Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature

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 (America/Chicago) | 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!

Prairie Lights: Katie Bennett in conversation with Nina Lohman & Alisha Jeddeloh
2026-09-22 19:00 | Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City, IA, 52240, United States
Katie Bennett will read from her new book, She Was Wild Grass, and will be joined in conversation with BRINK publisher and author Nina Lohman & BRINK editor Alisha Jeddeloh.
Bennett’s website offers this introduction: “She Was Wild Grass intertwines Bennett’s artistic coming-of-age with the story of Joan Vollmer, the remarkable yet overlooked figure of the Beat Generation whose life was cut short when her husband, William S. Burroughs, shot her in 1951. Braiding past and present, Bennett explores art, ambition, gender, and freedom, asking what it means to create in a world where women’s stories are so often silenced and forgotten” (katiepbennett.com/book). Sarah Manguso, author of Liars, praises She Was Wild Grass as “so dense with narrative, and it goes down like spring water,” while Rachel Yoder, bestselling author of Nightbitch and University of Iowa professor, says: “Highly recommend this new book by Katie Bennett which dignifies the life and death of Joan Vollmer, the fascinating & flawed woman who was (sort of) married to William Burroughs and was ultimately murdered by him. The book also dignifies Katie’s own story of becoming. It feels amazing to read women give other women, and themselves, their due.”
Katie Bennett is a writer based in Philadelphia. Her first book, She Was Wild Grass, will be released by BRINK Books September 2026. She’s published work in Lit Hub, swamp pink, and The Rumpus and received fellowships from Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and Monson Arts. She runs the reading series Personal Velocity. She also spent a decade touring North America and Europe with various bands and her songwriting has been featured in Pitchfork, SPIN, Rolling Stone, and NPR.
Nina Lohman writes hybrid nonfiction that seeks to understand pain through the lenses of medicine, theology, and philosophy. Her memoir The Body Alone: A Lyrical Articulation of Chronic Pain, was published by the University of Iowa Press in 2024. She is the Literary Programming Director for the Mission Creek Festival and the Nonfiction Editor of PromptPress, an interdisciplinary book-arts journal that pairs writers and visual artists to create and publish new work. Her writing has appeared in The Huffington Post, Paste Magazine, The Rumpus, Essay Daily, The Other Journal, Earth Island Journal, and elsewhere.
Alisha Jeddeloh is a writer and editor based in Iowa City. As a writer, she explores community, belonging, and the fault lines in the stories we tell each other and ourselves. As an editor, she enjoys being surprised by characters and prose.

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: The Prose Exchange
2026-09-27 15:30, 2026-10-11 15:30 | PorchLight Literary Arts Center, 1019 E Washington St, Iowa City, 52240, United States
Ready to get some eyes on your work? This group provides careful readings and positive, descriptive feedback on works-in-progress. They meet twice a month and workshop two submissions of up to 20 pages at each meeting.
They are currently open to adding one or two more members.
They advise sitting in on a session to determine if this is the workshop for you.
For more information on how to join, visit their website!

PorchLight: Flash Forward
2026-10-03 13:00 | PorchLight Literary Arts Center, 1019 E Washington St, Iowa City, 52240, United States
Flash Forward is PorchLight’s monthly studio session for writers interested in short form writing: flash fiction, micro essays, prose poetry, and more. Join them and learn more about these miniature marvels. Each session includes a discussion of short form works we love, a generative writing prompt, optional sharing, and light positive feedback.
Whether you’re new to these very short forms or an old hand, they would love to have you!
First meeting is free!

PorchLight: Writing Grief
2026-10-04 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!

Paul Engle Day
2026-10-12 | IA
In 2000, Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack declared Oct. 12 to be “Paul Engle Day,” in honor of the Iowa-born poet who served as head of the Writer’s Workshop from 1942 to 1977, helping to develop it from an obscure experimental program to an internationally renowned literary center.
Check out the City of Literature documentary to learn more about Engle and how Iowa City become the capital of creative writing in America.

