Brooklyn-based writer and Iowa Writers’ Workshop alum Paul Lisicky will read from his newest book, Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell. He will be joined in conversation with fellow Writers’ Workshop alum and current Iowa City resident, Garth Greenwell. Named a Most Anticipated Book of Spring 2025 by Kirkus Reviews, LitHub, and Electric Lit, Song So Wild and Blue is a “guide to life that is part memoir, part biography [of Joni Mitchell], and part homage,” and it’s “a joy for devoted Joni enthusiasts, budding writers, and artists of all stripes” (paullisicky.net). Bestselling author and current Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program professor Melissa Febos praises Song So Wild and Blue as “an exquisite, subtle ode to the people we used to be, and their inextricable intertwinement with the artists who change us,” while bestselling author Elizabeth McCracken says of Lisicky: “There is no writer more attentive…and to see him turn his brilliance to Joni Mitchell is a thrilling wonder. Some of us have been waiting for him to write a book about his relationship to her for years. This book exceeds all my extraordinarily high expectations for its strangeness and honesty and beauty, its ability to set the gossamer wings of song on the page. I loved it.”

Paul Lisicky is the author of seven books including Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell, Later: My Life at the Edge of the World (one of NPR’s Best Books of 2020), as well as The Narrow Door (a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a Finalist for the Randy Shilts Award), Unbuilt Projects, The Burning House, Famous Builder, and Lawnboy. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, Conjunctions, The Cut, Fence, The New York Times, Ploughshares, Tin House, and in many other magazines and anthologies. His honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the James Michener/Copernicus Society, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Rose Dorothea Award from the Provincetown Library. He has taught in the creative writing programs at Antioch University Los Angeles, Cornell University, New York University, Sarah Lawrence College, The University of Texas at Austin and elsewhere. He is currently a Professor of English in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Rutgers University-Camden, where he is Editor of StoryQuarterly. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. (paullisicky.net)

Garth Greenwell is the author of What Belongs to You, which won the British Book Award for Debut of the Year, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and was a finalist for many other awards, including the PEN/Faulkner Award, the LA Times Book Prize, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His second book, Cleanness, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and was longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize, the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and the Prix Sade, among others. A New York Times Notable Book, it was named a Best Book of 2020 by over thirty publications. His new novel, Small Rain, was published in September. His cultural criticism has appeared widely, and he writes regularly about books, music, and film for the Substack newsletter To a Green Thought. A 2020 Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of the 2021 Vursell Award for prose style from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, he is currently a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. (garthgreenwell.com)