Carousel opens as a professor begins delivering a lecture to a hot room. Her students have the internet in their pockets, screens on their wrists, seeing in more directions than students ever could before. But what, in fact, are they looking at? In the spirit of John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, Sarah Minor’s Carousel explores how the pursuit of

Suzanna Klein was a baby when her mother got up early one morning to rob a bank with a group of fellow radicals. Now, every Saturday, Suzanna lines up at the prison gates among the other children, each dressed as if for celebration. Inside there is a nursery and a cemetery; there are watchful guards

If you were a moviegoer in the early aughts, you had a front-row seat to a golden age of comedy. Ben Stiller, Seth Rogen, Will Ferrell, Owen Wilson, Steve Carell, and Vince Vaughn became unlikely leading men—a band of rowdy wedding crashers, hungover bachelors, and 40-year-old virgins dubbed the “Frat Pack” that took Hollywood by

Witness the Darker Side of the Hawkeye State The farmlands and rural areas of Iowa are no stranger to the weird, dark and mysterious. Learn about a terrestrial sighting from 1903, a creepy cryptid that terrorized the town of Van Meter. Find out about Bigfoot sightings in Calhoun County. Peer under the waters of Lake

As graduates of the University of Iowa's Nonfiction Writing Program gather to celebrate the program’s 50th anniversary, we will hear from three about their most recent work and their time writing in Iowa City: Helen Betya Rubenstein (Feels Like Trouble), Stephanie Krzywonos (The Blue Hours), and Angela Pelster (The Evolution of Fire) 

Trailblazing filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun will join Refocus Film Festival for a reading and conversation to discuss their latest creative project, Public Access Afterworld, their first novel. Schoenbrun will visit Iowa City as the first stop on a promotional book tour. Spanning decades and realities, with an unforgettable ensemble of outcasts and nerds—especially the messy but

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

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 2026 Selected Poets. This event is live and in-person, and will be streamed live at: https://www.youtube.com/thelibrarychannel Featuring special guest, Josie Nabhan-Warren, the 2026–27 Iowa Student Poet Ambassador. If your

Daniel Umemezie is a Nigerian-American poet whose work explores cultural inheritance and displacement, using bodily transformation as both metaphor and form. His poetry develops a realm between interior experience and external reality. His work has appeared in the North American Review, Scholastic, Magpie Journal and many more. He is forthcoming in Polyphony Lit, and has been recognized as the Iowa

John Ira Thomas returns to Daydreams Comics for another helping of TIRE! He’ll be reading from THE BEST OF TIRE CLASSIFIEDS, a collection of TIRE Magazine’s most brazen attempts to get your money, and maybe your soul. Hear about Twinkie groves, UFO abduction resorts, and the New Dolphin Order! Chase the unapproved Stevenson dimes! Find