BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature - ECPv5.16.1.1//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-CALNAME:Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/Chicago
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0600
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:CDT
DTSTART:20230312T080000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0600
TZNAME:CST
DTSTART:20231105T070000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0600
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:CDT
DTSTART:20240310T080000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0600
TZNAME:CST
DTSTART:20241103T070000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0600
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:CDT
DTSTART:20250309T080000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0600
TZNAME:CST
DTSTART:20251102T070000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0600
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:CDT
DTSTART:20260308T080000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0600
TZNAME:CST
DTSTART:20261101T070000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20231014T143000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20231014T143000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20230915T173123Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230919T175422Z
UID:3191-1697293800-1697293800@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Mindy Mejia: To Catch a Storm
DESCRIPTION:Mindy Mejia is a CPA and a graduate of the Hamline University MFA program. Her debut novel\, The Dragon Keeper\, was published by Ashland Creek Press in 2012. She lives in the Twin Cities with her family\, and is the author of Strike Me Down\, Everything You Want Me to Be\, and Leave No Trace. Her latest mystery novel is To Catch a Storm.
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/mindy-mejia-to-catch-a-storm/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:Iowa City Book Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/To-Catch-a-Storm.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20231014T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20231014T160000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20230912T211928Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231006T170204Z
UID:3111-1697299200-1697299200@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Ayana Mathis: The Unsettled
DESCRIPTION:Ayana Mathis with special guest moderator Lan Samantha Chang. \nFrom 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 is determined to rescue her son from the perils and indignities of that place\, and to save herself from the complicated past that led them there. Ava has been estranged from her own mother\, Dutchess\, since she left her Alabama home as a young woman barely out of her teens. Despite their estrangement and the thousand miles between them\, mother and daughter are deeply entwined\, but Ava can’t forgive her sharp-tounged\, larger than life mother whose intractability and bouts of debilitating despair brought young Ava to the outer reaches of neglect and hunger. Ava wants to love her son differently\, better. But when Toussaint’s father\, Cass\, reappears\, she is swept off course by his charisma\, and the intoxicating power of his radical vision to destroy systems of racial injustice and bring about a bold new way of communal living. \nMeanwhile\, in Alabama\, Dutchess struggles to keep Bonaparte\, once a beacon of Black freedom and self-determination\, in the hands of its last five Black residents—families whose lives have been rooted in this stretch of land for generations—and away from rapidly encroaching white developers. She fights against the erasure of Bonaparte’s venerable history and the loss of the land itself\, which she has so arduously preserved as Ava’s inheritance. \nAs Ava becomes more enmeshed with Cass\, Toussaint senses the danger simmering all around him—his well-intentioned but erratic mother; the intense\, volatile figure of his father who drives his fledgling Philadelphia community toward ever increasing violence and instability. He begins to dream of Dutchess and Bonaparte\, his home and birthright\, if only he can find his way there.
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/ayana-mathis-the-unsettled/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:Iowa City Book Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Unsettled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20231015T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20231015T140000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20230802T171328Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230913T163820Z
UID:2952-1697378400-1697378400@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Jonathan Lethem\, Brooklyn Crime Novel
DESCRIPTION:“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 of strange characters and expertly rendered place. This brilliant\, genre-defying work will certainly leave a mark.”\n—PERCIVAL EVERETT \nOn the streets of 1970s Brooklyn\, a daily ritual goes down: the dance. Money is exchanged\, belongings surrendered\, power asserted. The promise of violence lies everywhere\, a currency itself. For these children\, Black\, brown\, and white\, the street is a stage in shadow. And in the wings hide the other players: parents; cops; renovators; landlords; those who write the headlines\, the histories\, and the laws; those who award this neighborhood its name. \nThe rules appear obvious at first. But in memory’s prism\, criminals and victims may seem to trade places. The voices of the past may seem to rise and gather as if in harmony\, then make war with one another. A street may seem to crack open and reveal what lies behind its glimmering facade. None who lived through it are ever permitted to forget. \nWritten with kaleidoscopic verve and delirious wit\, Brooklyn Crime Novel is a breathtaking tour de force by a writer at the top of his powers. Jonathan Lethem\, “one of America’s greatest storytellers” (Washington Post)\, has crafted an epic interrogation of how we fashion stories to contain the uncontainable: our remorse at the world we’ve made.
