When we learned the movie adaptation of Nightbitch — Iowa City author Rachel Yoder’s satirical 2021 novel about a new mother embracing her inner (and outer) beast — would be headlining FilmScene’s Refocus Film Festival in October, Little Village editors naturally began imagining a cover for the September Fall Arts Preview involving Yoder holding some […]
Iowa City literature
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Photo Gallery: Mission Creek Festival 2023
Mission Creek, the beloved three-day Iowa City festival focused on music and literature, returned on April 6-8 for its 18th year. Over 20 national and local music acts performed at various venues downtown across three days. The weekend saw performances by Cat Power, Black Belt Eagle Scout, Snail Mail, Kevin Morby, Greg Wheeler & The […]
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Children’s authors, illustrators headline two-day Kidlit Pizzazz Festival, returning to Sidekick Coffee and Books on Nov. 5
Sidekick Coffee and Books has cozy green couches and private booths. It has a long coffee bar, complete with pastries and ice cream. But apart from its floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, the bookstore’s most prominent feature is the children’s section. Rows of children’s books cover two walls and surround three hexagon-shaped reading nooks. Katy Herbold, the owner […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Photo Gallery: Mission Creek Festival 2022
After two years of COVID-19 disruptions, Iowa City’s Mission Creek Festival returned to an in-person format this year. Thirty-five separate bands and musicians performed across three days, and 12 authors, as well as many other writers and poets, held readings, Q&As and conversations. The weekend saw packed performances by Beach Bunny, Soccer Mommy and Arooj […]
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Get lit at Mission Creek! A preview of the festival’s literature event track
The Mission Creek Festival, a highlight of the area’s arts and culture scene, always includes an impressive slate of authors and a variety of ways to interact with them. This year’s festival includes the annual Lit Walk (April 8), which connects readers and writers in a different setting throughout downtown Iowa City; the Small Press […]
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Cortado: Santuario de letras y guitarras
Es un viernes de diciembre del 2021, y afuera hace frío. Pero esta antesala al invierno de Iowa no es motivo para no reunirse en el Sanctuary Pub de Iowa City, tomar una cerveza y escuchar cuentos, historias y poemas en idioma español. Esta noche no es una cualquiera porque esta actividad literaria llamada Subtituladxs […]
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Sounds like a lotta hoopla to make over a library app, right? Wrong!
Just in time for winter’s arrival, the Iowa City Public Library (ICPL) has partnered with a new streaming service to bring members audiobooks, e-books, comics, movies, television shows and music. hoopla is the digital service of Midwest Tape, an Ohio-based company that distributes entertainment media to public libraries across North America. It has over a […]
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No writing style is off limits in The Writers’ Rooms
When Erin Casey and Alex Penland started The Writers’ Rooms, the idea was to create supportive environments for writers who worked in one of several specific genres. As the organization’s website puts it: “The Writers’ Rooms endeavors to help all writers with their craft. We strive to encourage and foster community-sourced knowledge to help lead […]
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‘We were meant to suffer together’: Iowa City to celebrate Dostoevsky’s 200th through his last, epic novel
On March 13, 2020, five days after the first confirmed COVID-19 cases in Iowa, Anna Barker texted UNESCO City of Literature director John Kenyon, with her trademark triple-exclamatory enthusiasm: “Call me call me call me!!! I have an AMAZING quarantine book idea!!!” Barker, a professor of Russian literature at the University of Iowa with a […]
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En Español: A Q&A with three Spanish-language writers in Iowa City
Estaba previsto que Mélanie Márquez Adams, Javier Hernández Feris y Gabriel Villarroel participaran en el evento Subtituladxs Lit Walk de Mission Creek Festival el 3 de abril, antes de la cancelación del evento. Subtituladxs es una serie de lecturas que destaca a los estudiantes del MFA de escritura creativa en español de la Universidad de […]
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Four Iowa City-connected writers to see at Mission Creek Festival
The 2019 Mission Creek Festival includes, as always, a robust literary lineup. Many of the featured authors have a connection to Iowa City. Of these, four have grabbed my attention. Sabrina Orah Mark Visual Poetry Synthesizer Saturday, April 6, 4 p.m. — 7 S Linn St Iowa Writers’ Workshop alum Sabrina Orah Mark pushes the […]
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Book excerpt: The Fugs’ Ed Sanders incites a indie media revolution with his zine ‘Fuck You’
Ed Sanders grew up in western Missouri, in the small farm town of Blue Springs. After briefly attending the University of Missouri, he hitchhiked to the East Coast in 1958 to attend New York University. “I soon was enmeshed in the culture of the Beats,” Sanders recalled in his memoir, Fug You, “as found in Greenwich Village bookstores, in the poetry readings in coffeehouses on MacDougal Street, in New York City art and jazz, and in the milieu of pot and counterculture that was rising.” He also began volunteering at the Catholic Worker, a newspaper founded by activist Dorothy Day that was dedicated to social justice.
