Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature

John Ira Thomas: Tire Magazine
2025-10-11 16:30 - 17:30 (America/Chicago) | Daydreams Comics, 229 E Washington St, Iowa City, IA, 52240, United States
Join John Ira Thomas for a journey through the mystical and the mundane through the metafictional series of Tire magazine! John will read from Tire June 2000, Tire Annual 2021, Tire May 2038, and work in progress from The Best of Tire Classifieds. Alternate timeline John’s life may have been ruined by a New Age boomlet fixated on something he drew when he was nine, but the John of this universe is happy to share and laugh along.

Sidekick Coffee and Books Presents: It’s Getting Plot in Here A Romance Book Festival
2025-10-11 18:00 - 21:00 | Sidekick Coffee & Books, 1310 1/2 Melrose Avenue, Iowa City, IA, 52242, United States
Join Sidekick Coffee and Books for the Romance Book Festival, a night of romance, creativity, and community.
$35 — available now! bit.ly/Sidekick_Romance_Book_Festival
Author Meet & Greet Line-Up:

Chloe Angyal – Pointe of Pride, Pas de Don’t, Barre Fight
Kelly Farmer – Fanning the Flames, Secret Spark, It’s a Fabulous Life
Gin Griffith – Holy Smoke, Cat Fight
Megan Murphy – Fake It Like You Mean It, Heart Racer
Esha Patel – Offtrack, Overdrive
Elise Wayland – Rivals to Lovers
Denise Williams – Just Our Luck, Do You Take This Man

What’s included with your ticket:
Meet & Greets with incredible romance authors
Blind Date with a Book (free book included!)
Champagne shooters
Book embellishment station – bedazzle your book and get creative!
Flirty photo ops & cozy fall vibes

Writers Row – Local Author Book Fair
2025-10-12 11:00 - 15:00 | MERGE, 136 S Dubuque St, Iowa City, IA, 52240, United States
Local Author Book Fair! Join us as local authors present their latest works, answer questions, and sign books. Browse each author’s table where various books will be available for purchase.
R.C. Davis | Jason Liegois | Erin Casey | Jose M. Rodriguez Jr. | J. A. Webb | Bill Witherspoon | David Markward | Todd Cohenour | Mike Cal Cahalan | David Hankins

The Local Author Book Fair is sponsored by Greater Iowa City.

Poetry in Public Reading Featuring Iowa’s Student Poet Ambassador, Daniel Umemezie
2025-10-12 12:30 | Iowa City Public Library, 123 S. Linn St., Iowa City, IA, 52240, United States
Daniel Umemezie, 2025–26 Iowa Student Poet Ambassador
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 2025 Selected Poets. This event is live and in-person, and will be streamed live at: https://www.youtube.com/thelibrarychannel
Featuring special guest, Daniel Somotochukwu Umemezie, the 2025–26 Iowa Student Poet Ambassador.
Participating Poets:
Kiley Adkins | Philip Beck | Dan Campion | Melanie Hester | Jennifer Horn-Frasier | Jessica Moore | Anna Moyers Stone | Charlotte Pearl | Mazzy Sleep | Rich Sokoli | Anjali Strand
If your poem was selected for Poetry in Public 2025 and you’d like to read it at the event, please email us at info@iowacityofliterature.org

Panel Discussion: Beyond Publishing – Writing as Joy, Healing, and Priority
2025-10-12 13:00 | MERGE, 136 S Dubuque St, Iowa City, IA, 52240, United States
This panel will explore writing beyond publishing, focusing on how the practice itself can bring joy, healing, and meaning. Panelists will also consider how books, reading, and art can serve as medicine, balm, or even dessert, nourishing both mind and spirit.
Featuring: Erin Casey, Kellee Forkenbrock, Mackie Garrett, and Morgan Webb | Moderated by Jesus “Chuy” Renteria

Panel Discussion – The Black Superwoman & Mental Health: Power & Pain
2025-10-12 14:30 | DREAM CITY, 611 Southgate Avenue, Iowa City, IA, 52240, United States
Panelists will discuss this new anthology, The Black Superwoman & Mental Health: Power & Pain by Venise Berry and Janette Taylor.
It is not easy to reveal oneself and to be vulnerable in a public way as the authors in this book have done. This is the act of resisting the voices and social scripts that say we do not air our “dirty laundry”, we should keep “secrets” to remain safe, yet unhealthy. We must find safe spaces to speak our truths, to heal. It is through the process of seeking, doing, and being, sometimes in public like this anthology and sometimes in private (counseling or psychotherapy), that many of us learn to acknowledge, analyze, speak, and eventually write the truth of/about our lives in order to move closer to being whole Black women. Enjoy poetry, short stories, essays, and assessable research in this powerful anthology.
Featuring: Venise Berry, Professor of Journalism and African American Studies, University of Iowa; Averi Bryant, Graphic Arts Designer & Social Media Promoter; Katrina Harden-Williams, Doctoral Candidate in School of Education, Drake University; Tianna Newell, First Lady of Purpose Place Church in Iowa City; Tiana Warner, Spoken Word Artist, Writer.

Kazim Ali with Rajaa Alsanea and Yu Yuen Lan
2025-10-12 15:30 | Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City, IA, 52240, United States
Poet, novelist, and essayist Kazim Ali will read as a special guest of the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program. He is joined by IWP participants Rajaa Alsanea (Saudi Arabia) and Yu Yuen Lan (Hong Kong), who will also read from their work.

Little Village Presents: Roast of Iowa City
2025-10-12 18:00 | ReUnion Brewery, 113 E College St, Iowa City, 52240, United States
Year after year, some of the area’s most treasured comics and writers gather together to relentlessly burn and mock everything sacred and dear about our town. Doors open at 5:30 p.m.
This year is hosted by Karen Vásquez and features a lineup of talented comics, plus LV’s Dear Kiki Live!, where we read your anonymous love and relationship questions and Kiki answers them on the spot. The Roast of Iowa City is sponsored by Romantix, who said they’ll be sending a box of “fun prizes for on-stage giveaways.” =
This is and always has been a free event, but guests are encouraged to make a donation so Little Village can continue doing what they do (journalism, etc.) well into our dystopian future.

An Evening with Pulitzer Prize Winner Yiyun Li
2026-10-23 19:30 | TBD
Internationally acclaimed author Yiyun Li won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for her resonant memoir, Things in Nature Merely Grow, a deeply moving account of losing her younger son to suicide a little more than six years after her older son died in the same manner.
The Princeton University professor is the author of 12 books—and was a finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. In addition, she is the recipient of the PEN/Faulkner Award, a PEN/Malamud Award, a PEN/Hemingway Award, a PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, a MacArthur Fellowship, and a Windham-Campbell Prize. Time Magazine also included Li on its list of 100 Most Influential People for 2026.
Melissa Febos, director of the University of Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program, will join Li in conversation. Febos is the national bestselling author of five books and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism.
This event is possible due to generous support from Linda Maxson, professor emerita and former dean of the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and her husband, Rick. It is being held in conjunction with the Iowa City Book Festival.
Literary Legends represents a special collaboration among the UI Nonfiction Writing Program, Iowa Writers’ Workshop, UI Lecture Committee, University of Iowa Center for Advancement, and Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature
