Literature

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...

Iowa Writers' Workshop alum Melissa Mogollon will read from her coming of age comedy, Oye: A Novel.  “Funny and smart, Oye grapples with the messy inheritance of intergenerational trauma and how it manifests in the everyday conversations with the people we love. Mogollon has written a beautiful book.”—Claire Jimenez  “Heartbreaking and humorous, mature and mischievous, Oye feels like home in delicious and furious ways....

Anthony Varallo and Jared Joseph will read from their new fiction, What Did You Do Today? and Danny the Ambulance.  Anthony Varallo will read from What Did You Do Today?, winner of the 2023 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction. “There are few authors working in the flash form today who write with as much grace and mastery...

Hollywood singer and choral director Sally Stevens will read from her new work of historical fiction, The Odyssey of Mrs. Naomi Billingsley.  “Come with us on the magical journey of the sweetly insane and delusional Mrs. Naomi Billingsley, who has created fantastic, magical and delightful fantasies to break the humdrum existence of her daily midwestern life....

Suzanne Scanlon will read from her intimate, unsparing chronicle of surviving mental illness, Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen. She will be joined in conversation by Mieke Eerkens. "Suzanne Scanlon’s memoir Committed is a lyrical and illuminating account of a young woman’s struggle with mental illness and institutionalization. Mining the metaphors endemic to the institutional setting—the way madness or insanity is “a...