. Who knew a few eons in Hell could mess with someone's mind? Please be advised this play contains discussions of suicide, Christianity.

Oct 8, 2024

5:00 PM

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Join us at the Shambaugh House (430 N. Clinton St, Iowa City) for a reading by four IWP 2024 Fall Residency writers. Pervin Saket (poet, novelist, editor; India) is the author of the novel Urmila (2016), the poetry collection A Tinge of Turmeric (2009), and a series of 10 biographies in verse for children. She won the Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize in 2021 and was awarded the Vancouver Manuscript Intensive Fellowship the same year. Her most recent poetry manuscript was a finalist for the Ga...

Oct 8, 2024

7:00 PM

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Poets Cash Danish and Melissa Dickey will read from their latest books; Your Dazzling Death and Ordinary Entanglement. Cass Donish will read from Your Dazzling Death. “An elegy is a conversation that never ends. As if death didn’t exist. As if speech isn’t sometimes silence. As if poetry isn’t often the little that’s left. These poems — brilliant, devastating — are evidence that a woman was once alive, and loved, and that that, the all of it, is now equally over and not over: a complicated ...

Oct 9, 2024

7:30 PM

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Writers from the International Writing Program’s 2024 Fall Residency provided short works in various forms, all of which were then adapted for the stage. See the fruits of this annual collaboration on Wednesday, Oct. 9 at 7:30 p.m. in the Alan MacVey theatre in the University of Iowa Theatre Building. Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to partic...

Oct 10, 2024

7:00 PM - 8:00 PM

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Join us for a reading and conversation with poet and translator Sawako Nakayasu (co-hosted with The Writers Workshop).

Oct 11, 2024

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

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A conversation between four IWP 2024 Fall Residency writers on the theme of "The Writer’s Voice and the Reader’s Ear," followed by Q&A. Free pizza will be provided to those who attend in person. This event is supported by University of Iowa International Programs and the Stanley-UI Foundation Support Organization. Join us in Meeting Room A of the Iowa City Public Library, or watch live online via the ICPL YouTube channel: youtube.com/user/thelibrarychannel Saad Z. Hossain (fiction writer; ...

Oct 13, 2024

4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

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Join us for the International Writing Program's Prairie Lights Reading Series this Sunday to hear readings by two 2024 Fall Residency writers and one University of Iowa MFA student. Péter Závada (poet, playwright, translator, teacher; Hungary) is the author of the poetry collection Wreck in Lee (2017), for which he won the Horváth Péter Literary Scholarship, in addition to four other books of poetry. He is also a recipient of the Öarkény István Playwriting Scholarship (2016), the Móricz Zsi...

Oct 14, 2024

7:00 PM

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The Iowa City Book Festival presents Stuart Dybek, who will read from his work. “Masterful . . . Like Proust, Dybek has a deserved reputation as a superb cartographer of memory.” ―Trevor Quirk, The Los Angeles Review of Books Dybek is the author of five books of fiction — Ecstatic Cahoots, Paper Lantern, I Sailed with Magellan, The Coast of Chicago, and Childhood and Other Neighborhoods — as well as two collections of poetry, Brass Knuckles and Streets in Their Own Ink. Dybek is the recipie...

Oct 15, 2024

7:30 PM

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Sit in on a one-of-a-kind evening with writer and Iowa graduate Tracy Kidder, “a master of the nonfiction narrative” (Baltimore Sun), as he reflects on his lengthy literary career and reads from some of his bestselling work. The event will feature a conversation about the power of long-form investigative writing between Kidder and renowned author Stuart Dybek (73MFA), as well as a Q&A session and book signing. Register here: https://foriowa.info/3yUJ2h8 The author of nonfiction classics s...

Oct 18, 2024

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

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A conversation between four IWP 2024 Fall Residency writers on the theme of "Balancing Life as an Artist," followed by Q&A. Free pizza will be provided to those who attend in person. This event is supported by University of Iowa International Programs and the Stanley-UI Foundation Support Organization. Join us in Meeting Room A of the Iowa City Public Library, or watch live online via the ICPL YouTube channel: youtube.com/user/thelibrarychannel Lisa Allen-Agostini (fiction writer, poet, ed...

