It Can’t Happen Here – A Staged Reading

Iowa City Public Library 123 S. Linn St., Iowa City, IA

A cautionary dark satire about the fragility of democracy and how fascism can take hold even in the land of liberty, It Can't Happen Here follows the ascent of a demagogue who becomes president of the United States by promising to return the country to greatness. Witnessing the new president’s tyranny from the sidelines is

Stuart Dybek

Prairie Lights Books 15 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City, IA

Stuart 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 recipient of many prizes and awards, including the PEN/Malamud Award, an Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of

Resilient Voices: A Multimedia Exhibition Celebrating Youth Empowerment, Global Perspectives, and the Legacy of Anne Frank

Iowa City Public Library 123 S. Linn St., Iowa City, IA

A comprehensive initiative composed of several integrated elements that features a Digital Diaries Exhibit that showcases the firsthand experiences of youth across the globe, focusing on themes of war, struggle, and resilience across time. The digital diaries exhibit, inspired by Anne Frank’s iconic, red-checked diary, showcases narratives from young individuals around the world and across

Anna Barker: From Peter the Great to Napoleon the Lesser: Dostoevsky and the Great Men of History

Iowa City Public Library 123 S. Linn St., Iowa City, IA

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground (1864), his first consequential post-Siberian imprisonment publication, explores the tragicomedy of humanity’s entrapment in the confines soul-sapping modernity and serves as the foundation of the existential and metaphysical concepts he addresses in the Great Five: Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons, The Adolescent, and Brothers Karamazov. In commemoration of the

Bruna Dantas Lobato – Blue Light Hours

Prairie Lights Books 15 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City, IA

BRUNA DANTAS LOBATO is a writer and translator. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Guernica, A Public Space, and The Common. She was awarded the 2023 National Book Award in Translation for The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel. Dantas Lobato was born and raised in Natal, Brazil, and lives in St. Louis, Missouri. Blue Light Hours is her debut novel.

Film Screening: Taxi Driver with Notes from Underground

Iowa City Public Library 123 S. Linn St., Iowa City, IA

This screening is part of a larger program that celebrates the 160th anniversary of the publication of Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Notes from Underground." Martin Scorsese's 1976 film is the novel’s most famous US adaptation. University of Iowa Adjunct Assistant Professor Anna Barker will lead a post-screening discussion immediately following, where she will discuss the way the film explores

Austin Allen Hamblin and John Ira Thomas – Big Guns Stupid Rednecks

Daydreams Comics 229 E Washington St, Iowa City, IA

Yeehaw! Join us at Daydreams Comics, where Austin Allen Hamblin and John Ira Thomas, 2/3 of the creative team behind indie comics sensation Big Guns Stupid Rednecks, will be on hand! Take a break from fish’n and mud’n and come enjoy some old fashion comic book fun!

Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz – The Indian Card

Prairie Lights Books 15 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City, IA

To be Native American is to live in a world of contradictions. At the same time that the number of people in the US who claim Native identity has exploded—increasing 85 percent in just ten years—the number of people formally enrolled in Tribes has not. While the federal government recognizes Tribal sovereignty, being a member

Typedancing

Pedmall Weatherdance Fountain Stage College St., Iowa City, IA

Typedancing is a collaborative interdisciplinary performance featuring musicians, poets, dancers and visual artists making music with and dancing to obsolete office equipment. With audience participation, it also includes live-produced zines from the artifacts of the performance.

John Ira Thomas – TIRE Magazine

Daydreams Comics 229 E Washington St, Iowa City, IA

John Ira Thomas will read from issues of TIRE Magazine 2038, a metafictional narrative prompted by his ejection from church at age nine.  The picture he drew that prompted them to say “it’d be nice if you didn’t come back” became a minor New Age sensation one universe over from here. But fame dissolves into

Film Screening: Racialism and the Media

Iowa City Public Library 123 S. Linn St., Iowa City, IA

A presentation by University of Iowa Professor Venise Berry and S. Toriano Berry, a professor emeritus at Howard University. Includes a screening of the hour-long film and a post-screening Q&A with the Berrys. The nature of racial ideology has changed in our society. Yes, there are still ugly racists who push uglier racism, but there