Hello Iowa City readers, writers and bibliophiles – this sweltering week in the middle of June is the perfect week for you. A fantastic selection of readings are coming your way in the next few days, and whether you’re a veteran of Iowa City’s long tradition of literary readings, or you’ve been timidly waiting on […]
literature
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Review: ‘Boleto’ by Alyson Hagy – Reading Wed. 6/13 at Prairie Lights
Reading: Alyson Hagy | Prairie Lights | June 13 | 7:00 p.m. | FREE Early into Alyson Hagy’s new novel Boleto, protagonist Will Testerman’s father complains about the recent influx of people moving to the tiny town of Lost Cabin, Wyoming, where the Testerman family resides on their farm. “When I was a kid,” he […]
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An Interview with Author Kevin Wilson
This Thursday at 7:00 p.m., author Kevin Wilson will be at Prairie Lights reading from his first novel, The Family Fang, a darkly comedic story of a married pair of performance artists and the two children they involve in their art. The novel, published in August of 2011, follows his 2009 collection of short stories […]
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Introductions and Gifts
Read an excerpt from Larry Baker’s new book, Love and Other Delusions and his interview with Yale Cohn.
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“The Burg: A Writer’s Diner” Launched 4/24 – Reading 5/8 at Prairie Lights
I tend to feel a bit possessive of Hamburg Inn. It’s always the first stop for my boyfriend and me when he visits Iowa City, and I’m pretty convinced the pork tenderloin was created solely for my benefit. The magical thing about Hamburg, though, is that most of the people I know feel the same […]
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Inside the Canarium
Once upon a time, I wanted to be a poet. I carried around a notebook, went to readings, bought poetry books, took poetry classes. What was hard was actually writing poems. One day in class, Marvin Bell said something that took a while to sink in, “Poets write poetry because that’s what they do, they […]
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Interview with Author Madeline McDonnell
On Thursday July 28, Madeline McDonnell will be reading at Prairie Lights with fellow Rescue Press author Andrea Rexilius. I sat down with her to talk about her writing, teaching, and her work as a lexicographer for the Oxford English Dictionary.
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Books: Out in the Ordinary
Iowa didn’t mean anything to gay rights six years ago when novelist Nick Burd was in New York writing The Vast Fields of Ordinary. The presidential candidates vetted here didn’t tend to favor expanding gay rights. And while most of the state’s bigger towns were generally tolerant–for the Midwest, at least–same-sex unions seemed destined to […]
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The Times Club: Interview with Manager and Curator Pete Schulte
Pete Schulte came on board as manager and curator at the Times Club over the summer with hopes of changing how a social space such as a coffee shop can be activated and perceived anew through thoughtful curation and mediation. Since Pete’s first show Gone to the Other Side in September, The Times Club has […]
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Lit Scene: The Truth, The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth
“NonfictioNow” to me was a question: What is nonfiction (now)? There was not one answer. Asking a group of graduate students from the Nonfiction Writing Program yielded all different responses:
“The only genre defined by what it is not.”
“Fiction with a prefix.”
“There’s only one thing it isn’t, though often it is.
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24 Hour Comics Day – North Hall, Saturday October 2nd
This weekend: The 24 Hour Comics Day! See comic artists go mental trying to draw a 24-page comic book in 24 hrs!
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Gimme a (Line) Break
In a town like Iowa City, there’s no shortage of writers. It seems like everywhere you go–the Java House, The Times Club at Prairie Lights, the Burlington street Kum-and-Go at midnight on a Tuesday–you run into someone who either writes, wants to write, or (possibly) is holding a Pulitzer prize.
