Writers’ Workshop graduate Evan James will read from his new novel Cheer Up Mr. Widdicombe, a comedy of manners about an eccentric family and the absurd happenings that befall them during one frenzied summer at their home in the Pacific Northwest. “What a joy to be with the Widdicombes! As funny and charming as a summer party you never want to end.”— Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less

Evan James’s personal essays and fiction have appeared in The New York Times and Oxford...

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...

Writers’ Workshop graduates G.C. Waldrep and Karla Kelsey will read from their new work.

G.C. Waldrep will read from his recent poetry collection feast gently. “This is a book of visions, one that gives us a sound heard in extremity . . . This is a last moment, when no story we pretend to tell of ourselves ever will suffice. Only the lyric will, its belling of a spell. I love Waldrep’s work.” — Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic and Dancing in Odessa

G.C. Waldrep is the author, most...

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...