Writers' Workshop and Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program graduate Jen Percy will read from her newest book, Girls Play Dead, and will be joined in conversation with former Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program professor Kerry Howley. Girls Play Dead is described as "a landmark exploration of one of the most consequential and pervasive issues of our time — sexual violence ... blending investigative reportage and memoir to explore the misunderstood ways women survive and forever carry trauma ... Since her...

Shane McCrae is the author of several books of poetry, including In the Language of My Captor, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the William Carlos Williams Award; Sometimes I Never Suffered, shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize; and his most recent collection, The Many Hundreds of the Scent. McCrae is the recipient of a Whiting Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, and a Guggenheim...

Anthony Swofford is the author of the memoirs Jarhead and Hotels, Hospitals, and Jails and the novel Exit A. The 2005 Sam Mendes film Jarhead was adapted from his first book, detailing his service in the United States Marine Corps and his combat deployment for the 1990-91 Gulf War.

His essays, reportage, and opinion pieces have appeared in Harper’s, The Guardian, Slate, and The New York Times, among other places. He has taught at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is currently Special Faculty in the...