Sidekick – Reading and signing with Tatiana Schlote-Bonne
2026-10-15 19:00 | Sidekick Coffee & Books, 1310 1/2 Melrose Avenue, Iowa City, IA, 52242, United States
Join Sidekick Coffee and Books for a reading by author Tatiana Schlote-Bonne for her new book “What Feeds Below.” Purchase of one book admits two guests.
About the book:
The darkness isn’t empty. It’s hungry.
At the edge of the City of the Void, a massive chasm extends miles into the earth, its treacherous terrain overrun with vicious monsters and carnivorous plants. For orphaned best friends Petra and Jade, guiding treasure-seeking tourists down into the Void is the only way to earn enough to pull themselves up out of the slums for good.
Petra prefers to play it safe and take jobs only in the Void’s upper levels, where the dangers are better understood, while Jade wants to risk a decent to the deepest and most mysterious Sixth Layer. Because the deeper they go, the better the payout, and the sooner their dreams can become reality. Their friendship is Petra’s whole world, and Jades approval means everything – so Petra agrees to do it Jade’s way.
When their job goes wring and Jade is lost in the Void, Petra must plunge deeper than she’s ever dared to save her friend. But she doesn’t know the truth of the Void… or what really waits for her in its depths.

Iowa City Book Festival
2026-10-18 - 2026-10-25 | Downtown Iowa City
The Iowa City Book Festival is happening October 18–25, 2026! Join us for a week of literary events, author talks, readings, and more at various locations throughout downtown Iowa City.

Tree Tour: Literary Grove at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop
2026-10-19 12:00 | Dey House, 102 Dey House, Iowa City, IA, 52242, United States
Explore the Literary Grove with University of Iowa Arborist Andy DahlTake a guided stroll through the Literary Grove, where each tree has a story to tell. Arborist Andy Dahl will share the unique histories and literary connections of these remarkable trees, many linked to celebrated authors from the world-renowned Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Marilynne Robinson and Nicholas Kristof
2026-10-19 19:00 | Macbride Auditorium, 17 N. Clinton St., Iowa City, IA, 52240, United States
Marilynne Robinson and Nicholas Kristof in Conversation
Marilynne Robinson is the author of the novels Housekeeping, Gilead, Home, Lila, and Jack. Gilead won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award, while Home received the Orange Prize for Fiction and Lila won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Robinson is also the author of numerous books of essays, including Reading Genesis, The Givenness of Things, When I Was a Child I Read Books, and Mother Country, a finalist for the National Book Award. Her honors include the National Humanities Medal, the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, and the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay.
A longtime member of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop faculty, Robinson taught at the University of Iowa for 25 years before retiring as the F. Wendell Miller Professor in 2016. She remains one of America’s most acclaimed novelists and essayists.
Nicholas Kristof is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and columnist for The New York Times, where his twice-weekly opinion columns have appeared since 2001. He joined the newspaper in 1984 and has served as a correspondent in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo, as well as Associate Managing Editor of the Sunday editions.
Kristof won his first Pulitzer Prize with his wife, journalist Sheryl WuDunn, for their coverage of China’s Tiananmen Square democracy movement. He received a second Pulitzer Prize for commentary that brought international attention to the genocide in Darfur and other humanitarian crises.
Over the course of his career, Kristof has reported from more than 140 countries. He is the co-author, with WuDunn, of China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power and Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia.
Presented in partnership with The Geneva Lecture Series

Bonnie Jo Campbell: The Spirits
2026-10-20 18:00 | Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City, IA, 52240, United States
Bonnie Jo Campbell, a master of rural American fiction, brings us a hair-raising winter tale to warm us by the fireside. In this contemporary Christmas Carol, Campbell has created a gritty, spooky, and ultimately heartening holiday story that unfolds in an isolated farmhouse. It is the night before Christmas in a small town in Michigan, and a young woman is haunted by her father’s death. She has been silently penitent for nine years, but her guilt and grief have estranged her from her community and her family. She has taken refuge in the natural world of the plants and trees she tends, but on this anniversary of the tragedy, the supernatural landscape is rattling its chains.
When a surprise guest appears at the (dreaded) Christmas Eve dinner, the family begins to open up and reveal dangerous secrets and crimes nobody is willing to face. Within this darkest chaos, a sliver of light appears, showing a way to reclaim communion and even a sense of humor. While redemption is never easy or wholesale, the story that a family creates together can heal wounds.