Oct 19, 2024

12:00 PM

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At Noon, The Iowa City Book Festival Presents Writers’ Workshop Faculty member Elizabeth Willis, who will read from Liontaming in America (New Directions, 2024), a hybrid work engaged with American belief and relationship structures, theatre, activism, and film. This work has been Longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry. "In this vast and masterful book, Elizabeth Willis lays personal claim to the terror unleashed by John Winthrop’s prophecy ‘wee shall be made a story.’ And i...

Oct 19, 2024

2:30 PM - 3:30 PM

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Join author James Fitzmaurice in Shambaugh Auditorium in the Main Library for a conversation about his new young adult novel, Hobgoblin Gennel, moderated by Library and Information Science graduate student Theo Prineas. Light refreshments provided. In this off-beat tale of adventure, teenagers Irie and Fred are fast friends. Irie, of Afro-Caribbean heritage, was born in Sheffield where they both live. Fred is an expat American transplanted from Yuma, Arizona, with a keen interest in Sheffie...

Oct 19, 2024

2:30 PM

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With his signature crackling prose, literary master Chris Offutt has staked out his own territory in crime fiction, a place of familial allegiances, old wounds, and revenge — the code of the hills. His new book, a sharp, twisty southern noir with echoes of James Sallis and Daniel Woodrell, will force Mick to face up to the way of life he thought he’d escaped. Chris Offutt is the author of two collections of short stories, three memoirs, and six novels. His books have been translated into 12...

Oct 19, 2024

4:00 PM

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Part of Hancher's 52nd Season Hancher supports one singular guitarist appearing at two indispensable Iowa City festivals. Marc Ribot is going to have a busy day in Iowa City. First, he will perform his score for Yakov Protazanov’s pioneering sci-fi film Aelita: Queen of Mars as part of the ReFocus Film Festival. Then he will read from his book Unstrung: Rants & Stories of a Noise Guitarist as part of the Iowa City Book Festival. It’s a unique opportunity to experience Ribot’s multifaceted ...

Oct 20, 2024

12:30 PM

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Poetry in Public celebrates our community’s rich literary tradition and local writing talent by displaying poems by writers of all ages. Hear from some of the 2024 Selected Poets. This event is live and in-person, and will be streamed live at: https://www.youtube.com/thelibrarychannel Featuring special guest Iowa Student Poet Ambassador Tanya Rastogi. Presenting Poets: Lucas Askelson, "Big and Small" Melodee Bashir, "A December Walk with Leo" Jacquelyn Bengfort, "The Secret Universal Or...

Oct 20, 2024

2:00 PM - 4:00 PM

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Students from Iowa City, fluent in 15 different languages, will present passages from Anne Frank’s diary. This event provides an opportunity for attendees to engage in meaningful dialogue, reflect on the Holocaust and other tragic global events, and foster a sense of community as the 95th anniversary of Frank’s diary is commemorated. The first Anne Frank Initiative Little Library, created in partnership with Clear Creek Amana Middle School, will be unveiled at the event. Co-presented by the ...

Oct 20, 2024

4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

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Join us for the International Writing Program's Prairie Lights Reading Series this Sunday to hear readings by two 2024 Fall Residency writers and one University of Iowa MFA student. Lyuba Yakimchuk (poet, playwright, screenwriter, performance artist; Ukraine) is the author of the poetry books Абрикоси Донбасу [Apricots of Donbas] (2015) and Як мода [Like Fashion] (2009), as well as the plays Wall and Schrödinger's Cat. She also wrote the screenplays for both the film Slovo House. Unfinished...

Oct 21, 2024

7:00 PM - 8:00 PM

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Celebrate the release of the novel Invisible Kitties with a conversation between author Yu Yoyo and Jeremy Tiang, the novel's translator.

