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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.

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

 

Upcoming Events

Live From Prairie Lights | Tabatha Leggett in conversation with Jan Steyn - Enchantment promotional image

Live From Prairie Lights | Tabatha Leggett in conversation with Jan Steyn - Enchantment

Wednesday, September 9, 2026 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Prairie Lights Books
University of Iowa Literary Translation MFA candidate Tabatha Leggett will read from her translation of Riikka Pulkkinen's novel, Enchantment, and will be joined in conversation with Jan Steyn. Described as "a spellbinding literary mystery that explores the uneasy terrain of girlhood, where one is always being watched, shaped, and judged by others" (scribepublications.com), Enchantment is praised by Shelf Awareness as "a striking novel about girlhood, perception, and death," while Catherine Airey, author of Confessions, says: "An intricate tapestry of a novel by a masterful writer. Enchantment’s real triumph is its investigation into what we mean to one another as imperfect people."
Live from Prairie Lights | Tabatha Leggett in conv with Jan Steyn - Enchantment promotional image

Live from Prairie Lights | Tabatha Leggett in conv with Jan Steyn - Enchantment

Wednesday, September 9, 2026 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Prairie Lights Books
University of Iowa Literary Translation MFA candidate Tabatha Leggett will read from her translation of Riikka Pulkkinen's novel, Enchantment, and will be joined in conversation with Jan Steyn. Described as "a spellbinding literary mystery that explores the uneasy terrain of girlhood, where one is always being watched, shaped, and judged by others" (scribepublications.com), Enchantment is praised by Shelf Awareness as "a striking novel about girlhood, perception, and death," while Catherine Airey, author of Confessions, says: "An intricate tapestry of a novel by a masterful writer. Enchantment’s real triumph is its investigation into what we mean to one another as imperfect people."
Live From Prairie Lights | Patricia Albers in conv with Garth Greenwell - Everything Is Photograph: A Life of André Kertész promotional image

Live From Prairie Lights | Patricia Albers in conv with Garth Greenwell - Everything Is Photograph: A Life of André Kertész

Thursday, September 10, 2026 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Prairie Lights Books
Patricia Albers will read from her new biography, Everything Is Photograph: A Life of André Kertész, and will be joined in conversation with Garth Greenwell. Described as "The first full biography of the innovative 'father of modern photography' [which] vividly depicts his life and works, from Hungary to France and America, across the 20th century," Everything Is Photograph is praised by the New York Times, which says: "Everything Is Photograph is filled with [Albers’s] gorgeous descriptions of Kertész’s pictures, tempting you to interrupt your reading to Google every photo she writes about with such acuity and care. But the life she recounts is fascinating, too."
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