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/jonathan-lethem-reading-brooklyn-crime-novel/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:Iowa City Book Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Brooklyn-Crime-Novel.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20241014T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20241014T190000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20240812T174125Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240926T161610Z
UID:3724-1728932400-1728932400@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Stuart Dybek
DESCRIPTION: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 Arts and Letters\, a Whiting Writers’ Award\, four O. Henry Awards\, a MacArthur Fellowship\, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is distinguished writer-in-residence at Northwestern University. \nPresented in partnership with the University of Iowa Center for Advancement
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/stuart-dybek/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:Iowa City Book Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Ecstatic-Cahoots.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20241015T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20241015T180000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20240731T154151Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240731T154151Z
UID:3659-1729015200-1729015200@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Bruna Dantas Lobato – Blue Light Hours
DESCRIPTION: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.
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/bruna-dantas-lobato-blue-light-hours/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:Iowa City Book Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Blue-Light-Hours.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20241016T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20241016T190000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20240724T161721Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240918T202623Z
UID:3640-1729105200-1729105200@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz – The Indian Card
DESCRIPTION: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 of a Tribe requires navigating blood quantum laws and rolls that the federal government created with the intention of wiping out Native people altogether. Over two million Native people are tribally enrolled\, yet there are Native people who will never be. Native people who\, for a variety of reasons ranging from displacement to disconnection\, cannot be card-carrying members of their Tribe. \nIn The Indian Card\, Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz grapples with these contradictions. Through in-depth interviews\, she shares the stories of people caught in the mire of identity-formation\, trying to define themselves outside of bureaucratic processes. With archival research\, she pieces together the history of blood quantum and tribal rolls and federal government intrusion on Native identity-making. Reckoning with her own identity—the story of her enrollment and the enrollment of her children—she investigates the cultural\, racial\, and political dynamics of today’s Tribal identity policing. With this intimate perspective of the ongoing fight for Native sovereignty\, The Indian Card sheds light on what it looks like to find a deeper sense of belonging. \nFor this special Iowa City Book Festival event\, Schuettpelz will be joined in conversation by Harry Smith. Smith is a well-known broadcast journalist who had a long career with CBS and NBC News. After retiring earlier this year\, Smith returned to teach at his alma mater\, Central College in Pella.
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/carrie-lowry-schuettpelz-the-indian-card/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:Iowa City Book Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/The-Indian-Card.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20241019T103000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20241019T103000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20240905T152418Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240926T162954Z
UID:3848-1729333800-1729333800@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Jennifer Croft – The Extinction of Irena Rey
DESCRIPTION:Jennifer Croft won the Man Booker International Prize for her translation from Polish of Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights. She is the author of Homesick\, a Saroyan Prize winner\, and numerous pieces in the New York Times\, the Los Angeles Review of Books\, the Paris Review Daily\, and elsewhere. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literary Studies from Northwestern University and an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Iowa. Her debut novel is The Extinction of Irena Rey\, which tells of eight translators who arrive at a house in a primeval Polish forest on the border of Belarus. It belongs to the world-renowned author Irena Rey\, and they are there to translate her magnum opus\, Gray Eminence. But within days of their arrival\, Irena disappears without a trace. The result is a hilarious\, thought-provoking tale that is a brilliant examination of art\, celebrity\, the natural world\, and the power of language. \nThis event is presented in partnership with the International Writing Program
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/jennifer-croft-the-extinction-of-irena-rey/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:Iowa City Book Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Irena-Rey.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20241019T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20241019T120000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20240910T185409Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240912T160646Z
UID:3902-1729339200-1729339200@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Elizabeth Willis – Liontaming in America
DESCRIPTION:Elizabeth Willis is the author of Liontaming in America (New Directions\, 2024)\, a hybrid work engaged with American belief and relationship structures\, theatre\, activism\, and film. The collection is on the 2024 Longlist for the National Book Award for Poetry. \nHer other books of poetry include Alive (New York Review Books\, 2015)\, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize\, as well as Address; Meteoric Flowers; Turneresque; The Human Abstract; and the artist’s book Spectral Evidence . She also writes about the intersection of art and labor and edited the volume Radical Vernacular: Lorine Niedecker and the Poetics of Place. She teaches at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/elizabeth-willis-liontaming-in-america/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:Iowa City Book Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Liontaming-in-America.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20241019T133000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20241019T133000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20240911T145142Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240911T145142Z
UID:3910-1729344600-1729344600@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Forrest Gander – Mojave Ghost
DESCRIPTION:A novel-poem taking us to the Pulitzer-prize winning poet Forrest Gander’s birthplace in the Mojave Desert and his current northern California home\, where tumultuous memories coalesce with the present. \nMojave Ghost initiates an unusually tender bond with the reader as it chronicles an intimate relationship with arresting honesty and vividness. Moving through grief and loss towards a renewal that never sidesteps the wholeness of experience\, Gander’s new collection discovers an articulate language for the merging of exterior and interior landscapes. Gander\, trained as a geologist\, walked along much of the 800-mile San Andreas Fault toward the desolate town of his birth and found himself crossing permeable dimensions of time and space\, correlating his emotions and the stricken landscape with other divisions: the fractures and folds underlying not only our country\, but any self in its relationship with others. The result is this moving new collection that unforgettably describes a spiritual and physical journey. With its confiding tones and candid self-examination\, Mojave Ghost is Gander’s most inviting and poignant book yet.
