Upcoming Events

Upcoming Events

Poetry WorkShop at Harlan, IA Community Library- The Invisible Poem: Hajri Aga and william o'neal ii promotional image

Poetry WorkShop at Harlan, IA Community Library- The Invisible Poem: Hajri Aga and william o'neal ii

Saturday, March 14, 2026 11:00am to 1:00pm
Harlan Community Library

Free Event - 16 & Up featuring Writers' Workshop students Hajri Aga and william o'neal ii -- Poetry Readings, Discussions, Create New Poetry, or Bring Your Own Poetry Projects. A light lunch will be served for participants. "The mission of the Harlan Community Library is to provide a welcoming place to promote the love of reading and the joy of learning to the community." Library resources and services include a multitude of viewpoints. The library does not endorse any single position or opinion...

Write at the Stanley: A Generative Writing Workshop promotional image

Write at the Stanley: A Generative Writing Workshop

Sunday, March 22, 2026 2:30pm to 4:15pm
Stanley Museum of Art

Join us monthly to generate new creative writing inspired by works in the Stanley collection. Each session will be led by a different talented writer from our area, who will be offering a new prompt and a new approach to ekphrastic writing (writing inspired by visual art). Bring your own notebook and pencil or computer and leave with the beginning of a newly written piece.

Co-sponsored by Iowa City Poetry. Teen and adult writers in all genres are welcome.

Write at the Stanley meets every fourth...

Live from Prairie Lights | Benjamin Hale in conversation with Bennett Sims - 'Cave Mountain' promotional image

Live from Prairie Lights | Benjamin Hale in conversation with Bennett Sims - 'Cave Mountain'

Monday, March 23, 2026 7:00pm
Prairie Lights Books

Benjamin Hale will read from his new book, Cave Mountain: A Disappearance and a Reckoning in the Ozarks, and will be joined in conversation with University of Iowa Associate Professor, Bennett Sims. Praised by Patton Oswalt as "The damndest mixing of true crime, memoir, and maybe (?) ghost story I’ve ever read," Cave Mountain tells the true story of how Hale's cousin, Haley, disappeared in a mountain trail in the Ozarks when she was only 6 years old in 2001. After Haley was found, she spoke of...

Kevin Brockmeier: Reading & Q&A promotional image

Kevin Brockmeier: Reading & Q&A

Thursday, March 26, 2026 8:00pm to 9:00pm
Dey House

In addition to his latest book, The Ghost Variations: One Hundred Stories, Kevin Brockmeier is the author of the novels The Illumination, The Brief History of the Dead, and The Truth About Celia; the story collections Things That Fall from the Sky and The View from the Seventh Layer; the children’s novels City of Names and Grooves: A Kind of Mystery; and a memoir of his seventh-grade year called A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip. His work has been translated into eighteen languages. He has...

Farnoosh Fathi & Louisa Hall: Faculty Reading promotional image

Farnoosh Fathi & Louisa Hall: Faculty Reading

Friday, March 27, 2026 8:00pm to 9:00pm
Dey House

Join us for a reading with Workshop visiting faculty member, Farnoosh Fathi and the English department's Director of the English and Creative Writing Major, Associate Professor Louisa Hall.

Farnoosh Fathi is the author of the poetry collections Great Guns (Canarium 2013) and Granny Cloud (NYRB Poets 2024), editor of Joan Murray: Drafts, Fragments, and Poems (NYRB Poets 2018), and founder of the Young Artists Language and Devotion Alliance (YALDA). She lives and teaches in New York. Her research...

Live from Prairie Lights | Jeff Boyd in conversation with James F. Thomas - 'Hard Times' promotional image

Live from Prairie Lights | Jeff Boyd in conversation with James F. Thomas - 'Hard Times'

Monday, March 30, 2026 7:00pm
Prairie Lights Books

Iowa Writers' Workshop graduate Jeff Boyd will read from his new novel Hard Times and will be joined in conversation with University of Iowa Visiting Assistant Professor James F. Thomas. Described as "An extraordinary crime novel from a rising star, that follows the ripple effects of a tragic shooting throughout a Chicago community from the view of the teachers, police officers, and students impacted" (us.macmillan.com), Hard Times is praised by Xochitl Gonzalez, New York Times bestselling...

Just recently...

Application Deadline: Obermann End-of-Year Writing Retreat promotional image

Application Deadline: Obermann End-of-Year Writing Retreat

Friday, March 13, 2026 5:00pm
North Ridge Pavilion

Have you been waiting all school year to make serious progress on your book manuscript, article, or grant application? Jumpstart your summer writing project at the Obermann End-of-Year Writing Retreat May 11–14, 2026!

Fifteen participants will enjoy a week of quiet productivity apart from the distractions of campus at the beautiful North Ridge Pavilion in Coralville. Daily catered lunches will provide an opportunity for exchange and discussion with other writers across campus. Each day will...

Sterling HolyWhiteMountain: Reading & Q&A promotional image

Sterling HolyWhiteMountain: Reading & Q&A

Thursday, March 12, 2026 8:00pm to 9:00pm
Dey House

Sterling HolyWhiteMountain grew up on the Blackfeet Reservation. He holds a BA in English creative writing from the University of Montana and an MFA in fiction from the University of Iowa. He was a James C. McCreight Fiction Fellow at the University of Wisconsin and a Stegner fellow at Stanford University. His work has appeared in volumes 1 and 2 of Off the Path: An Anthology of 21st Century American Indian and Indigenous Writers, Montana Quarterly, ESPN.com., The Yellow Medicine Review and The...

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