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...

Alicia Wright presents the talk "The Making of a Literary Magazine" for the Iowa Summer Writing Festival's Eleventh Hour Lecture Series. Free and open to the public; all are welcome.

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.

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...