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/forrest-gander-mojave-ghost/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:Iowa City Book Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mojave-Ghost.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20241019T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20241019T150000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20240911T145849Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240911T145849Z
UID:3916-1729350000-1729350000@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Natalie Goldberg – Writing on Empty
DESCRIPTION:Natalie Goldberg has influenced generations of aspiring creative writers with books like Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind. Her books offer  down-to-earth guidance for developing a meaningful writing practice in the real world\, however different that is for each of us. In her new book\, Writing on Empty\, she opens up about a new experience; that of losing her will to write\, and finding her way back to it. \n 
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/natalie-goldberg-writing-on-empty/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:Iowa City Book Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/9781250342546_FC.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20241019T163000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20241019T163000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20240911T150206Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240911T150206Z
UID:3918-1729355400-1729355400@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Nicolás Medina Mora – América del Norte
DESCRIPTION:Moving between New York City\, Mexico City\, and Iowa City\, a young member of the Mexican elite sees his life splinter in a centuries-spanning debut that blends the Latin American traditions of Roberto Bolaño and Fernanda Melchor with the autofiction of US writers like Ben Lerner and Teju Cole. \nSplit between the US and Mexico\, this stunning debut explores whiteness\, power\, immigration\, and the history of Mexican literature\, to wrestle with the contradictory relationship between two countries bound by geography and torn apart by politics. \nNicolás Medina Mora was born and raised in Mexico City. He has degrees from Yale University and the writing program of the University of Iowa\, and has worked in New York City as a journalist at Reuters and BuzzFeed. His writing has appeared in The Nation\, The New York Times\, and n+1\, where he won the 2023 n+1 Writers’ Fellowship for outstanding contributions. He currently lives in Mexico City\, where he is a writer and editor for Revista Nexos.
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/nicolas-medina-mora-america-del-norte/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:Iowa City Book Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/America-Del-Norte.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20251009T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20251009T190000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20250911T144208Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250915T184139Z
UID:4888-1760036400-1760036400@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Waters of the United States: A Conversation with Royal C. Gardner and Silvia Secchi
DESCRIPTION:Join author Royal C. Gardner\, Professor of Law\, Hugh F. Culverhouse Chair\, and Director of the Stetson Institute for Biodiversity Law and Policy at Stetson Law\, at Prairie Lights for a reading from Waters of the United States\, his groundbreaking exploration of the legal and political battles that have shaped water protection in America. In conversation with University of Iowa Professor and Mississippi River Basin water research expert Silvia Secchi\, Royal will discuss the history and high-stakes future of the Clean Water Act\, the Supreme Court’s narrowing of WOTUS\, and what these decisions mean for our communities and environment. \nPresented in partnership with the Hubbell Environmental Law Initiative
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/royal-c-gardner/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:Iowa City Book Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Waters-of-the-United-States.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20251011T113000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20251011T113000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20250909T152304Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250918T185301Z
UID:4876-1760182200-1760182200@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Gregory Galloway: All We Trust and Scott Phillips: The Devil Raises His Own
DESCRIPTION:  \n \nIn All We Trust\, what starts out as a family squabble turns into an international battle between competing crime organizations\, moving from small town New England to San Francisco to Mexico. Along the way the brothers encounter betrayal\, double-dealing\, kidnapping\, and ultimately\, revenge. \nThe Devil Raises His Own\, meanwhile\, picks up the story of Bill Ogden\, protagonist in Phillips’s earlier novels Cottonwood and Hop Alley\, as he navigates the early days of the film industry in this bawdy tale. \nBoth authors are steeped in the history of noir fiction\, and will discuss their own work against that backdrop.
