The Iowa City Book Festival presents Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, who will read from House of Stone. “With luminous language, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma explores the treacherous terrain of colonization and decolonization, remembering and forgetting, and love and betrayal. The result is a gripping account of revolution and its aftermath, both for a country and for one man.” —Viet Thanh Nguyen Novuyo Rosa Tshuma grew up in Zimbabwe and lives in Houston, Texas. Her short story collection, Shadows, won the 2014...

The Iowa City Book Festival presents Kendra Allen, winner of the Iowa Prize in Literary Nonfiction, who will read from her essay collection When You Learn the Alphabet.  "Kendra Allen's When You Learn the Alphabet is a roaring meditation on what black daughters in our nation do with what and how they've been taught. The book brilliantly animates the formal and informal education processes of becoming grown in America.” —Kiese Laymon Kendra Allen’s work has been published in Brevity, December...

The Iowa City Book Festival Presents Eileen Pollack, who will read from her new novel based loosely on Unabomber Ted Kaczinski, The Professor of Immortality. "A Perfect Life probes how we live in the face of uncertainty and the ways risk can both disable and empower us. In her latest novel, Eileen Pollack has crafted a tender exploration of family love that is as smart and thought-provoking as it is moving." —Celeste Ng A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Pollack is the author of the...

Writers’ Workshop graduates Daniel Poppick and Jessica Laser will read from their work. Jessica Laser will read from Sergei Kuzmich from All Sides, published by Letter Machine Editions.  “Finally an oracle with a gorgeous sense of humor. Jessica Laser's vision is singular, her voice at once formidable and intimate. Its impeccable wit imparts a bracing metaphysics” —Margaret Ross.  Laser is also the author of two chapbooks. She lives in Berkeley, California, where she is currently a PhD...

The Iowa City Book Festival presents Jamaican poet and novelist Kei Miller, who is an Ida Beam scholar visiting the UI’s International Writing Program. Miller is the author of the novel Augustown,  two previous novels, several poetry collections, and a collection of short stories. He was short-listed for the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Best First Book; he won the Forward Prize for Best Poetry Collection. He lives in London and teaches creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London...

The Sustainable Iowa Land Trust (SILT) presents Raj Patel, who will discuss his latest work, A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet.  Nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives: at a time of crisis in all seven cheap things, innovative and systemic thinking is urgently required. This book proposes a radical new way of understanding--and reclaiming--the planet in the turbulent twenty-first century. Patel will also show...

The Iowa City Book Festival presents bestselling mystery author John Sandford. When John Sandford first walked the streets of Iowa City, he was known as John Camp, an aspiring journalist who was attending the journalism program at the University of Iowa. He returns as a Pulitzer Prize-winner and a New York Times bestselling mystery author. The Cedar Rapids native is the author of 40 novels, including 29 in the Lucas Davenport Prey series, and 11 in the Virgil Flowers series. Sandford will...

Holy Rover author Lori Erickson will read from her new book, Near the Exit.  After her brother died unexpectedly and her mother moved into a dementia-care facility, spiritual travel writer and Episcopal deacon Lori Erickson felt called to a new quest: to face death head on, with the eye of a tourist and the heart of a pastor. Blending memoir, spirituality, and travel, Near the Exit examines how cultures confront and have confronted death, from Egypt's Valley of the Kings and Mayan temples, to a...

Catfish Solution: The Power of Positive Poking. Catfish Solution is memoir and story, revelation and explanation, comedy and critique with inspiration to citizen action by a Washington insider who took on the shipping and broadcasting industries. Johnson is the author of Columns of Democracy. He has been a TV show host, columnist, congressional candidate, Washington lawyer, and school board member, among other things. Included in The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law as one of 700...

Local author J.A. Joe Gasperetti will read from his fast-paced historical fiction tale, The Seal’s Lair. From LaJolla California to Perth Australia, The Seal’s Lair includes a cast of characters that range from a mis-identified body on the beach, a Manhattan widow of distinction, and a Nazi war criminal scientist, to a Navy Seal and a San Diego Homicide detective. Based in 1969, The Seal’s Lair has contemporary themes: identity theft, domestic terrorism, hate crime, fake news, and law...

Local author Andy Douglas will read from Redemption Songs: A Year in the Life of A Community Prison Choir. Dr André de Quadros, professor of Music and chair of the Department of Music Education at Boston University, notes, “More than an account of the choir’s work, the book is a deep insight into musical humanity under dehumanizing conditions. Douglas’s work is evocative and thoughtful, deeply compassionate and humble, and brings the reader close to the troubled lives, wounds and hopes of the...

Bestselling author J Ryan Stradal will read from his new novel, The Lager Queen of Minnesota. “Brilliant. . . a love letter to the Midwest . . . it’s hard to put down not only because the storytelling is so seamless and the characters so relatable, but because the author's delight in the written word is so contagious.” —Jen Sincero J. Ryan Stradal is a contributing editor at TASTE Magazine. His bestselling debut, Kitchens of the Great Midwest, won the 2016 American Booksellers Association Indie...

Bestselling author J Ryan Stradal will read from his new novel, The Lager Queen of Minnesota.  “Brilliant . . . a love letter to the Midwest . . . it’s hard to put down not only because the storytelling is so seamless and the characters so relatable, but because the author's delight in the written word is so contagious.” —Jen Sincero J. Ryan Stradal is a contributing editor at TASTE Magazine. His bestselling debut, Kitchens of the Great Midwest, won the 2016 American Booksellers Association...

