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Writing-related events take place nearly every day of the year in Iowa City. Use this page to stay up to date on upcoming author readings, book signings, lectures, Q&As, and other unique opportunities scheduled around town.
Upcoming
International Lights Salon Series
Enjoy conversation, connection, and community over light snacks and wine. A collaboration with the International Writing Program, the International Lights Salon provides a space for visiting International writers, local artists, university students, and community members to engage in dialogue.Join us online or in person. For a zoom link email Jennifer at: jennifer@porchlightliterary.orgCamila Urioste is a Bolivian writer. With Diario de Alicia (2005) she became the first woman in Bolivia to win...
Iowa City Book Festival | Tree Tour: Literary Grove at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop
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
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.
All Events
International Lights Salon Series
Enjoy conversation, connection, and community over light snacks and wine. A collaboration with the International Writing Program, the International Lights Salon provides a space for visiting International writers, local artists, university students, and community members to engage in dialogue.Join us online or in person. For a zoom link email Jennifer at: jennifer@porchlightliterary.orgCamila Urioste is a Bolivian writer. With Diario de Alicia (2005) she became the first woman in Bolivia to win...
Iowa City Book Festival | Tree Tour: Literary Grove at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop
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
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
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...
Super-Powered Storytelling: On Writing Comics
Iowa City Book Festival | Mark Leidner - 'Elegy for Pangaea'
What Makes a Great Story?: Panel Discussion with Franklin Leonard and Ben Percy | Moderated By Rachel Yoder and Dean Bakopoulos
Literary Legends Featuring Pulitzer Prize Winner Yiyun Li (00MS, 05MFA)
Iowa City Book Festival | Patricia Foster: 'A Marriage in Startled Air'
Iowa City Book Festival | Harriet Clark: 'The Hill'
Write at the Stanley: A Generative Writing Workshop
Join us monthly to generate new creative writing inspired by works in the Stanley collection. Each session will be led by a different talented writer from our area, who will be offering a new prompt and a new approach to ekphrastic writing (writing inspired by visual art). Bring your own notebook and pencil or computer and leave with the beginning of a newly written piece.
Co-sponsored by Iowa City Poetry. Teen and adult writers in all genres are welcome.
Write at the Stanley meets every fourth...
Helen Betya Rubinstein in conversation with Bennett Sims
Live from Prairie Lights | Joanna Klink - 'Days & Chances'
Live from Prairie Lights | Tom Drury - 'West of Loveland'
Literary Agent Alia Hanna Habib
The Nonfiction Writing Program presents Alia Hanna Habib, vice president and literary agent at The Gernert Company, for a publishing talk.
At The Gernert Company, Habib represents MacArthur Fellows, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, National Book Award finalists, and numerous New York Times bestselling authors. She was profiled by New York Magazine for their special issue on “The 49 Most Powerful New Yorkers (You’ve Never Heard Of).”
Her book, Take it From Me, a guide to nonfiction writing...
"The Novel in a Time of Textpocalypse": a lecture by Dan Sinykin
Dan Sinykin is the author of American Literature and the Long Downturn: Neoliberal Apocalypse (Oxford 2020), Big Fiction: How Conglomeration Changed the Publishing Industry and American Literature (Columbia 2023), and, with Johanna Winant, Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century (Princeton 2025). He is working on a manuscript about the rise of, and alternatives to, Zionism in the Pale of Settlement. His talk will be titled "The Novel in a Time of Textpocalypse."
VIEWS Presents: Chanelle Benz Reading & Q&A
Art & Write Night
Join the long, rich, historical tradition of artists creating in our spaces.
Professional, aspiring, and amateur artists alike, make our museum your muse. The return of this popular program series welcomes guests into the Museum of Natural History's magical gallery spaces after-hours to work on sketching or writing projects with other campus and community artists.
Tell a friend, grab a notebook, and join us on the first Friday of each month. We'll provide a new inspo prompt for each session and...
Book Club at the Museum
Students, join the book club that meets monthly inside the iconic Old Capitol Museum, with books chosen by you. Come read, wonder, and connect as we transform this timeless building into a cozy retreat for shared stories and spirited discussion in the Pentacrest Museums first ever student book club.
For the Fall 2026 semester, Book Club @ the Museum will meet on the following Mondays from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at Old Cap:
Sept. 14: We'll pick a book and make "junk journals" together.
Oct. 12: Bookmark...
Live from Prairie Lights | Suzanne McConnell - 'If You Think Your Heart Can Take It and Other Stories'
Read on the Rug
Read on the Rug is back with monthly offerings but we're moving to FRIDAYS!
Join us on the second Friday of each month in Iowa Hall at the UI Museum of Natural History for Read on the Rug. Ideal for families or caregivers with kiddos aged 2-5, all are welcome to this free educational program. This program series was designed with our youngest museum lovers in mind. Come along as we build community and inspire a sense of wonder, curiosity, and respect for our natural and cultural worlds with...