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/gregory-galloway-all-we-trust/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:Iowa City Book Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Galloway-and-Phillips.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20251011T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20251011T130000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20250908T172646Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250923T143219Z
UID:4855-1760187600-1760187600@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Jennifer Fawcett: Keep This For Me
DESCRIPTION:One hot August night in 1993\, a young couple go to a party. When their car breaks down\, they are picked up by a truck driver who attacks the man and abducts the woman. She is never seen again. \nThat woman was Fiona Green’s mother. \nWhen the trucker\, Eddie Ward\, is caught\, a mass grave of bodies is discovered in his backyard but Fiona’s mother isn’t there. Thirty years later\, on his prison deathbed\, Ward insists that he didn’t kill her\, so Fiona finds herself back in the small town where her mother disappeared. Fighting demons of her own\, she’s shocked when history repeats itself: another woman\, another roadside breakdown\, and another disappearance. Only this time the primary suspect is Jason Ward\, Eddie’s son. Desperate\, Fiona hunts down answers\, unaware that she is being drawn into a dangerous trap. \nFawcett will be joined in conversation by Tim Budd.
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/jennifer-fawcett-keep-this-for-me/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:Iowa City Book Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Keep-This-For-Me.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20251011T143000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20251011T143000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20250908T172307Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251001T150930Z
UID:4853-1760193000-1760193000@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Tatiana Schlote-Bonne: The Mean Ones
DESCRIPTION:So what if Sadie hears talking dead animals and a strange\, comforting male voice in her head? The therapist insists these are just symptoms of PTSD. It makes sense considering that she hid under the bed and watched as her best friends were slaughtered. \nBut the murders were seventeen years ago\, back when her name was Sabrina. Now\, she’s Sadie: a perfectly normal 29-year-old. She works as a physical therapist assistant and lifts weights with her boyfriend\, Lucas\, who’s the sweetest\, most considerate man—as long as he’s not angry. But when Lucas spontaneously agrees to join a couples trip to a cabin in the woods\, the visions get worse\, a strange figure stalks her during the night\, and that male voice in Sadie’s head keeps calling\, asking her to do things she’s never fathomed. \nSadie’s not sure if it’s her paranoia or something else entirely . . . But she is sure of one thing—this time\, she’s not going to sit idly by as everything starts to unravel. \nTatiana will be joined in conversation with Carey Dunne.
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/tatiana-schlote-bonne-the-mean-ones/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:Iowa City Book Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/The-Mean-Ones.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20251011T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20251011T160000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20250908T173311Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250908T173311Z
UID:4860-1760198400-1760198400@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Patricia Lockwood: Will There Ever Be Another You
DESCRIPTION:Amid a global pandemic\, one young woman is trying to keep the pieces together – of her family\, stunned by a devastating loss\, and of her mind\, left mangled and misfiring from a mystifying disease. She’s afraid of her own floorboards\, and “WHAT IS LOVE? BABY DON’T HURT ME” plays over and over in her ears. She hates her friends\, or more accurately\, she doesn’t know who they are. \nHas the illness stolen her old mind and given her a new one? Does it mean she’ll get to start over from scratch\, a chance afforded to very few people? The very weave of herself seems to have loosened: time and memories pass straight through her body. “I’m sorry not to respond to your email\,” she writes\, “but I live completely in the present\nnow.” \nWill There Ever Be Another You is the brain-shredding\, phosphorescent story of one woman’s dissolution and her attempt to create a new way of thinking\, as well as a profound investigation into what keeps us alive in times of unprecedented disorientation and loss\, from one of our most original writers.
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/patricia-lockwood-will-there-ever-be-another-you/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:Iowa City Book Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Will-There-Ever-Be-Another-You.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20251012T153000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20251012T153000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20250908T173917Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250908T173917Z
UID:4862-1760283000-1760283000@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Kazim Ali with Rajaa Alsanea and Yu Yuen Lan
DESCRIPTION:Poet\, novelist\, and essayist Kazim Ali will read as a special guest of the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program. He is joined by IWP participants Rajaa Alsanea (Saudi Arabia) and Yu Yuen Lan (Hong Kong)\, who will also read from their work.
