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SUMMARY:The Paul Engle Award Ceremony Featuring Rebecca Solnit in Conversation with Lyz Lenz
DESCRIPTION:Rebecca Solnit has been named the eleventh recipient of the Paul Engle Prize\, presented by the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature organization. \nSolnit is a writer\, historian\, and activist who has written more than twenty books on feminism\, environmental and urban history\, popular power\, social change and insurrection\, wandering and walking\, hope and disaster\, including Whose Story Is This?\, Call Them By Their True Names (Winner of the 2018 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction)\, Men Explain Things to Me\, The Mother of All Questions\, and the recent memoir\, Recollections of My Nonexistence. \nShe has received a Guggenheim\, the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism\, and the Lannan Literary Award. A product of the California public education system from kindergarten to graduate school\, she is a columnist at the Guardian and a former “Easy Chair” columnist at Harper’s.Speaking about the award\, Solnit said she was honored to be recognized. \n“Finding out\, while still on the first cup of tea\, that you’ve won a prize\, and it’s named after a poet\, editor\, and teacher passionately devoted to internationalism and the literary community\, is a very good way to start the day\,” she said. “To receive a prize that has gone to writers I admire so much—Alexander Chee\, Roxane Gay among them—deepens my sense of the honor of being invited into the community of writers\, past and present\, and it encourages me to keep trying to do the kind of engaged work this prize recognizes.” \nThe prize includes a $20\,000 award and a one-of-a-kind work of art. \nSolnit will receive the award and appear in conversation with Lyz Lenz\, Thursday\, September 29 at 7 p.m. at the Coralville Public Library. \n \n \nThe annual Paul Engle Prize from the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature honors an individual who\, like Paul Engle\, represents a pioneering spirit in the world of literature through writing\, editing\, publishing\, or teaching\, and whose active participation in the larger issues of the day has contributed to the betterment of the world through the literary arts. The Paul Engle Prize is made possible through the generous support of the City of Coralville\, which is home to 11 permanent sculptures with artistic and literary ties to Iowa. The sculptures all have ties to work found in The Iowa Writers’ Library\, housed in the Hyatt Regency Coralville Hotel & Conference Center\, which features about 800 books written by former students\, graduates and faculty of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. \nPaul Engle (October 12\, 1908 – March 22\, 1991)\, though best remembered as the long-time director of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and founder of the UI’s International Writing Program\, also was a well-regarded poet\, playwright\, essayist\, editor and critic. \nThis prize does not recognize one work\, nor is it solely limited to reflecting literary achievement. Rather\, the award seeks to recognize a writer\, like Engle\, who makes an impact on his or her community and the world at large through efforts beyond the page. It also seeks to raise awareness about Engle and his works. \nPast recipients: James Alan McPherson\, longtime instructor at the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Elbow Room; Kwame Dawes\, Chancellor Professor of English at the University of Nebraska\, and Editor of Prairie Schooner; Luis Alberto Urrea\, author of The Devil’s Highway and Queen of America\,  Sara Paretsky the author behind the bestselling Chicago-based V.I. Warshawski mystery series\, Roxane Gay\, professor\, editor\, commentator and author of the short story collection Ayiti\, the novel An Untamed State\, and the essay collection Bad Feminist\, and novelist\, activist\, essayist\, and professor Alexander Chee; novelist and essayist Dina Nayeri; poets and co-founders of Cave Canem Toi Derriocotte and Cornelius Eady; and poet and essayist Dr. Eve L. Ewing.
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/paul-engle-rebecca-solnit/
LOCATION:Coralville Public Library\, 1401 5th St.\, Coralville\, IA\, 52241\, United States
CATEGORIES:Iowa City Book Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Rebecca-Solnit.jpg
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20221010T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20221010T183000
DTSTAMP:20260405T120455
CREATED:20220829T192650Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220923T163933Z
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SUMMARY:Lori Erickson and Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez: The Art\, Craft and Call to be a Spiritual Writer
DESCRIPTION:In this session\, two of Iowa’s leading spiritual writers discuss their work. Spiritual writing is a growing subgenre in fiction as well as in memoir\, poetry\, meditations\, and self-help. It may or may not be aligned with an organized religion\, faith\, belief system\, or philosophy\, yet all spiritual writing seeks to discover human truths and also typically struggles with how we live and develop in the midst of something larger than ourselves. This field of writing is as ancient as the earliest sacred texts and as ongoing as the poetry of Mary Carr\, the theology of Howard Thurman\, the novels of Marilynne Robinson\, and the wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh. Jennifer Ohman-Rodgriguez and Lori Erickson discuss their own spiritual explorations as a basis for their writing and the value of this type of writing for all seekers.
