Pulitzer Prize finalist and MacArthur Fellowship recipient Karen Russell will read from her newest novel, The Antidote, and will be in conversation with New York Times bestselling author Kaveh Akbar. Says Akbar of The Antidote: "...Karen Russell writes indelible characters who keep choosing messy community over silo’d righteousness, motion over despair. She presents for inspection America’s most persistent chorus...

Join us for a special Darwin Day reading by Chris Jones, author of The Swine Republic. Published in 2023 by local publisher Ice Cube Press and named a 2024 "Great Reads from Great Places" book by the Library of Congress, The Swine Republic provides extensive research and reportage on the truth behind Iowa's infamously poor water quality, which...

Iowa Writers' Workshop alum and bestselling author Chris Offutt will read from his newest book, The Reluctant Sheriff, which is a continuation of his Mick Hardin thriller series. Praised by bestselling author Ian Rankin as “righteous Kentucky noir with top notes of Daniel Woodrell and S. A. Cosby,” The Reluctant Sheriff follows sheriff Mick Hardin as he navigates...

Writers' Workshop alum Jonathan Thirkield will read from his newest book of poems, Infinity Pool. The University of Chicago Press, publisher of Infinity Pool, describes Thirkield's poems as "... through a decade of exponential technological growth, landing in the reality of our corporeal experiences: the isolation of chronic illness, the daunting journeys of children growing up today,...

Iowa Writers' Workshop alum Sanjena Sathian will read from her new novel, Goddess Complex, and will be joined in conversation by Ren Arcamone, also a Writers' Workshop alum. Penguin Random House, which published Goddess Complex, describes it as "a darkly funny, vertiginous novel about the dilemmas of procreation, pregnancy, and parenting." Sarah Thankam Mathews, author of the...

Montreal-based professor of English and translator Nathan Brown will read from his translation of The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire. Verso Books says: "Probing the depths of the modern psyche in a voice at once caustic and vulnerable, melancholic and humorous, Baudelaire’s infamous book brings to the surface a new understanding of evil, of eroticism, and...

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...