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/kazim-ali-with-rajaa-alsanea-and-yu-yuen-lan/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:Iowa City Book Festival
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/IWP-Reading-10-12.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20260622T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20260622T190000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20260618T172140Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260630T172338Z
UID:5593-1782154800-1782154800@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Prairie Lights Reading: Karen Parkman – The Jills
DESCRIPTION:Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate Karen Parkman will read from her new novel\, The Jills. Listed by both PEOPLE Magazine and CrimeReads as a “best book of February\,” The Jills is praised by Chloe Benjamin\, New York Times bestselling author of The Immortalists\, as “a nuanced\, incisive exploration of the world of NFL cheerleading—and the complex power of sisterhood\, both familial and chosen\,” while Andrea Bartz\, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Ferry Out and We Were Never Here\, says: “Parkman’s character-driven mystery comes roaring out of the gate with all the poise and power of an NFL athlete. With its nuanced character work\, propulsive prose\, and intricate web of secrets and lies\, The Jills is an unforgettable debut. I couldn’t put it down.” \nKaren Parkman holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her work has been supported by MacDowell\, Yaddo\, the Sozopol Fiction Seminars\, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts\, and the Vermont Studio Center. Karen’s stories have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review\, Joyland\, and elsewhere. She has taught writing at the University of Iowa\, the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio\, and Kirkwood Community College. The Jills is her debut novel.
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/karen-parkman-the-jills/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:General
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Book-PL.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20260709T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20260709T190000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20260618T172536Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260630T172307Z
UID:5596-1783623600-1783623600@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Prairie Lights Reading: Susan McCarty – 2008
DESCRIPTION:Susan McCarty will read from her new novel\, 2008. The University of Chicago Press offers this summary of 2008: \n“It’s 2008: the age of the blog\, the dawn of social media\, and the birth of the smartphone. Obama is running for president on a slogan of hope\, while in the shadows\, an opioid crisis emerges\, and the housing market teeters. Stevie and Sam\, two old high school flames who have grown up and grown apart\, are brought back together in the aftermath of a tragedy that throws them off the tracks of their lives. Sam\, a struggling realtor\, is determined to solve a mystery at any cost. Stevie hits on a plan for a “redo” that involves abandoning her adult life to relive her teenage glory days. As both struggle inside the mediocrity of their early adulthoods\, the disenchanted world begins to reveal itself\, and secrets threaten to overwhelm them. On the cusp of a new era of uncertainty\, these old friends must find ways to reconcile their past and find their way home” (press.uchicago.edu). \nForeward Reviews praises 2008 as “a layered novel in which teenage friendship leads to chain reactions that continue years into the future\,” while Aaron Burch\, author of Year of the Buffalo\, says: “2008 pulled me in from its very first pages and then never let me go.” \nSusan McCarty is the author of the story collection Anatomies. Her essays have appeared in Creative Nonfiction\, Ecotone\, Lit Hub\, Juked\, Zone 3\, and other journals. She is an associate professor of English and creative writing at Oakland University in the metro Detroit area.
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/prairie-lights-reading-susan-mccarty-2008/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:General
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Book-pl-.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20260717T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20260717T190000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20260618T173146Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260630T172213Z
UID:5601-1784314800-1784314800@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Prairie Lights Reading: Will Swain – Certainly Uncertain
DESCRIPTION:Will Swain will read from his new book\, Certainly Uncertain: The Limitations of Knowledge and the Uncertainty of Belief. Renee Zukin\, Educator\, Entrepreneur\, & Author of Every Day\, I’m Brave\, praises Certainly Uncertain as “down to earth and subtly radical\,” while Sean Strain\, editor and former vice president of Entrepreneur Press\, says: “The book was as thought-provoking and clever as it was charming. Swain’s ideas and arguments are intellectual\, inclusive\, and refreshingly insightful . . . and I learned more about Bigfoot than I ever expected!” \nWill Swain is a science educator with over 30 years of experience teaching students across a wide range of ages and settings. He taught undergraduate courses such as Human Biology\, Evolutionary Biology\, and Principles of Animal Biology at The University of Iowa\, where he also administered research programs for undergraduate students\, precollege students\, and science teachers. At the high school level\, he taught Physics\, Geology\, Astronomy\, Chemistry\, Biology\, Environmental Science\, and Human Biology. He also served as the regional director of the Iowa Junior Science and Humanities Symposium and as a member of the National JSHS Regional Director’s Executive Council. His interest in the relationship between science and religion began early in life and has followed him ever since. Growing up surrounded by family and friends with differing views on faith and science sparked a lifelong curiosity about belief formation. These questions ultimately led him to write Certainly Uncertain\, a research-informed and personal exploration of how beliefs\, and knowledge itself\, take shape—and how understanding their limits and tentative nature can lead to more thoughtful and compassionate conversations (waggledancebooks.com/about-the-author/).
