Nathan Hill’s best-selling debut novel, The Nix, was named the number one book of 2016 by Entertainment Weekly and one of the year’s best books by The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Slate, and many others. The native Iowan returns with Wellness. Moving from the gritty ’90s Chicago art scene to a suburbia
Ayana Mathis with special guest moderator Lan Samantha Chang. From the moment Ava Carson and her ten-year-old son, Toussaint, arrive at the Glenn Avenue family shelter in Philadelphia 1985, Ava is already plotting a way out. She is repulsed by the shelter’s squalid conditions: the barely edible food, and the shifty night security guard. She
“The levels of mystery here astound. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts and then the parts decide to act alone and challenge the whole. Lethem is not only interrogating the form of the crime novel, but the venture of storytelling itself. All of this while remaining a joy to read. Full
The Little Old Lady and the Riceballs, a Japanese tale told with puppets, followed by a short discussion of the history of Eulenspiegel as told in Monica Leo's new book, Hand, Shadow, Rod. from Ice Cube Press. Since 1974, Eulenspiegel has toured in thirty-one states and four countries around the world. All along establishing and maintaining an
Unfortunately this event is cancelled due to illness. Please check out I Quit! at you local library or bookstore. Have you ever quit something? Parents, educators, and coaches often emphasize the importance of motivation, perseverance and determination, but rarely acknowledge the importance of quitting, and how it goes hand in hand with life satisfaction
Métis with ancestral ties to the Red River (on her father's side) and Canadian settler (on her mother's side), an activist, a feminist, an auntie, and an accomplice armed with a PhD in English and Creative Writing. Jen believes writing, teaching and beading are political acts. She is represented by Patricia Nelson at Marsal Lyon
All 6th, 7th, and 8th graders who like to write are invited. Come together with other writers to compare ideas and be inspired to write something new. Instructors from the Iowa Youth Writing Project will moderate this awesome event. Open mic, and amazing door prizes. FREE! Loading… Credit Jen Ferguson Métis with ancestral ties to
SlamoVision is a project of the international UNESCO Cities of Literature. Slam poets in some of the 53 Cities of Literature around the world will compete in their home cities. One poet from each participating city will move on to an international competition to be judged by fans from the other cities. At the end
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 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
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
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
