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Upcoming Events

Live from Prairie Lights | Mary Jo Bang & Yuki Tanaka : Translation

Monday, March 24, 2025 6:00pm
Prairie Lights Books
Mary Jo Bang and Yuki Tanaka will discuss their translation of, A Kiss for the Absolute: Selected Poems of Shuzo Takiguchi, the first book of poems by the great Japanese surrealist to be published in English. Mary Jo Bang is the author of nine books of poems—including A Film in Which I Play Everyone, nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, a PEN Voelcker Award, and the Heartland Booksellers Award, A Doll for Throwing, and Elegy which received the National Book Critics Circle Award. She’s...

Live from Prairie Lights | Stuart Nadler

Monday, March 31, 2025 7:00pm
Prairie Lights Books
Stuart Nadler will read from his new novel, Rooms for Vanishing. Stuart Nadler is a recipient of the 5 Under 35 Award from the National Book Foundation, and the author of two novels, Wise Men and The Inseparables, and a story collection, The Book of Life. His work has been named a Kirkus Best Book of the Year, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection, and an Amazon Book of the Year. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was a Truman Capote Fellow and a Teaching...

Live from Prairie Lights | Karen Russell in conversation with Kaveh Akbar

Wednesday, April 2, 2025 7:00pm
Prairie Lights Books
Karen Russell will read from her new novel, The Antidote, in conversation with Kaveh Akbar. Karen Russell is the author of five books of fiction, including the NYT bestsellers Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove. She is a MacArthur Fellow and a Guggenheim Fellow, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the recipient of two National Magazine Awards for Fiction, the Shirley Jackson Award, the 2023 Bottari Lattes Grinzane prize, the 2024 Mary McCarthy Award, and selected for the National Book...
Art & Write Night promotional image

Art & Write Night

Friday, April 4, 2025 6:00pm to 8:00pm
University of Iowa Museum of Natural History
Join the long, rich, historical tradition of artists creating in our spaces. Professional, aspiring, and amateur artists alike, make our museum your muse. The return of this popular program series welcomes guests into the Museum of Natural History's magical gallery spaces after-hours to work on sketching or writing projects with other campus and community artists. Tell a friend, grab a notebook, and join us on the first Friday of each month. We'll provide a new inspo prompt for each session...

Live from Prairie Lights | Chris Offutt

Wednesday, April 9, 2025 7:00pm
Prairie Lights Books
Chris Offutt will read from his new novel, The Reluctant Sheriff. Chris Offutt grew up in Haldeman, Kentucky, population 200, a former mining town in the Appalachian hills. His books include Shifty's Boys, The Killing Hills, Country Dark, Kentucky Straight, Out of the Woods, The Good Brother, The Same River Twice, No Heroes, and My Father the Pornographer. He wrote and produced scripts for True Blood, Weeds, and Treme.  His television work was nominated for an Emmy. His work is in many...

Live from Prairie Lights | Jonathan Thirkield

Friday, April 11, 2025 7:00pm
Prairie Lights Books
Writers' Workshop alum, Jonathan Thirkield will read from his latest book, Infinity Pool. Jonathan Thirkield's work explores the boundaries between the human language systems of poetry and code—as forms of expression and as structural models for being. His first collection of poetry, The Waker's Corridor, won the 2008 Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets. His newest collection, Infinity Pool, was published by the University of Chicago Press' Phoenix Poets series in September of...

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48-Hour Flash Writing Contest | Write Now promotional image

48-Hour Flash Writing Contest | Write Now

Friday, January 17 4:00pm to Sunday, January 19, 2025 4:00pm
Virtual
Mark your calendars for our UI Alumni and Friends Flash Writing Contest—a free, online short story competition for a variety of age groups. You don’t have be an Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate or an accomplished author to join in the fun. The contest begins on Friday, Jan. 17, 2024, at 4 p.m. CST, and runs through Sunday, Jan. 19, 2024, at 4 p.m. CST. At the contest's start, we'll provide a genre, character, and specific object to incorporate into your story. The rest is up to you! Submissions...
Washington Writers Workshop: Adiah Siler at the Washington, IA Public Library promotional image

Washington Writers Workshop: Adiah Siler at the Washington, IA Public Library

Saturday, January 11, 2025 10:00am
Washington Public Library
The Washington Public Library will be holding its next Washington Writers Workshop this Saturday beginning at 10 a.m. This workshop will feature a presentation on craft by visiting writer, Adiah Siler, during the first hour. We will workshop submissions of participants during the second hour. Free and open to adults and teens. Adiah Siler is an MFA candidate at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she’s utilizing her work to explore themes of identity and marginalization through speculative...
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marilynne robinson in front of audience
Mark Levine reading at Prairie Lights Bookstore
Arinze Ifeakandu holding microphone
Nikky Finney reading from her book
Okwudili Nebeolisa at podium in front of an audience
audience in Frank Conroy Reading Room
Tom Drury at a podium

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