Megan Greenwell: Bad Company
2026-10-20 19:00 | Iowa City Public Library, 123 S. Linn St., Iowa City, IA, 52240, United States
Acclaimed journalist Megan Greenwell’s Bad Company unearths the hidden story of corporate greed and the world of private equity by examining the lives of four American workers that were devastated as private equity upended their employers and communities: a Toys R Us floor supervisor, a rural doctor, a local newspaper journalist, and an affordable housing organizer. Taken together, their individual experiences also pull back the curtain on a much larger project: how the relentless pursuit of shareholder value reshaped the American economy to serve its own interests, creating a new class of billionaires while stripping ordinary people of their livelihoods, their health care, their homes, and their sense of security.

Curator Guided Tour: It’s Been Wonderful Knowing You: Wildlife Conservation and Advocacy Through the Lens of Jay N. “Ding” Darling
2026-10-21 16:00 | University of Iowa Main Library Gallery, 125 W Washington St, Iowa City, IA, United States
Join co-curators Collin Vandewalle and Lindsay Moen for a special guided tour of the current University of Iowa Libraries Main Library Gallery exhibition, It’s Been Wonderful Knowing You: Wildlife Conservation and Advocacy Through the Lens of Jay N. “Ding” Darling. Oct. 21 is also Darling’s birthday, so stop by for birthday treats before or after the tour! (Gluten-free and vegan options available.)
All are welcome to attend this free event, which is being held in partnership with the Iowa City Book Festival.
About the exhibit:
A Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for The Des Moines Register, Jay N. “Ding” Darling (1876–1962) was also one of the nation’s most influential figures in the American conservation movement. Appointed director of the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey (later part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Darling made historic attempts to answer his growing concerns about industrialism’s impact on the environment.
In celebration of the 150th anniversary of his birth, this exhibition explores the transformation of Iowa’s environmental landscape during Darling’s life and his contributions to environmental and wildlife conservation advocacy nationwide. It also showcases how his legacy lives on today both locally and across the country, and how other Iowans have played key roles in our state’s conservation efforts. Curated by librarians Lindsay Moen and Collin Vandewalle, It’s Been Wonderful Knowing You highlights the Jay N. “Ding” Darling Papers from Special Collections and Archives, specimens from the University of Iowa Museum of Natural History, and more from across the Libraries.

Slamovision: International Slam Poetry Judging
2026-10-21 18:00 | Iowa City Public Library, 123 S. Linn St., Iowa City, IA, 52240, United States
Join Iowa City poets and poetry lovers during the Iowa City Book Festival to watch and rank slam poets from UNESCO Cities of Literature around the world as they compete for the 2026 Slamovision title. Scores from this international competition will help determine the winner, who will be crowned at the Slamovision final on November 1 at The James Theater in Iowa City.

Melissa Tedone: The Poison Book Project
2026-10-22 17:00 | University of Iowa Main Library, 125 W Washington St,, Iowa City, IA, 52242, United States
The Poison Book Project is an interdisciplinary research initiative at Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library and the University of Delaware. This ongoing investigation explores the materiality of Victorian-era publishers’ bindings. Research focuses on identifying potentially toxic pigments used in bookbinding components and how to handle and store potentially toxic collections more safely.
Melissa Tedone is Assistant Professor in the Department of Art Conservation at the University of Delaware and Associate Director of the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation. A specialist in the conservation of library and archival materials, she previously served as Library & Archives Conservator at Iowa State University.