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/prairie-lights-reading-will-swain-certainly-uncertain/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:General
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Book-PL-1.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20260720T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20260720T190000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20260618T173614Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260630T172125Z
UID:5604-1784574000-1784574000@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Prairie Lights: Meg Richardson in conv with Claire Lombardo – Paradise Pawn
DESCRIPTION:Meg Richardson will read from her debut novel\, Paradise Pawn\, and will be joined in conversation with Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate and summer Writers’ Workshop visiting lecturer\, Claire Lombardo. Tin House/Zando describes Paradise Pawn as a “dazzling debut novel about best friends\, adolescent longing\, and the Florida pawn shop that promises to make their dreams come true—if it doesn’t break them apart first.” It’s praised by Gary Shteyngart\, author of Vera\, or Faith\, as “A lovely book that captures the rhythms and travails of working-class life\,” while Charlee Dyroff\, author of Loneliness & Company\, says: “Brilliant and bighearted\, Paradise Pawn transported me back to the electrifying intensity of young friendship. It beautifully captures the feeling of slowly waking up from childhood and emerging into the adult world only to realize it’s often not what we thought it would be. A total gem of a debut!” \nMeg Richardson is a writer\, translator\, and cartoonist from Iowa. She currently lives in Vermont. She holds a BA from Williams College and an MFA in fiction writing from Columbia University. Her debut novel\, Paradise Pawn (Tin House/Zando)\, is based on her experiences working behind the counter of a pawn shop. \nClaire Lombardo is the author of the nationally-bestselling novel Same As It Ever Was. Her debut\, The Most Fun We Ever Had\, was an instant New York Times bestseller and a Reese’s Book Club pick. Her novels have been translated or are forthcoming in over a dozen languages. Claire is a graduate of the University of Illinois-Chicago and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Prior to publishing The Most Fun We Ever Had\, Claire spent several years working with homeless children and families in Chicago. She has taught fiction writing at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Grinnell College and worked as a bookseller at Prairie Lights Books. She lives in Minneapolis. ​
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/prairie-lights-meg-richardson-in-conv-with-claire-lombardo-paradise-pawn/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:General
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Book-PL-2.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20260721T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20260721T190000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20260618T173903Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260630T172033Z
UID:5607-1784660400-1784660400@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Prairie Lights: Sarah Minor in conv with Melissa Febos – Carousel: An Essay on Seeing
DESCRIPTION:Sarah Minor will read from her new book Carousel: An Essay on Seeing\, and will be joined in conversation with fellow Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program professor and award-winning author Melissa Febos. Yale University Press gives this description of Carousel : \n“Across short\, immersive sections masterfully fusing the slide lecture and the lyric essay\, Minor invites us to see across time as a professor-narrator tying the Bayeux Tapestry to surrealist paintings\, Instagram reels\, and drone warfare. Blending art history with memoir\, close looking with confession\, Carousel considers how the pursuit of panoramic vision frames power\, distorts reality\, and implicates contemporary viewers and subjects. In language that captures the disorientation of the whirling ride\, Minor shows us how the more we strive to see\, the more we ultimately reveal ourselves” (sarahceniaminor.com/carousel). \nBarbara Browning\, author of The Miniaturists\, praises Carousel as “A dizzying ride past images stabbed into time\,” while fellow Iowa NWP professor Tisa Bryant\, author of recently published Residual\, says: “Carousel invites us into the interior horizons of war\, media\, confinement\, and creative impulse\, (un)framed\, artfully rendered in taut\, resonant prose. A gaze-changer.” \nSarah Minor is a writer and interdisciplinary artist.​ She’s the author of Carousel: An Essay on Seeing from Yale University Press (2026)\, Slim Confessions: The Universe as a Spider or Spit (Noemi Press\, 2021)\, Bright Archive (Rescue Press\, 2020)\, and the chapbook The Persistence of The Bonyleg: Annotated (Essay Press\, 2016). Minor’s prose and visual poems have been collected in places like Best American Experimental Writing\, A Harp in the Stars\, and Welcome to the Neighborhood. She is the recipient of a Research Fellowship to Iceland from the American Scandinavian Foundation\, a 2019 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award\, and her essay “Something Clear” was awarded the 2018 Barthelme Prize in Short Prose. Minor serves as the Video Essay and Cinepoetry Editor at Brink Magazine and on the Nonfiction editorial team at TriQuarterly Review. She holds a PhD from Ohio University\, an MFA from the University of Arizona\, and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction MFA Program. In addition to her writing practice\, Sarah is one half of the collaborative duo Haag Cykell—an ongoing performance series with the artist Johanna Winters that explores modes of storytelling through shadow theater and language (sarahceniaminor.com/about). \nMelissa 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).