Oct 22, 2024

5:00 PM

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Join us at the Shambaugh House (430 N. Clinton St, Iowa City) for a reading by three IWP 2024 Fall Residency writers. Mélanie Werder-Avilés (playwright, theatremaker, scholar; Spain) is the author of the plays *Buena suerte, chica; Sharenting; Nutella Days; and Tiradísimo de Precio [Dirt-cheap]; among others. Her play La Protagonista won the Lope de Vega award. She has been selected as a resident playwright at the Spanish National Drama Centre and has been a member of the International Summ...

Oct 25, 2024

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

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A conversation between four IWP 2024 Fall Residency writers on the theme of "Blurred Boundaries," followed by Q&A. Free pizza will be provided to those who attend in person. This event is supported by University of Iowa International Programs and the Stanley-UI Foundation Support Organization. Join us in Meeting Room A of the Iowa City Public Library, or watch live online via the ICPL YouTube channel: youtube.com/user/thelibrarychannel Priya Hein (fiction and nonfiction writer; Mauritius) ...

Oct 27, 2024

4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

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Join us for the International Writing Program's Prairie Lights Reading Series this Sunday to hear readings by two 2024 Fall Residency writers and one University of Iowa MFA student. Yu Yoyo (poet, fiction writer; PRC) is the author of the poetry collections [Seven Years] (2012), [Me as Bait] (2016), [Wind Can’t] (2019), [Against Body] (2019), and [A Cat Is a Cloud] (2021). The Poetry Translation Centre published her first English poetry collection, My Tenantless Body, in 2019, with translat...

Oct 31, 2024

7:00 PM

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The Nonfiction Writing Program is pleased to present a reading with alum Kristen Radtke, author of Seek You and Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor. Join us Thursday, Oct. 31 at 7 p.m. for a reading, followed by conversation and a reception. This reading is part of the Krause Series in Contemporary Nonfiction.

Nov 3, 2024

4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

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Join us for the International Writing Program's Prairie Lights Reading Series this Sunday to hear readings by two 2024 Fall Residency writers and one University of Iowa MFA student. Sabyn Javeri (fiction and nonfiction writer, translator; Pakistan, UK & UAE) is the author of the short story collection Hijabistan (2019) and the novel Nobody Killed Her (2017). She is the editor of volumes 1 and 2 of the multilingual Arzu Anthology of Student Writing (2018–2019) as well as the creative nonfict...

Nov 7, 2024

5:00 PM

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Join us at the Shambaugh House (430 N. Clinton St, Iowa City) for a reading by three IWP 2024 Fall Residency writers. Smith Likongwe (playwright, poet, fiction and nonfiction writer, academic; Malawi) is a lecturer in Drama and Theatre Studies at the University of Malawi. He also serves as the president of the Association Internationale du Théâtre pour l'Enfance et la Jeunesse (ASSITEJ) Malawi. His publications include Kamuzu Banda and Other Pays (2019), Living Playscripts: A Trilogy (2018)...

Nov 10, 2024

4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

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Join us for the International Writing Program's Prairie Lights Reading Series this Sunday to hear readings by two 2024 Fall Residency writers and one University of Iowa MFA student. Nurit Kasztelan (poet, fiction writer, editor, bookseller; Argentina) is the author of the novel Tanto (2023), which was the recipient of an honorable mention for the National Award for Literature from the Fondo Nacional de las Artes, and the poetry collections Movimientos Incorpóreos (2007), Lógica de los accid...

Nov 13, 2024

6:00 PM - 7:00 PM

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Books will be for sale at the event. Refreshments provided. Lyz Lenz is a New York Times bestselling author, whose writing has appeared in The Washington Post, the Columbia Journalism Review, The New York Times, and others. Her book God Land was published in 2019, through Indiana University Press. Her second book Belabored, was published in 2020 by Bold Type Books. Lyz’s essay “All the Angry Women” was also included in the anthology Not that Bad edited by Roxane Gay. Her third book, This Am...

Feb 21, 2025

7:00 PM

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The Nonfiction Writing Program presents a reading with Dodie Bellamy, NWP Bedell Distinguished Visiting Professor and author of numerous books including When the Sick Rule the World. Join us at the Nonfiction Writing House (530 N. Clinton St.) on Friday, Feb. 21 at 7 p.m. for the reading, which is part of the Krause Series in Contemporary Nonfiction.