Panel Discussion: Weirdos Writing for Weirdos: A Contemporary Approach to Speculative Fiction
2026-10-22 19:00 | Iowa City Public Library, 123 S. Linn St., Iowa City, IA, 52240, United States
Sci-fi, fantasy, and horror used to be the outcasts of literature, but now more than ever these speculative genres are growing in popularity–and in quality. With huge properties like Fourth Wing, Dungeon Crawler Carl, and other “weird” series running rampant across the NYT bestseller lists, it’s evident that readers crave these odd genres, and more and more authors are answering the call to deliver captivating stories–many of them independent of traditional publishing altogether.
Featuring Ben Wolf and Darby Harn
Presented by the Iowa City Book Festival and ICON, Iowa’s Longest Running Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention.

An Evening with Pulitzer Prize Winner Yiyun Li
2026-10-23 19:30 | Levitt Center for University Advancement, 1 East Park Road, Iowa City, IA, 52242, United States
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

Lori Erickson: Travels with the Muse
2026-10-24 10:00 | Iowa City Public Library, 123 S. Linn St., Iowa City, IA, 52240, United States
Travels with the Muse is a journey into the creative life, told through Lori Erickson’s travels to places where art and spirit meet. From the luminous interior of Barcelona’s Sagrada Família to the rhythms of the Mississippi Blues Trail, from quilting traditions in Nebraska to the turning dance of the whirling dervishes in Türkiye, Erickson explores what happens when we approach art not as experts, but as beginners willing to pay attention.

Along the way, she sketches, listens, and learns from artists and places, discovering that creativity is less about talent than about presence. At its heart, Travels with the Muse is an invitation to see more deeply, make something with your own hands, and recognize the sacred woven through the world around us.

Book Fair
2026-10-24 10:00 - 16:00 | MERGE, 136 S Dubuque St, Iowa City, IA, 52240, United States
A diverse collection of titles, journals, magazines, and book arts from local and regional publishers and literary organizations. A unique opportunity for book lovers to discover new authors and genres.

The Book Fair is sponsored by Greater Iowa City.

James Geary: The World in a Phrase
2026-10-24 11:30 | Iowa City Public Library, 123 S. Linn St., Iowa City, IA, 52240, United States
Aphorisms are literature’s hand luggage. Light and compact, they contain everything you need to get through a rough day at the office or a dark night of the soul. Aphorisms, the oldest written art form on the planet, have been going viral for thousands of years, delivering the short, sharp shock of old forgotten truths. Today, visual artists are mixing pithy language with compelling imagery and using social media to take the form into the future. In a world of disinformation and deepfakes, aphorisms point to the power of fresh debate over tired dogma and inconvenient truths over comfortable lies.
Starting in ancient China and ending with contemporary meme-makers and street artists, The World in A Phrase tells the story of the aphorism through brief biographies of some of its greatest practitioners: sages like Lao-tzu and the Buddha, philosophers like Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, writers like George Eliot and Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, humorists like Mark Twain and Dorothy Parker, activists like James Baldwin and Audre Lorde, poets like Langston Hughes and Kay Ryan, and artists like Jenny Holzer and David Byrne.
The World in A Phrase is for lovers of words and seekers of wisdom. This new edition of The New York Times bestseller features 26 additional aphorists and explores the aphorism in the age of social media, showing why these short sentences are the ultimate deep dives in an era when TL;DR has become a cultural catchphrase.

Patricia Foster: A Marriage in Startled Air
2026-10-24 11:30 | Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City, IA, 52240, United States
In A Marriage in Startled Air, Patricia Foster shares the dramatic story of how the diagnosis of her husband’s rare cancer changed the dynamics of their marriage and opened the door to the hidden world of his childhood, revealing the seeds of trauma and childhood PTSD. In vivid, often poetic prose, Foster reflects on how the journey of recovery—and discovery—between two artists in a relatively happy marriage leads to difficult conversations about family, memory, identity, and aging. Within this unburdening, Patricia and David discover a new map of intimacy: Once the illusion of normalcy is broken, what emerges is something sweeter and deeper, as if the broken thing becomes, ironically, the healing thing.

