The Iowa City Book Festival presents Writers' Workshop graduate Eskor David Johnson, who will read from his debut novel Pay As You Go.  “A madcap odyssey through the hellscape that is the metropolis of the near future. […] Like Dante, Slide wanders in circles, soaking in weirdness, tragedies, and occasional flashes of beauty. And like Joyce, Johnson builds a world that, for all its improbabilities, is recognizable. […] An inventive, beautifully written debut that will leave readers wanting more...

Justin Torres is the author of We the Animals, which won the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, was translated into 15 languages, and was adapted into a feature film. A graduate of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he will read from and discuss his new book, Blackouts. Fellow Workshop graduate Jamel Brinkley will moderate. This event is live and in-person. This event is part of the 2023 Iowa City Book Festival and is sponsored by the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature. To subscribe to...

Hear Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate, renowned novelist, and Oscar award-winning screenwriter John Irving (67MFA) read from his latest novel, The Last Chairlift, during this special evening at Hancher Auditorium, which will include a chat between the author and Workshop Director Lan Samantha Chang. Irving studied under writer Kurt Vonnegut at Iowa and served as an Iowa Writers’ Workshop instructor from 1972 to 1975. While on campus, the avid wrestler struck up a lifelong friendship with famed...

The Iowa City Book Festival presents Writers' Workshop faculty member Tracie Morris, who will share her latest poetry collection, Human/Nature.  "Tracie Morris is the genius poet of the double-dutch: crafted, elegant, urgent, playful, fun, and musically timed. In human/nature poems, Morris dismantles gentrification, climate violence, space/history travel, ancestry, and inspires us to look at our relationship to what we call 'nature,' and what we deem 'human.' Our memories are stirred toward ice...