PrairieLights – A reading with Camille T. Dungy, America, A Love Story
2026-09-17 19:00 (America/Chicago) | Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City, IA, 52240, United States
The 2024 Paul Engle Prize winner and celebrated poet Camille T. Dungy will read from her newest poetry collection, America, a Love Story. Described by publisher Wesleyan University Press as a “powerful testament to living and loving as a Black woman and mother in today’s America, and her first book of poetry in almost a decade,” America, a Love Story is praised by Charley Burlock of Oprah Daily as an “electrifying new collection [that] arrives just on time, offering a version of patriotism capable of meeting the present moment and carrying us through to a brighter future,” while award-winning poet and novelist Kaveh Akbar says: “What a great fan I am of Camille Dungy’s work. I’ve spent so much time sitting at the foot of her language, just sort of learning what I can in slack-jawed wonder.”
Camille T. Dungy is the author of Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden (2023). She has also written Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History (2017), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and four collections of poetry, including Trophic Cascade (2017), winner of the Colorado Book Award. Dungy edited Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry (2009), and her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, 100 Best African American Poems, Best American Essays, The 1619 Project, plus dozens of venues including The New Yorker, Poetry, Literary Hub, The Paris Review, and Poets.org. A University Distinguished Professor at Colorado State University, Dungy’s honors include the 2021 Academy of American Poets Fellowship, a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, an Honorary Doctorate from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, and fellowships from the NEA in both prose and poetry (weslpress.org).

SideKick – reading and signing with Paige Towers and Sarah Elgatian
2026-09-17 19:00 | Sidekick Coffee & Books, 1310 1/2 Melrose Avenue, Iowa City, IA, 52242, United States
Join Sidekick Coffee and Books for the launch of “What they Stole: Familicide Rooted in Intercountry Adoption” by Paige Towers in conversation with Sarah Elgatian.
About the book: In 1955, following the devastation of the Korean War, Bertha and Harry Holt made headlines for adopting eight Korean children. Driven by evangelical convictions and emboldened by a spacial act of Congress, the couple founded the Holt Adoption Program, which would facilitate migration of tens of thousands of Korean children to the United States over the following decades. The Sueppels were among the families profoundly shaped by the legacy of the Holt Adoption Program, until 2008, when Steven found himself facing federal embezzlement and money laundering chargers, he murdered Sheryl and their adopted children before ending his own life. What They Stole traces the interwoven histories of the Holts and the Sueppels, Meticulously researched and sensitive to its storytelling, Paige Towers examines how goos intentions can coexist with systemic harm- and how the consequences of systems like the Holt’s can reverberate across generations.
One book purchase admits two people

PrairieLights – [Virtual Event] Nancy Sowell in conv. with Melissa Febos – Internal Family Systems Health Therapy: Treating Trauma-Related Physical Illness & Toxic Stress
2026-09-18 18:30 | IA
[Virtual Event] Find the link on PrairieLights website
Nancy Sowell, LICSW, will read from her new book co-authored with Martha Sweezy, PhD, and Richard C. Schwartz, PhD: IFS (Internal Family Systems) Health Therapy: Treating Trauma-Related Physical Illness & Toxic Stress. She will be joined in conversation by bestselling author and daughter, Melissa Febos. (Note: This will be a virtual event on Zoom and will start at 6:30 PM CDT.)
The publisher, PESI Publishing, offers this introduction for IFS Health Therapy:
Many chronic health conditions–from inflammation and digestive disorders to metabolic syndrome and autoimmune diseases–are increasingly linked to the lasting effects of chronic stress and trauma. But how do these experiences become embedded in the body, and how can we help?
In IFS (Internal Family Systems) Health Therapy, Nancy Sowell, in collaboration with Martha Sweezy and IFS founder Richard Schwartz, draws upon thirty years of clinical practice and behavioral medicine experience to present a groundbreaking mind-body approach that views protective and vulnerable inner “parts” as key drivers of physical health concerns. From this perspective, relief emerges as clients support these internal parts and release trauma-related burdens.
Through vivid case examples, experiential exercises, and practical tools, clinicians will learn how to use a clear three-phase framework to:

Understand how trauma and chronic stress contribute to illness
Conduct an IFS-informed health therapy assessment
Identify and befriend protective parts that affect physical symptoms
Help vulnerable parts release trauma-related burdens
Collaborate with other health professionals to support whole-person care

