Mark your calendar for our 100-Word Microstory Contest — a free online writing competition for a variety of age groups. You don’t have to be an Iowa Writers’ Workshop grad — or even have participated in a flash writing contest before — to join in the fun. Just create a story in 100 words or less that uses one of two specific writing prompts. We will announce the writing prompts here on Monday, July 15, 2024, at 9 a.m. CDT.

Mark your calendar for our 100-Word Microstory Contest — a free online writing competition for a variety of age groups. You don’t have to be an Iowa Writers’ Workshop grad — or even have participated in a flash writing contest before — to join in the fun. Just create a story in 100 words or less that uses one of two specific writing prompts. We will announce the writing prompts here on Monday, July 15, 2024, at 9 a.m. CDT.

Grinnell College assistant professor of English and Iowa Writers’ Workshop grad Santiago Jose Sanchez will read from their debut novel, Hombrecito. They will be joined in conversation by novelist Claire Lombardo. Hombrecito is a queer coming-of-age story about a young immigrant’s complex relationships with his mother and his motherland. “Hombrecito is a gorgeous novel of the in-between, the waiting lull, and the changing mind, that shows Santiago Jose Sanchez to be a brilliant poet of silence...

Mark your calendar for our 100-Word Microstory Contest — a free online writing competition for a variety of age groups. You don’t have to be an Iowa Writers’ Workshop grad — or even have participated in a flash writing contest before — to join in the fun. Just create a story in 100 words or less that uses one of two specific writing prompts. We will announce the writing prompts here on Monday, July 15, 2024, at 9 a.m. CDT.

Iowa Writers' Workshop alum Melissa Mogollon will read from her coming of age comedy, Oye: A Novel. “Funny and smart, Oye grapples with the messy inheritance of intergenerational trauma and how it manifests in the everyday conversations with the people we love. Mogollon has written a beautiful book.”—Claire Jimenez  “Heartbreaking and humorous, mature and mischievous, Oye feels like home in delicious and furious ways. Melissa Mogollon did not come to play.”—Kiley Reid Melissa Mogollon holds an...

Mark your calendar for our 100-Word Microstory Contest — a free online writing competition for a variety of age groups. You don’t have to be an Iowa Writers’ Workshop grad — or even have participated in a flash writing contest before — to join in the fun. Just create a story in 100 words or less that uses one of two specific writing prompts. We will announce the writing prompts here on Monday, July 15, 2024, at 9 a.m. CDT.

Charles Holdefer will read from his new collection of stories, Ivan the Terrible Goes on a Family Picnic. "Did the Russians invent baseball? Is there a connection between Babe Ruth’s cross-dressing and Gertrude Stein’s secret mission to New York? What does history tell us about what lies beyond heaven? From the American heartland to Hiroshima, to Paris, to shopping malls and caves with prehistoric art, Ivan the Terrible Goes on a Family Picnic is a wild ride across generations and frontiers of...

Mark your calendar for our 100-Word Microstory Contest — a free online writing competition for a variety of age groups. You don’t have to be an Iowa Writers’ Workshop grad — or even have participated in a flash writing contest before — to join in the fun. Just create a story in 100 words or less that uses one of two specific writing prompts. We will announce the writing prompts here on Monday, July 15, 2024, at 9 a.m. CDT.

The University of Iowa is planning to retire the Arts Iowa calendar website effective June 30, 2024. Retiring the Arts Iowa calendar website is necessary because the platform on which the site is built will soon be obsolete and no longer supportable. Additionally, traffic to the site has declined significantly in recent years as users increasingly find event information through the UI Events calendar (events.uiowa.edu) and your respective collegiate and departmental websites. Finally, the...

New York Times Best-selling author and Writers' Workshop alum Claire Lombardo will read from her highly anticipated second novel, Same As It Ever Was. She will be joined in conversation by Doubleday Executive Editor Lee Boudreaux. "Witty and insightful ... a powerful exploration of marriage, motherhood, and self." —Bonnie Garmus Claire Lombardo is the author of the New York Times best-selling novel The Most Fun We Ever Had, which has been optioned for television by Reese Witherspoon. She lives...

Alina Grabowski will read from Women and Children First, a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by Debutiful, Oprah Daily, and Vogue as well as A Most Anticipated Book of Spring 2024 by The New York Times. "Alina Grabowski is a writer of startling wisdom and deep humanity, and Women and Children First reads like a shimmering kaleidoscope of grief and longing, a magic lantern casting spectral illumination across dark surfaces of loss. Its pages smell like watermelon body lotion and low tide and fresh...

Ananda Lima will read from her surreal literary linked short stories published by TOR Books, Craft: Stories I Wrote For the Devil. Called by Library Journal "one of the most original and unforgettable reads of the year," Craft has also been praised by Booklist, Lightspeed Magazine, Publishers Weekly, and Reactor. "Ananda Lima didn't write these stories for the Devil, she wrote them for me! An absolutely thrilling reminder that short stories can be the best kind of magic, conjuring up not only...