Book Matters: Tisa Bryant and Sarah Minor
Live from Prairie Lights | Kate Gibbel & Alyssa Moore - 'Little Sound' & 'Come Again'
Live from Prairie Lights | Julie Orringer - 'Luna, Phoenix, Queen'
Punk in 50 Pieces
Co-sponsored by the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the Obermann Center.
Punk in 50 Pieces retells the story of punk’s cultural earthquake. Kevin Dettmar traces the evolution of this rock ‘n’ roll revolution, revealing how classic early punk (The Ramones, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop) gave birth to both post-punk (Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Gang of Four) and New Wave (Talking Heads, Blondie, Devo).Standing beside classic works such as Please Kill Me, Lipstick Traces, Rip It...
Write at the Stanley: A Generative Writing Workshop
Join us monthly to generate new creative writing inspired by works in the Stanley collection. Each session will be led by a different talented writer from our area, who will be offering a new prompt and a new approach to ekphrastic writing (writing inspired by visual art). Bring your own notebook and pencil or computer and leave with the beginning of a newly written piece.
Co-sponsored by Iowa City Poetry. Teen and adult writers in all genres are welcome.
Write at the Stanley meets every fourth...
Stephanie Krzywonos in conversation with Melissa Febos
Art & Write Night
Join the long, rich, historical tradition of artists creating in our spaces.
Professional, aspiring, and amateur artists alike, make our museum your muse. The return of this popular program series welcomes guests into the Museum of Natural History's magical gallery spaces after-hours to work on sketching or writing projects with other campus and community artists.
Tell a friend, grab a notebook, and join us on the first Friday of each month. We'll provide a new inspo prompt for each session and...
Read on the Rug
Read on the Rug is back with monthly offerings but we're moving to FRIDAYS!
Join us on the second Friday of each month in Iowa Hall at the UI Museum of Natural History for Read on the Rug. Ideal for families or caregivers with kiddos aged 2-5, all are welcome to this free educational program. This program series was designed with our youngest museum lovers in mind. Come along as we build community and inspire a sense of wonder, curiosity, and respect for our natural and cultural worlds with...
Book Club at the Museum
Students, join the book club that meets monthly inside the iconic Old Capitol Museum, with books chosen by you. Come read, wonder, and connect as we transform this timeless building into a cozy retreat for shared stories and spirited discussion in the Pentacrest Museums first ever student book club.
For the Fall 2026 semester, Book Club @ the Museum will meet on the following Mondays from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at Old Cap:
Sept. 14: We'll pick a book and make "junk journals" together.
Oct. 12: Bookmark...
Write at the Stanley: A Generative Writing Workshop
Join us monthly to generate new creative writing inspired by works in the Stanley collection. Each session will be led by a different talented writer from our area, who will be offering a new prompt and a new approach to ekphrastic writing (writing inspired by visual art). Bring your own notebook and pencil or computer and leave with the beginning of a newly written piece.
Co-sponsored by Iowa City Poetry. Teen and adult writers in all genres are welcome.
Write at the Stanley meets every fourth...
VIEWS Presents: Garth Greenwell & Julia Conrad
Write at the Stanley: A Generative Writing Workshop
Join us monthly to generate new creative writing inspired by works in the Stanley collection. Each session will be led by a different talented writer from our area, who will be offering a new prompt and a new approach to ekphrastic writing (writing inspired by visual art). Bring your own notebook and pencil or computer and leave with the beginning of a newly written piece.
Co-sponsored by Iowa City Poetry. Teen and adult writers in all genres are welcome.
Write at the Stanley meets every fourth...
VIEWS Presents: Gabrielle Calvocoressi Reading & Q&A
Write at the Stanley: A Generative Writing Workshop
Join us monthly to generate new creative writing inspired by works in the Stanley collection. Each session will be led by a different talented writer from our area, who will be offering a new prompt and a new approach to ekphrastic writing (writing inspired by visual art). Bring your own notebook and pencil or computer and leave with the beginning of a newly written piece.
Co-sponsored by Iowa City Poetry. Teen and adult writers in all genres are welcome.
Write at the Stanley meets every fourth...
Iowa New Play Festival
Iowa New Play Festival
Iowa New Play Festival
Iowa New Play Festival
Iowa New Play Festival
Write at the Stanley: A Generative Writing Workshop
Join us monthly to generate new creative writing inspired by works in the Stanley collection. Each session will be led by a different talented writer from our area, who will be offering a new prompt and a new approach to ekphrastic writing (writing inspired by visual art). Bring your own notebook and pencil or computer and leave with the beginning of a newly written piece.
Co-sponsored by Iowa City Poetry. Teen and adult writers in all genres are welcome.
Write at the Stanley meets every fourth...