Uchenna Awoke will read from his new novel, A Siege of Owls, and will be joined in conversation with Iowa Writers' Workshop graduate, Reyumeh Ejue. Described as "An urgent and unforgettable work of magical realism following a young man coming of age in rural West Africa as he bears witness to the violence, upheaval, and hope in a rapidly changing society," A Siege of Owls is praised by The Malvern Observer as "a deeply human, urgent, and earnest story," while Chimezie Chika, author of Afrocritik, says: "A Siege of Owls is a masterpiece . . . If mythmaking — that is, mythmaking the becoming or unbecoming of our country — is Awoke’s goal in writing this novel, he immensely succeeds in mythologising the aggressive extremities of our times."

Uchenna Awoke is a writer from Nsukka, Nigeria and the author of The Liquid Eye of a Moon. His short stories have appeared in Transition, Elsewhere, Trestle Ties, Oyster River Pages, Evergreen Review, and other publications. He has received fellowships from MacDowell and the Vermont Studio Center. He is an Artist Protection Fund Fellow and was the inaugural Arkansas International Writer-at-Risk Residency Fellow, currently enrolled at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. He was a 2019 Graywolf African Fiction Prize finalist.

Reyumeh Ejue is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His stories have been published in Agni, Subtropics, and swamp pink. He won a fiction prize at The Hudson Review, and was a finalist for the Witness Magazine Short Story Prize.