Adversity can alter a person’s mind and body, but it does not extinguish the Self’s capacity to heal. This book equips you with the tools to support that capacity.
Nancy Sowell, LICSW, is an IFS senior trainer, consultant, and speaker who teaches internationally and in the US and maintains an IFS health therapy practice. She is a Harvard Medical School teaching associate at the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion at the Cambridge Health Alliance, where she has served for many years as a clinical consultant and IFS trainer. Her work integrates personal history, mindful awareness of the body, emotions, thoughts, and deeply held beliefs that influence our mood, behavior, relationships, and health. As the Behavioral Medicine program manager in the Division of Rheumatology, Immunology, and Allergy at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, she co-created an IFS program that demonstrated positive outcomes for patients with rheumatoid arthritis. She knows both personally and professionally the power of the Self in healing and restoring health. Visit her website: www.nancysowell.com.
Melissa Febos is the national bestselling author of five books, including Girlhood—winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative, and a new memoir, The Dry Season. She is the recipient of awards and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, LAMBDA Literary, the Black Mountain Institute, the British Library, and others. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, The New Yorker, The Best American Essays, Vogue, and The New York Times Magazine. She is a Professor at the University of Iowa, where she teaches in The Nonfiction Writing Program (melissafebos.com).

PorchLight: Write Now - Community Supported Writing Group
2026-09-21 10:30, 2026-10-19 10:30 | PorchLight Literary Arts Center, 1019 E Washington St, Iowa City, 52240, United States
PorchLight’s Write Now Writer’s Group provides community, and learning opportunities for beginning to intermediate writers. At their monthly meetings, share short craft lessons, generate writing from prompts, and, on occasion, provide responses to participants’ work in progress. Writers working in any genre are welcome.
This is a great group for writers who have not had the time or opportunity to pursue a traditional MFA.
RSVP one week in advance on their website!

Sidekick: Conversation and signing with author Grant Faulkner
2026-09-24 19:00 | Sidekick Coffee & Books, 1310 1/2 Melrose Avenue, Iowa City, IA, 52242, United States
Join Sidekick Coffee and Books for an evening with author Grant Faulkner in conversation with Yasmina Din Madden for his new book Something Out There in the Distance on September 24th at 7 pm.
One book purchase admits two people.
About the book: Flash-fiction master Grant Faulkner and photographer Gail Butensky have partnered to create this unique narrative made up of stories alongside edge-of-the-world photography. The book tells of two lovers taking a reckless, searching road trip through the American West. Dawn is a photographer who captures desert landscapes. Jonny drives just to drive, running away from the end of time or running toward the end of time, looking for a home even as his restlessness overtakes him. By turns funny, poignant, and heartbreaking, something out there is in the distance is big in emotions while brief in words. An extraordinary collaboration between word and image, Dawn and Jonny’s journey transports us to a place, achingly familial, populated by love, loss, and wonder.
About Yasmina Din Madden:
Yasmina Din Madden is the author of the story collection You Know Nothing, Northwestern University Press (2026), and her fiction and nonfiction have been published in Electric Literature, The Idaho Review, The Fairy Tale Review, and other journals. She is the winner of the Oxford Flash Prize and was a finalist for the Iowa Review Award. She teaches creative writing and literature at Drake University.

PorchLight: Writing Grief
2026-10-04 10:00, 2026-11-15 10:00 | PorchLight Literary Arts Center, 1019 E Washington St, Iowa City, 52240, United States
Grief Writing – A monthly exploration of loss and heartbreak
Jennifer New leads this monthly group that uses writing as a reflective tool to explore loss. Francis Weller’s Five Gates of Grief provides a backbone to consider grief from multiple angles, e.g., death of loved ones, loss of health or ability, grief for the world. This is an ongoing group; you’re welcome to attend once or each time. No writing experience is needed.

PorchLight: Queer Writers' Check In
2026-10-10 13:00 | PorchLight Literary Arts Center, 1019 E Washington St, Iowa City, 52240, United States
Similar to their Long Project Check In, this group is for queer writers looking to build literary community together. Each session will include free writing, discussion of works in progress, and general literary support. Occasionally, there will be guests and opportunities for trading work.
Visit their website to RSVP!

Iowa City Book Festival
2026-10-19 - 2026-10-25 | Downtown Iowa City
The Iowa City Book Festival is happening October 19–25, 2026! Join us for a week of literary events, author talks, readings, and more at various locations throughout downtown Iowa City. Mark your calendars. More information coming soon.