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/lori-erickson-and-jennifer-ohman-rodriguez-the-art-craft-and-call-to-be-a-spiritual-writer/
LOCATION:Coralville Public Library\, 1401 5th St.\, Coralville\, IA\, 52241\, United States
CATEGORIES:Iowa City Book Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Lori-Erickson-and-Jennifer-Ohman-Rodriguez-books.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20231011T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20231011T120000
DTSTAMP:20260405T120455
CREATED:20230823T154616Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230825T163235Z
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SUMMARY:Marta McDowell: Gardening Can Be Murder
DESCRIPTION:With their deadly plants\, razor-sharp shears\, shady corners\, and ready-made burial sites\, gardens make an ideal scene for the perfect murder. But the outsize influence that gardens and gardening have had on the mystery genre has been underappreciated. Now\, Marta McDowell\, a writer and gardener with a near-encyclopedic knowledge of the genre\, illuminates the many ways in which our greatest mystery writers\, from Edgar Allen Poe to authors on today’s bestseller lists\, have found inspiration in the sinister side of gardens. \nFrom the cozy to the hardboiled\, the literary to the pulp\, and the classic to the contemporary\, Gardening Can Be Murder is the first book to explore the mystery genre’s many surprising horticultural connections. Meet plant-obsessed detectives and spooky groundskeeper suspects\, witness toxic teas served in foul play\, and tour the gardens—both real and imagined—that have been the settings for fiction’s ghastliest misdeeds. A New York Times bestselling author herself\, McDowell also introduces us to some of today’s top writers who consider gardening integral to their craft\, assuring that horticultural themes will remain a staple of the genre for countless twisting plots to come. \n 
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/marta-mcdowell-gardening-can-be-murder/
LOCATION:Coralville Public Library\, 1401 5th St.\, Coralville\, IA\, 52241\, United States
CATEGORIES:Iowa City Book Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Gardening-Can-Be-Murder.jpg
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20251116T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20251116T140000
DTSTAMP:20260405T120455
CREATED:20251014T143441Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251031T154940Z
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SUMMARY:2025 Paul Engle Prize Ceremony Honoring Cole Swensen
DESCRIPTION:Cole Swensen has been named the 14th recipient of the Paul Engle Prize\, presented by the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature organization. \nThe prize\, established in 2011\, honors an individual who\, like Paul Engle\, represents a pioneering spirit in the world of literature through writing\, editing\, publishing\, or teaching\, and whose active participation in the larger issues of the day has contributed to the betterment of the world through the literary arts. \nSwensen is a poet\, editor\, and translator\, who taught in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop from 2001 to 2012. She then taught at Brown University until her retirement in 2023. \nShe is the author of 20 collections of poetry\, including And And And\, a finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize\, Art in Time\, Gravesend\, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award in Poetry; Goest\, a finalist for the National Book Award; Try\, winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize and the San Francisco State University Poetry Center Book Award; and New Math\, winner of the National Poetry Series. \nSwensen has translated more than 30 books of French poetry\, creative nonfiction\, and art criticism\, and won the 2024 National Translation Award from ALTA and the 2025 Stephen Mitchell Translation Prize. She was awarded a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship and has been a writer-in-residence at Yale’s Beinecke Library\, the Pratt Institute\, and Temple University. Swensen was the founder and editor of La Presse\, an imprint of Fence Books that was dedicated to the translation of contemporary French poetry. \nSwensen will receive the award at a ceremony at 2 p.m. on November 16\, at the Coralville Public Library. Christopher Merrill will join Swensen in conversation. The event is free and open to the public. Book signing and reception to follow. \nThe Paul Engle Prize is made possible through the generous support of the City of Coralville\, which is home to 11 permanent sculptures with artistic and literary ties to Iowa. The sculptures all have ties to work found in The Iowa Writers’ Library\, housed in the Hyatt Regency Coralville Hotel\, which features about 800 books written by former students\, graduates and faculty of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. \nPaul Engle (October 12\, 1908 – March 22\, 1991)\, though best remembered as the long-time director of the Writers’ Workshop and co-founder with his wife\, Hualing Nieh Engle\, of the UI’s International Writing Program\, also was a well-regarded poet\, playwright\, essayist\, editor and critic. In 2000\, then-Gov. Tom Vilsack declared Engle’s birthday\, Oct. 12\, as “Paul Engle Day” in Iowa. \nPrevious winners of the prize are: James Alan McPherson\, Kwame Dawes\, Luis Alberto Urrea\, Roxane Gay\, Alexander Chee\, Dina Nayeri\, Toi Derricotte\, Cornelius Eady\, Dr. Eve L. Ewing\, Rebecca Solnit\, Joan Naviyuk Kane\, and Camille Dungy. Visit www.iowacityofliterature.org/paul-engle-day for more information about the prize and past winners.
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/2025-paul-engle-prize-ceremony-honoring-cole-swensen/
LOCATION:Coralville Public Library\, 1401 5th St.\, Coralville\, IA\, 52241\, United States
CATEGORIES:General
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/swensen-2023-scaled-e1756829866798.jpg
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