Join us with Brink literary journal founder Nina Lohman, who will read from her lyrical new work of nonfiction, The Body Alone, published by University of Iowa Press! "This book is a searching inventory of a life altered by pain, punctuated with forays into history, etymology, theology, and poetics. It's a stubborn, tender record of the unrecordable, a brave attempt to describe something that cannot ever be truly communicated. A beautiful howl of a book." —Jordan Kisner Nina Lohman is founder...

Writers' Workshop alum Joe Fassler will read from his new novel, The Sky Was Ours. "The Sky Was Ours is an immersive fever dream of a novel, beautifully written and boldly imagined. It's a dark fairy tale with a gripping human pulse; attuned to global crisis but also rooted deeply in the psyches of its characters, animated by their grief and most of all by their longing--longing for wonder, escape, transcendence, hope for our profit-rotted world; a longing that soars through these pages with an...

Joe Fassler presents the talk "Good Beginnings: Crafting the Novel’s First Chapter" for the Iowa Summer Writing Festival's Eleventh Hour Lecture Series. Free and open to the public; all are welcome.

The University of Iowa's Between the Lines Program presents Peace and the Writing Experience: Four Readings with visiting instructors Rochelle Potkar, Vladimir Poleganov, Tariri Ndoro, and Senka Marić. Rochelle Potkar is a prize-winning poet, author, and screenwriter based in Mumbai. She is the author of the poetry books Four Degrees of Separation and Paper Asylum, which was shortlisted for the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize 2020; and the short story collection Bombay Hangovers. Her prize...

Jessica Alexander presents the talk "Writer's Block? The Anecdotal as Antidote" for the Iowa Summer Writing Festival's Eleventh Hour Lecture Series. Free and open to the public; all are welcome.

Iowa Summer Writing Festival instructors Eric Goodman and Christine Hemp will read from their latest books. Eric Goodman will read from Curveball. “Eric Goodman’s Curveball dwells in its details in the most fascinating way — and it reaches far beyond its baseball setting to become a first-rate intergenerational drama as well as a delightful read.” —T.C. Boyle Eric Goodman is the author of six previous novels, including In Days of Awe, the prequel to Curveball, and Cuppy and Stew: The Bombing of...

Poet/playwright/photographer Taylor Bradley will read from her memoir, No Place Like House. "My world was ending. It was 2018 and all of California was on fire." During the next two years, Taylor spent her days searching for a soft place to rest her head at night, sleeping mostly in cars, hotels, and other people's houses. She made her way across the country three times, and even found herself in London for a bit. There's No Place Like House is a true story of an adventure across America...

Mary Allen presents a talk on "Getting Past Perfectionism" for the Iowa Summer Writing Festival's Eleventh Hour Lecture Series. Free and open to the public; all are welcome.

Please join us with former Iowa Citian, Kathy Taylor, who will read from her novel, The Birthing House. This literary historical novel follows a woman’s journey of healing and discovery through her writing. It features explorations of heart, mind, and body, richly textured with friendships, memories, dreams, and layers of history. Two timelines alternate, twenty years apart. Synopsis: In 1980, after a recent miscarriage, Clare Muller arrives in the fairytale town of Marburg, Germany with her...

Kristin Lansing-Stoeffler will read from The Shadows Could Not Reach Her, published by Ice Cube Press. The Shadows Could Not Reach Her is a study of meaning-making in the form of essays, poems, and paintings. A lifelong artist, Lansing-Stoeffler was born and raised in Iowa and grew up visiting farms in Northeast Iowa, where her family hails from. It was this place, and these people, that inspired her to paint landscapes. “I knew what a traditional landscape should look like, but I hoped that I...

Writers’ Workshop graduate Kiley Reid will read from her fresh and provocative novel Come & Get It, one of the most anticipated books of the year and a New Yorker Best Book of the Week. Set in 2017 at the University of Arkansas, Come & Get It is about a residential assistant and her messy entanglement with a professor and three unruly students. In a NYT Book Review, Julia May Jones calls Reid “a social observer of the highest order,” and NPR says, ”Reid nails the anxiety about the future (and...

Award-winning journalist Carvell Wallace will read from and talk with author Darius Stewart about his memoir, Another Word for Love. In Another Word for Love, Wallace excavates layers of his own history, situated in the struggles and beauty of growing up Black and queer in America. “Another Word For Love is generous in how genuine the journey, the offering feels. Walking alongside a writer who is attempting to come to terms with the enormity of their survival, its joys and aches. And through...

Please join us with Trans Handy Ma'am, Mercury Stardust! This is a free event, and we will have copies of her #1 New York Times Bestselling Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair. Mercury will give a reading/talk about the book, meet fans, and sign books. Please join us! The event will begin at 7 p.m., seating will give priority to those who have pre-registered and arrive early. To pre-register, click HERE. Seating will be available starting at 6:20 p.m. Walk-ins will also be...