Please join us for a special early launch of award-winning poet Kaveh Akbar’s first novel, Martyr!  One of the most eagerly anticipated books of 2024, Martyr! has received praise from writers including John Green, Raven Leilani and Mary Karr. Tommy Orange calls Martyr!  “An absolute jewel of a novel. A diamond. I haven’t loved a book this much in years. Kaveh’s writing is so thoroughly powerful and gorgeous you can feel it from where dreams come, and in all over your brain, and straight from the bottom of your heart. This book does everything. It is so entirely funny and sad and true and beautiful. Kaveh Akbar is one of my favorite writers. Ever.”

Akbar will be joined in conversation by author Melissa Febos.
Kaveh Akbar is the author of the poetry collections Pilgrim Bell and Calling a Wolf a Wolf, in addition to a chapbook, Portrait of the Alcoholic. He is also the editor of The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse: 110 Poets on the Divine and co-editor with Paige Lewis of the anthology Another Last Call: Poems on Addiction and Deliverance. He lives in Iowa City.

Melissa Febos is the author of the memoir Whip Smart, the essay collections Abandon Me and the National Book Critics Circle Award Winning Girlhood, as well as the craft book, Body Work.  She teaches in the Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program and lives in Iowa City.