Upcoming Events
Natalie Lira & Angela Hume: New Histories for Reproductive Justice | Live from Prairie Lights
Thursday, March 28, 2024 7:00pm
Professors Natalie Lira and Angela Hume will talk about their new books, Laboratory of Deficiency and Deep Care. They will engage in conversation about reproductive justice on the topics of abortion and the history of sterilization.
Natalie Lira is Assistant Professor of Latina/Latino Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of Laboratory of Deficiency. "Lira's multilayered research and analysis provide a powerful model for understanding and challenging the...
Nonfiction Writing Program Alumni Reading Series: Deborah Taffa
Friday, March 29, 2024 5:30pm
Writer Deborah Taffa, a graduate of the Nonfiction Writing Program and MFA director of the Institute of American Indian Arts, will read from her debut book Whiskey Tender at Prairie Lights Books on Friday, March 31 at 5:30 p.m. This event, which is open to the public, is part of the NWP Alumni Reading Series.
Art & Write Night
Friday, April 5, 2024 6:00pm to 8:00pm
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...
Mission Creek Festival | Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games with Carmen Maria Machado, Larissa Pham, and J Robert Lennon
Friday, April 5, 2024 7:30pm
This special 7:30 p.m. Mission Creek Festival event celebrates something you may not know some of your favorite authors are interested in: gaming. Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games, published by Graywolf, celebrates this sophisticated medium and considers its lasting impact on our culture and ourselves. “[Video games] raise profound questions for the humans who find themselves enraptured by these digital puzzles, adventures, and battles lighting up their computers, televisions, or...
Live from Prairie Lights | Dan Beachy-Quick
Monday, April 8, 2024 7:00pm
The Ancient Exchanges speaker series presents poet and translator Dan Beachy-Quick, who will talk about his work.
Dan Beachy-Quick's translations from ancient Greek include the lyric collection Stone Garland and The Thinking Root, a collection of fragments of early philosophy (both from Milkweed Editions), as well as most recently Wind--Mountain--Oak: The Poems of Sappho (Tupelo Press, 2023). Of his approach to translation, Beachy-Quick writes, "There are depths within the denotative life of...
Judging Books by Covers: History in the Making
Thursday, April 11, 2024 12:00pm to 1:00pm
A Virtual Curator Talk with Eric Ensley and Emily Martin
Join Eric Ensley and Emily Martin, co-curators of Making the Book, Past and Present, for a behind-the-scenes look at their Main Library Gallery exhibition. Find out how they decided which Special Collections & Archives materials to share with visitors, discover more about some of the curators' favorite items, and learn why it is so important to show modern book art in conversation with historic books.
Registration is required to attend...
Live from Prairie Lights | Sarah Braunstein in conversation with Rachel Yoder
Friday, April 12, 2024 7:00pm
National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” award-winner Sarah Braunstein will read from her new novel, Bad Animals. She will be joined in conversation by author Rachel Yoder. "Bad Animals opens with a delightful shock, and then the fun begins. With deft, sly, loving insight into the human animal and its genius for self-deception, Braunstein ratchets up and sustains this extraordinary novel's elegance and complexity until the last, beautiful sentence." —Kate Christensen
Sarah Braunstein is the author...
Local Libraries LIT: Virginia Sole-Smith
Thursday, April 18, 2024 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Join the libraries of Johnson County for the latest Local Libraries LIT author event featuring Virginia Sole-Smith. This is a free virtual event, with registration required.
As a journalist, Virginia Sole-Smith has reported from kitchen tables and grocery stores, graduated from beauty school, and gone swimming in a mermaid’s tail. Virginia’s latest book, Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture, investigates how the “war on childhood obesity” has caused kids of all ages to absorb a daily...
Live from Prairie Lights | Mario Duarte - My Father Called Us Monkeys
Wednesday, April 24, 2024 7:00pm
Iowa Writers’ Workshop alum Mario Duarte will read from his new book published by Ice Cube Press, My Father Called Us Monkeys. “Mario Duarte juxtaposes innocent voices against tragic and tender moments while giving us a moving snapshot of a young Mexican American boy growing up in the Midwest. Duarte’s eye for scenic landscape and his ear for captivating dialogue stand out in this debut short story collection.”—Jose B. Gonzalez
Mario Duarte is a Mexican American poet and fiction writer whose...
Live from Prairie Lights | Margaret Yapp & Katie Berta- poetry
Friday, April 26, 2024 7:00pm
Iowa Writers’ Workshop alum, Margaret Yapp will read from Green for Luck: Poems
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