UI assistant professor of history and African American studies Simon Balto will read from and talk about his new book from UNC Press, Occupied Territory: Policing Black Chicago from Red Summer to Black Power. “Simon Balto's study of twentieth-century black Chicago provides new insights into the historical roots of police abuse in black communities while challenging scholarship that posits the mid-twentieth century as a turning point for deteriorating relationships between the police and black...

Iowa author Heather Gudenkauf will read from her new novel, Before She Was Found. "Heather Gudenkauf has done it again. She manages to merge engaging characters and terrifying topics resulting in unputdownable suspense set in a small Iowa town. In Before She Was Found, Gudenkauf takes us into the lives of three young girlfriends as a sleepover turns into tragedy. Examining today's realities of social media and the added pressure our connected culture creates, Gudenkauf has crafted a gripping...

Ice Cube Press presents Thomas Dean and Cindy Crosby, who will present their new book, Tallgrass Conversations: In Search of the Prairie Spirit. Through short writings and photographs, Cindy Crosby and Thomas Dean enter a conversation to inspire in readers new understandings of the Midwestern tallgrass prairie through word and image. Tallgrass Conversations encourages looking and listening to the prairie through the heart and mind as well as eyes, ears, and other senses, advancing both...

The Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program presents Pico Iyer, who will read from Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells. "From one of our most astute observers of human nature, a far-reaching exploration of Japanese history and culture and a moving meditation on impermanence, mortality, and grief. For years, Pico Iyer has split his time between California and Nara, Japan, where he and his Japanese wife Hiroko have a small home. But when his father-in-law dies suddenly, calling him back to Japan...

Poets Kimberly Burwick and Kevin Goodan will read from their work. Kimberly Burwick is the author of five collections of poetry: Brightword (forthcoming in fall 2019 from Carnegie Mellon), Custody of the Eyes, Good Night Brother, Horses in the Cathedral, and Has No Kinsmen. Burwick earned her BA in literature from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and her MFA in poetry from Antioch University Los Angeles. She teaches at Washington State University. In writing about Custody of the Eyes...

Rachelle Chase, author of Lost Buxton, will return to Prairie Lights to talk about her continued research that has culminated in her new book, Creating the Black Utopia of Buxton, Iowa. In the town of five thousand residents, established in 1900, African Americans and Caucasians lived, worked and attended school together. It was a thriving, one-of-a-kind coal-mining town created by the Consolidation Coal Company. This inclusive approach provided opportunity for its residents. Dr. E.A. Carter...

Poet GennaRose Nethercott will read from The Lumberjack's Dove, selected by Louise Glück as a winner of the National Poetry Series for 2017. The reading/performace will feature an  intricate shadow-puppetry crankie box, animating segments of the text through 60 feet of scrolling, panoramic hand-cut paper images. Nethercott will be joined for a short interview conducted by novelist and current Iowa Writers' Workshop student Kiley Reid. Nethercott is also the lyricist behind the narrative song...

Prairie Lights and the Magid Center for Undergraduate Writing are pleased to present a reading to celebrate the launch of the 39th issue of earthwords: the undergraduate literary review. The reading will feature contributors to this year’s issue of the magazine. After the reading, a reception will be held in Prairie Lights Café. Copies of earthwords will be free to the public!

Poet Hai-Dang Phan joins novelist Mesha Maren in the MCF Debut Showcase Reading where both authors read from their first books. Mesha Maren will read from Sugar Run, one of Entertainment Weekly’s 50 most anticipated books of 2019.   "A tense, atmospheric Southern noir spiked with queer themes, Sugar Run weaves between two timelines in its depiction of Jodi, a woman just finishing an 18-year prison sentence." —Entertainment Weekly Mesha Maren’s short stories and essays have appeared in Tin...

Michael Martone will read from his new collection, The Moon over Wapakoneta: Fictions and Science Fictions from Indiana and Beyond. These stories capture the feeling of being in the heart of the country while at the same time in the middle of nowhere, of natives who find themselves strangers in their once familiar, but now strange, lands. “Michael Martone, the Indiana trickster, makes amusements of a serious, silliest, surrealist sort.” —Samantha Hunt Martone is also the author of Brooding...

Andrew Ridker will read from his debut novel The Altruists. On the verge of losing the family home, Arthur invites his children back to St. Louis under the guise of a reconciliation. But in doing so, he unwittingly unleashes a Pandora's box of age-old resentments and long-buried memories. “It's frankly a little unfair that a writer so young should be this talented . . . Andrew Ridker has a sharp eye for the absurdities and contradictions of 21st century America. The Altruists is a truly...

Please join us for this special Women's History Month event with Cecile Richards, former president of Planned Parenthood, and Monique Galpin, Iowa City health care advocate and President of the UI African American Council. This event, co-sponsored by Prairie Lights Bookstore, features Cecile Richards' book, Make Trouble:  Stand Up, Speak Out, and Find the Courage to Lead. Cecile Richards, a "heroine of the resistance (Vogue)", has led a life of activism since wearing a black armband to school...