Tiffany Hanssen: My Name was Gerry Sass
2026-10-24 13:00 | Iowa City Public Library, 123 S. Linn St., Iowa City, IA, 52240, United States
Gerry Sass is not who he appears to be. On the surface, he is the proud owner of a local country music station outside of Mystic, Iowa. Beneath it, he’s a mob-connected hitman-for-hire who launders money through the station WIOA.
One morning in 1986, his life of crime catches up to him when two men march him out into the woods and shoot him in the back of the head. Plunged into purgatory, he’s doomed to a painful examination of his life. Unbeknownst to the assassins, Gerry’s closest friend, a Catholic priest named Father Dan, witnesses his execution yet does nothing to stop it.
Meanwhile, Gerry’s daughter, Early, jumps into his prized Mustang with a thirst for revenge. On her adrenaline-fueled hunt, she comes to realize that she’s more like Gerry than she ever chose to admit.
Alternating between the voices of a grieving and adrenaline-fueled daughter, a guilt-ridden priest with no one he can trust, and the voice of a dead killer not quite yet gone, My Name Was Gerry Sass exposes the complicated natures of family, grief, and God in this propulsive and darkly funny novel.

Ron Rindo: Life, and Death, and Giants
2026-10-24 13:00 | Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City, IA, 52240, United States
Gabriel Fisher was born an orphan, weighing eighteen pounds and measuring twenty-seven inches long. No one in Lakota, Wisconsin, knows what to make of him. He walks at eight months, communicates with animals, and seems to possess extraordinary athletic talent. But when the older brother who has been caring for him dies, Gabriel is taken in by his devout Amish grandparents who disapprove of all the attention and hide him away from the English world.
But it’s hard to hide forever when you’re nearly eight feet tall. At seventeen, Gabriel is spotted working in a hay field by the local football coach. What happens next transforms not only Gabriel’s life but the lives of everyone he meets.
Life, and Death, and Giants is a moving story of faith, family, buried secrets, and everyday miracles.

Scott Heim: Mysterious Skin
2026-10-24 13:00 | Iowa City Masonic Building, 312 E College St, Iowa City, IA, 52240, United States
At the age of eight, Brian Lackey is found bleeding under the crawl space of his house, having endured something so traumatic that he has blacked out an entire five-hour period. During the following years he slowly recalls details from that night, fragments that hint at yet cannot explain what happened to him, leaving him to believe that he may have been the victim of an alien encounter.
Neil McCormick is fully aware of the events from that summer of 1981. Wise beyond his years, curious about his developing sexuality, Neil found what he perceived to be love and guidance from his baseball coach. Now, ten years later, he is a teenage hustler, unaware of the dangerous path he’s on. His recklessness is governed by idealized memories of his coach, memories that unexpectedly change when Brian comes to Neil for help and, ultimately, the truth.
Presented in partnership with the Refocus Film Festival

Tisa Bryant: Residual
2026-10-24 14:30 | Iowa City Public Library, 123 S. Linn St., Iowa City, IA, 52240, United States
In the aftermath of her mother’s death, Tisa Bryant’s Residual retrieves and catalogs what remains of her home, her psyche, and her creative practice. She filters through the remnants of her mother’s everyday life, asking what becomes an archive—a bookshelf, a dresser, a relationship, a secret? Drawing on personal memories as well as archives of renowned Black women who died prematurely—including playwright Lorraine Hansberry and science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler—Bryant’s hybrid memoir details the intimate accretion of ephemera, outrage, and failure in the wake of loss.
This event is co-presented with the University of Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program in celebration of the program’s 50th anniversary.