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/prairie-lights-sarah-minor-in-conv-with-melissa-febos-carousel-an-essay-on-seeing/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:General
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Book-PL-3.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20260722T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20260722T183000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20260617T154207Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260617T154207Z
UID:5580-1784745000-1784745000@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:Rogue Workshops Faculty Reading
DESCRIPTION:Join Prairie Lights Books for a special faculty reading of the inaugural “Authors at Large” Iowa City Rogue Workshops! (You can learn more about this program and the faculty here.) \nXu Xi will read from her new collection of short stories\, Horizon Hong Kong. \nKelly Dwyer will read from her recent novel\, Ghost Mother. \nRobin Hemley will read from his latest essay collection\, How to Change History. \nMary Allen and Hugh Ferrer will read from works in progress. \nNote: To accommodate these writers and their readings\, this event will start a bit earlier than usual\, at 6:30 PM instead of seven.
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/rogue-workshops-faculty-reading/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:General
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20260817T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20260817T190000
DTSTAMP:20260826T143113
CREATED:20260811T155027Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260811T155027Z
UID:5844-1786993200-1786993200@www.iowacityofliterature.org
SUMMARY:PrairieLights: Reading – Asha Leena Bhandary – Being at Home: Living Autonomously in an Unjust World
DESCRIPTION:University of Iowa professor Asha Leena Bhandary will read from her new book\, Being at Home: Living Autonomously in an Unjust World. Described as a “a care-responsive theory of liberalism to address intersectionality and racism\,” Being at Home is praised by José Medina\, Walter Dill Scott Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University\, as “an ambitious and brilliant rethinking of the notion of autonomy from a relational and intersectional perspective\, bringing together liberalism and critical philosophy of race and gender in original ways.” It’s also praised by Ashwini Vasanthakumar\, author of The Ethics of Exile\, who says: “An artful synthesis of memoir\, philosophy\, law\, and literature\, this is a beautifully written meditation on home-making in an unjust world\, and the practices of buoyancy and community that enable those who live ‘counterfactually’ to nevertheless be ‘at home.” \nAsha Bhandary is a social and political philosopher working at the intersection of the ethics of care\, philosophy of race\, reproductive justice\, and political theory. Her work focuses on the structural and distributive requirements for caregiving arrangements in society\, developing critical care theory that illuminates racialized and non-western practices of care. In her first monograph\, Freedom to Care: Liberalism\, Dependency Care\, and Culture (2020)\, she argues that society’s caregiving arrangements must be improved if women\, and\, women of color\, are to have the freedom to care. In her second monograph\, Being at Home: Living Autonomously in an Unjust World (2026)\, she defends the theory of intersectional liberalism\, which proceeds from the subject position of the least advantaged\, or what she defines as the “grafted subject” (ashabhandary.com).
URL:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/prairielights-reading-asha-leena-bhandary-being-at-home-living-autonomously-in-an-unjust-world/
LOCATION:Prairie Lights Books\, 15 S. Dubuque St.\, Iowa City\, IA\, 52240\, United States
CATEGORIES:General
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/9780197811245.jpg
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR