The Whiting Awards announced their 2020 winners Wednesday night, and on the list is University of Iowa alum Andrea Lawlor. The awards are given annually to writers of poetry, fiction, drama and nonfiction; Lawlor is being honored for their fiction work. Since 1985, the Whiting Awards have sought to recognize writers “based on early accomplishment […]
Genevieve Trainor
Genevieve Trainor lives in Iowa City, Iowa. Passions include heavy music, hoppy beer, and hidden rooms.
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Art in the time of COVID-19: Arin Eaton
Karen Meat has been performing their weird, delicious brand of pop music for seven years now. “There have been various incarnations of it,” says the band’s foundational member Arin Eaton, “but it’s what keeps it alive and interesting.”
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Housebound and looking for something to do? Local events are happening online
From Netflix Party to online streaming concerts, Americans have joined the rest of the world in recent days figuring out ways to connect and engage — from a distance. The eastern Iowa community has been making some of these same moves, too. On St. Patrick’s Day, over 400 people at any one time were glued […]
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Art in the time of COVID-19: Elizabeth Moen
When Iowa City’s Elizabeth Moen dove into songwriting, it was head-first and no looking back. In the less than five years Moen’s been writing and recording, she’s released three albums, and has one in the wings. Her self-titled debut prompted our reviewer Kent Williams to write, “This is a remarkable first album, that seems to have come — as the best things sometimes do — out of nowhere.”
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Mission Creek Festival organizers on the cancellation — and future — of their 2020 fest
On Thursday, March 12, just three days before Little Village issue 281 was due to go to print, Iowa City’s Mission Creek Festival made the announcement that it wouldn’t be holding its much-anticipated April 1-4 fest. It was six days after the cancellation of Austin’s SXSW festival had shaken the film and music worlds, the […]
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Art in the time of COVID-19: Tara McGovern
Today is St. Patrick’s Day. It’s been my favorite holiday since childhood, and a big part of that has always been the music, the love of which was passed down from my mother and grandmother right along with the family lore and recipes. That music, at least the live version of it, will be largely […]
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From Lizzo’s ‘Cuz I Love You’ to Migo’s ‘Culture II,’ engineer/mixer Sean Phelan is making his mark — and doing Cedar Rapids proud
“I moved directly on out to Los Angeles, sight unseen. Just did kinda the cliche: pack your bags and go.” Sean Phelan is self-effacing when he tells his story, as though it all happened to him — as though he’s the luckiest guy in the world. But demand is rising for the skills of the […]
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Five questions with: Playwright/actor David Lee Nelson
This Friday, Feb. 28, Riverside Theatre’s artistic director Adam Knight brings a story close to his heart to the Gilbert Street stage. Stages is a play that Knight helped develop with long-time friend David Lee Nelson, following Nelson’s diagnosis in 2017 with stage four colon cancer. Throughout the course of his chemotherapy, Nelson kept a […]
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Book Review: ‘A Visit to Lost Otter Farm’ by Cory Christiansen, illus. by Mackinzie Rekers
‘A Visit to Lost Otter Farm’ By Cory Christiansen, illus. by Mackinzie Rekers — Self-published Every year, the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature offers One Book Two Book, a festival for all kids, from the book character meet-and-greets for your toddler (with unbelievably tolerant folks dressed in full-coverage, big-headed costumes) to the Junior High […]
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Blake Shaw gets romantic: 14 songs on his Valentine’s Day playlist
Musician Blake Shaw is a familiar face, and voice, in Iowa City. He’s been performing in town for the past 16 years, more than half his life, and living here for 10 of those. If you frequent the city’s formidable jazz circuit, you might have seen him playing out with the Blake Shaw Quintet, Blake […]
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‘Thespians can boogie, too’: Riverside Theatre and HomeBrewed team up to support Free Shakespeare
If you’ve attended a fundraiser in the Iowa City area in the last several years, there’s a better-than-average chance that you’ve heard the sounds of HomeBrewed. They’ve played shows for CommUnity’s Project Holiday meal campaign, for Strengthen • Grow • Evolve, for the local chapter of National Alliance on Mental Illness and many other
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‘Kids, let’s face it — they can be a tough audience’: Hancher to kick-off youth programming with Gina Chavez
Musician Gina Chavez is a study in synthesis. In a story familiar to many multi-ethnic Americans, she didn’t always have meaning or identity convenient to her. But she has made a life and a career of creating meaning, of pulling disparate elements in her life into communion with each other. “I didn’t grow up speaking Spanish,” Chavez said
