Catch our final Rooftop Reading of the season on  Friday September 27th. Join us on the lovely deck atop Market House for an evening interweaving local live music, poetry and prose from some of our areas most exciting artists. Bring a buddy or a date or come solo. Stay for a drink and the spectacular views. Our June event kicks off the series with poet Danny Khalastchi, prose writer Amy Margolis and musician Jordan Sellergren. We couldn’t be more excited for this powerhouse trio to perform.

Amy Margolis started her career with the Iowa Summer Writers Festival as a graduate assistant in 1990. She’s directed the program since 2001. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She’s taught creative writing in the Festival, at the University of Iowa, and as a visiting writer in programs nationwide. Her fiction and nonfiction appear in The Iowa Review. Amy is currently at work on a memoir-in-shards about her life as a dancer in the late seventies, at the onset of the AIDS crisis. An excerpt from the memoir, “1978,” was selected for inclusion in The Best American Essays 2024, forthcoming in October, 2024.

Daniel Khalastchi is an Iraqi Jewish American. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a former fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, he is the author of four books of poetry—Manoleria (Tupelo Press), Tradition (McSweeney’s), American Parables (University of Wisconsin Press, winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry), and The Story of Your Obstinate Survival (University of Wisconsin Press). His work has appeared in numerous publications, including The American Poetry Review, The Believer Logger, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Electric Lit, Granta, The Iowa Review, Poetry Northwest, and Best American Experimental Writing. Daniel has taught advanced writing, literature, and publishing courses at Augustana College, Marquette University, Coe College, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He currently lives in Iowa City where he directs the University of Iowa’s Magid Center for Writing. He is the cofounder and managing editor of Rescue Press.

Jordan Sellergren is a mother, songwriter, artist, and the Art Director at Little Village Magazine in Iowa City. Her second full-length album, “Sweet, Bitter Tears” was released in 2020.