2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang will read from and talk about his book, The War on Normal People. "In this powerful book, Andrew Yang highlights the urgent need to rewrite America's social contract. In a call to arms that comes from both head and heart, Yang has made an important contribution to the debate about where America is headed and what we need to do about it." —Alec Ross Andrew Yang is the founder of Venture for America, a nonprofit that places top college...

Bosnian writer Asja Bakić will read from her new story collection Mars. She will be in conversation with translator and Iowa Translation/Nonfiction Workshops alum Jennifer Zoble, and leading Slavic languages scholar and visiting professor Ellen Elias-Bursać. Mars “strikingly examines sci-fi tropes from not only the point of view of women, but also from the voice of an effortlessly gifted writer.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review Asja Bakić is a Bosnian poet, writer, and translator. She was...

For this special Women’s History Month event, founding member of the Time’s Up movement Amber Tamblyn will read from and talk about her new book, Era of Ignition: Coming of Age in a Time of Rage and Revolution. Tamblyn defines an Era of Ignition as “the time of self-reflection that follows in the wake of personal upheaval and leads to a call to action and positive change.” In Era of Ignition, she writes of her own struggle for identity after becoming famous as an actress at a young age and Era...

Poets Mark Conway and Adam Giannelli will read from their new collections. Mark Conway will read from rivers of the driftless region, published by Four Way Books. “Intensely aware of the ways that violence and humiliation conspire not just to silence voices but also the capacity to think, Mark Conway has written a dazzling quest-rodeo of the inner life.” —Mary Szybist Mark Conway is the author of Dreaming Man, Face Down, and Only City. He has received residencies from the MacDowell Colony and...

Writers’ Workshop graduate Mark Mayer will read from The Aerialists. "A dazzling collection filled with characters who evoke, in their flawed humanity, the strange, sorrowful and ever shimmering world of the circus. Mayer's bittersweet stories are playful, haunting and wonderfully inventive. Read them and be transported." —Mona Awad Mark Mayer’s stories have appeared in Granta, Guernica, The Colorado Review, and Mid-American Review, and a story from The Aerialists is featured in American Short...

Author and freelance journalist Susan Daniels will read from her Fairfield University Book Prize-winning short story collection, The Genuine Stories.   “I loved these stories. I love this character. I love this writer. I can’t remember the last time I found a book to be both a total page-turner and also an authentically satisfying literary experience. Susan Daniels is an exciting new talent and The Genuine Stories is a genuine triumph.” —Meghan Daum Susan Daniels was born and raised in...

Micah Dean Hicks will read from Break the Bodies Haunt the Bones. T his genre-crossing novel that portrays changing American towns and vanishing ways of life through contemporary science fiction and fantasy. “Hick’s wildly atmospheric and unsettling debut is a heady fusion of horror, Southern gothic, and timely social commentary… Fans of the macabre will be enthralled.” —Publishers Weekly Micah Dean Hicks is the author of Electricity and Other Dreams, a collection of dark fairy tales and...

2018 Oregon Literary Arts’ Writer of Color Fellow, author, speaker, and teacher Reema Zaman will read from and talk about I Am Yours: A Shared Memoir.  Beginning in Bangladesh, moving into Thailand, then New York, and finally, Oregon, I Am Yours is an iconic, definitive book on the female/human condition. Zaman's personal narrative acts as a backdrop to ask and answer the most pressing universal questions: Why do we wound each other and ourselves? Where does pain begin and live, in the same...

MacArthur award-winning “father of the local food movement” Gary Paul Nabhan will read from and talk about Food from the Radical Center: Healing Our Land and Communities. In this book, Nabhan shares inspiring stories about food and land restoration projects that bring communities together across the political divide. Nabhan is personally engaged as an orchard-keeper, wild foods forager, and pollinator habitat restorationist working from his small farm in Patagonia, Arizona near the Mexican...

The Nonfiction Writing Program's Bedell Distinguished Visiting Professor, Susan Steinberg, will read from her work. Her most recent book, Spectacle, was hailed by The New Yorker for its "bold risks and exploration of the boundaries of narrative and the possibilities of language and syntax." Steinberg is the author of The End of Free Love, Hydroplane, and Spectacle. The recipient of the Pushcart Prize, the National Magazine Award, and the prestigious United States Artist Fellowship, Steinberg...

Karen Babine will read from All the Wild Hungers. This memoir in the form of micro-essays chronicles Karen's experiences finding ways to nourish and care for her mother after she's diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. This poignant, bittersweet exploration of  illness, consumption, fertility, grief, and the communal power of food is a “lush gem of a book, both heartbreaking and heart-making.” —Amy Thielen Karen Babine is the author of Water and What We Know: Following the Roots of a Northern...

(This event was originally slated for Tuesday, Feb. 6, but was rescheduled due to the potential for inclement weather. Because of the inconvenience, the author will now be bringing pie for the audience.) Ms. American Pie author Beth Howard will read from her new book, Hausfrau Honeymoon: Love, Language, and Other Misadventures in Germany.  This humorous, engaging, and romantic travel memoir tells of Howard’s misadventures in language and cultural assimilation when she moved to Stuttgart...