The annual Lit Walk returns to MCF this year with three rounds of speakers at your favorite local hotspots! Bringing Iowa City to life in new ways, hear an unexpected variety of work from a mix of talented local and out-of-town writers. For complete lineup, check the 2023 Mission Creek Festival Website!

Join us at Prairie Lights at 7 p.m. with Shelley Wong, Lauren Haldeman, and Courtney Marie Andrews, who will read from their work. 

Shelley Wong is the author of As She Appears, winner of the Pamet River Prize, longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award, and a finalist for the 2023 Lambda Literary Award. She lives in San Francisco.

Lauren Haldeman is the author of the poetry/graphic novel Team Photograph, and the collections Instead of Dying (winner of the 2017 Colorado Prize for Poetry), Calenday, and The Eccentricity is Zero. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Tin House, The Colorado Review, The Iowa Review, Fence and others. She lives in Iowa City.

Courtney Marie Andrews is an Arizona-born poet and critically acclaimed indie-folk songwriter. She received a Grammy nomination for her 2020 album Old Flowers. Her most recent album, Loose Future, was released in 2022. Old Monarch is Andrews's first book of poetry and centers around themes of longing and a desire to belong while excavating scenes from her childhood in the American Southwest.