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More than 40 Pulitzer Prize winners. Seven U.S. Poet Laureates. Countless award-winning playwrights, nonfiction writers, screenwriters, memoirists, journalists, translators, novelists and poets. Iowa is The Writing University®.

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Publish your work. Break the big story. Produce a film. Write the next great American novel. Secure a scientific grant. You can do it all at the University of Iowa.

Featured Events 

 

Readings, talks and presentations are happening all around Iowa City.

 

Upcoming Events

Iowa City Book Festival | Tree Tour: Literary Grove at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop promotional image

Iowa City Book Festival | Tree Tour: Literary Grove at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop

Monday, October 19, 2026 12:00pm
Dey House

Explore the Literary Grove with University of Iowa Arborist Andy Dahl
Take a guided stroll through the Literary Grove, where each tree has a story to tell. Arborist Andy Dahl will share the unique histories and literary connections of these remarkable trees, many linked to celebrated authors from the world-renowned Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Playwrights Workshop Reading: Luggage Baby promotional image

Playwrights Workshop Reading: Luggage Baby

Monday, October 19, 2026 5:30pm
Theatre Building

By Darrin Terpstra

You came to America on a plane. Your mother likes to say the plane was her womb, and the landing was your birth.

Please be advised this play contains content about grief, racism, and conservative Christianity.

Part of Theatre Arts' Reading Series

Tickets:
Tickets for readings are free of charge; seating is limited.

Iowa City Book Festival & Geneva Lecture Series | Marilynne Robinson and Nicholas Kristof promotional image

Iowa City Book Festival & Geneva Lecture Series | Marilynne Robinson and Nicholas Kristof

Monday, October 19, 2026 7:00pm
Macbride Hall

The following is copied from https://www.iowacityofliterature.org/event/marilynne-robinson-and-nicholas-kristof/:

How Can We Hope When It All Feels Hopeless? An evening with Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas Kristof and Marilynne Robinson

Marilynne Robinson is the author of the novels Housekeeping, Gilead, Home, Lila, and Jack. Gilead won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award, while Home received the Orange Prize for Fiction and Lila won the National Book Critics...

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