Recent MFA Center for the Book graduate Kazumi Wilds, will talk about her new book, Kojiki: The Birth of Japan: The Japanese Creation Myth Illustrated. "What makes this book special is the author's own long familiarity with the actual physical locations where some of the events took place . . . Because of her intense personal connection with the Kojiki story, Kazumi Wilds was moved to design and print a very special limited-edition artist book on her own handmade paper that embodied the mystery...

Iowa City historians Timothy Walch and Ken Donnelly will talk about local history and Walch’s new book, Irish Iowa. Iowa offered freedom and prosperity to the Irish fleeing famine and poverty. They became the second-largest immigrant group to come to the state, and they acquired influence well beyond their numbers. Author Timothy Walch details these stories and more on the history and influence of the Irish in the Heartland. Walch is the director emeritus of the Herbert Hoover Presidential...

Iowa native Lucas Hunt will read from his poetry collection, Iowa. The first of five linen-cased, hardcover books in an autobiographical collection of cinematic poetry, Iowa commences the Homeric journey of poet Lucas Hunt from a childhood engulfed by the humidity and sun on a pig farm to the Society shores of Southampton, the jagged glass and steel canyons of New York City, and the sublimity of Rome and Paris. In Iowa, Hunt brings his literary camera closer to the fire within the belly of a...

Local author Lori Lacina will read from Mama Said There’d be Days Like This. “This is a charming collection of reflections on life in Iowa. Informative, funny and delightful, Lacina’s stories are like a slice of warm apple pie and should be savored as such.” —Beth Howard These 365 daily essays include reflections, lists, recipes, and ponderings. This book will inspire you, make you laugh and make you think. Some of the topics include: circles of women, lost socks, second chances, heartaches...

Local debut novelist Craig N. Willis will read from The Deadly Mondaine. In The Deadly Mondaine, the life of Hattie Rosales is tracked from her origin in post-World War II working-class Southside Chicago, through her early career at Marshall Fields’, through her business partnership with Ludmilla “Milly” Netsurov, and continuing with her rapid relocation from the Chicago area to Gethsemane, Illinois. The central mystery in the book is the shotgun slaying of a local mogul at his faux French...

The 2019 Blues and Soul Festival presents authors Dr. Venise Berry, Dr. Steven T. Berry, Caleb Rainey and Rachelle Chase in a special panel discussion led by Dr. Irenea Walker assistant professor at UNI. Venise Berry, associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at UI is the author of the book Driven. Steven T. Berry, former associate professor of journalism and film at Howard University, is the author of T.E.A.R.S. and The Honeyman’s Son. Rachelle Chase, senior...

Writers’ Workshop graduate in poetry Anthony McCann will read from his new work of nonfiction, Shadowlands: Fear and Freedom at the Oregon Standoff. "A momentous and important non-fiction debut . . . The core subject is nothing less than the nature of American identity and the concept of freedom. Admirably, McCann's ethos is not that of a neutral bystander but of a truth seeker. He thinks through viewpoints with depth and empathy, but he also takes stands and calls out the problematic for what...

New Yorker writer Casey Cep will read from her book Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee. An instant New York Times Bestseller that stayed on the list for four weeks, Furious Hours tells the stunning true story of Alabama serial killer Reverend Willie Maxwell, and the true-crime book about him that Harper Lee spent decades working on in the years after she wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. "A triumph on every level. One of the losses to literature is that Harper Lee never...

Please join University of Iowa legend Willard L. "Sandy" Boyd to hear him read from and talk about his new book, A Life on the Middle West's Never-Ending Frontier, from University of Iowa Press. Sandy Boyd’s decades of service to the university began in 1954, when he arrived as a law professor. He served as president of the University of Iowa from 1969 to 1981. His memoir, interspersed with personal wisdom gleaned over more than six decades of service and leadership, encapsulates Boyd's shrewd...

John Domini will read from his new novel from Dzanc Books, The Color Inside a Melon. “John Domini enters the world of African immigrants in Naples living on the edge of the law, in a gripping, noir-ish thriller written in prose that somehow manages to be both elegant and hard-boiled. An absorbing read." — Salman Rushdie John Domini is the author of numerous works of fiction, poetry, and literary criticism, including his most recent novel, Movieola. He has published fiction in Paris Review...

John Domini will read from his new novel from Dzanc books, The Color Inside a Melon. “John Domini enters the world of African immigrants in Naples living on the edge of the law, in a gripping, noir-ish thriller written in prose that somehow manages to be both elegant and hard-boiled. An absorbing read." —Salman Rushdie John Domini is the author of numerous works of fiction, poetry, and literary criticism, including his most recent novel, Movieola. He has published fiction in The Paris Review a...

ISWF instructor and Writers’ Workshop graduate Sabrina Orah Mark will read from Wild Milk, published by Dorothy, a Publishing Project. “Sabrina Orah Mark is a writer of strangeness & tenderness & undeniable brilliance. I wanted to read this book aloud to everyone I’ve ever loved, & to fold it into a locket to keep close to my heart.” —Elizabeth McCracken Sabrina Orah Mark is the author of the poetry collections, The Babies and Tsim Tsum. For The Paris Review she writes a monthly column on...