Live From Prairie Lights Archives 2004
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December
Play Max Allan Collins reading Dec 2
Max Allan Collins read from his latest book Road to Purgatory. It is the sequel to Road to Perdition, which was made into a major film starring Tom Hanks and Paul Newman. Among his many credits Collins is the author of the Nathan Heller mystery series; he wrote the Dick Tracy comic series for many years, and he's written several novels based on movies such as Saving Private Ryan and In the Line of Fire. On this program, we also talked with Collins' mother about her son's early writing years!
Play Marilynne Robinson reading Dec 1
Marilynne Robinson, professor at the Iowa Writer's Workshop and author of the revered novel Housekeeping, read from her new novel Gilead. A deeply felt and immaculately written story of three generations of Iowa ministers.
November
Play Peggy Faw Gish reading Nov 30
Internationally renowned peace activist Peggy Faw Gish read from her book Iraq: A Journey into Hope and Peace. It is her personal story of working with the Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq during the recent war.
Play Willard "Sandy" Boyd reading Nov 23
University of Iowa President emeritus Willard "Sandy" Boyd read from and discussed his newly republished collection Never Too Brief: Commencement Speeches During the 1970s and 1980s. Current University of Iowa President David Skorton gave a guest introduction for this program.
Play Lisa Reardon reading Nov 22
Lisa Reardon, author of Billy Dead and Blameless read from her latest novel The Mercy Killers. Author Margot Livesey says "From the opening chapter of her splendid new novel Lisa Reardon takes us into a world so complete, so undeniably itself that nothing seems more important than reading these pages and discovering what her vivid, ferocious characters will do next."
Play Mark Irwin reading Nov 18
Poet Mark Irwin read selections from his latest collection "Bright Hunger." Poet John Ashbery says " This a book one wants to taste again and again." In addition to four previous collections of poems, Irwin has also published translations from both the French and the Romanian.
Play Jeff Shaara reading Nov 17
Jeff Shaara, author of Gods and Generals, which was made into a major movie and The Last Full Measure discussed his latest bestseller To the Last Man: A Novel of the First World War. A sweeping, emotional story of the war that devastated a generation, and established America as a world power. The novel profiles some of that war's important players from General "Black Jack" Pershing to the flying aces to the American Marines and Doughboys who manned the front lines. Jeff Shaara is also the author of The Glorious Cause, Rise to Rebellion, and Gone For Soldiers. His father, Michael Shaara wrote the 1975 Pulitzer Prize winner The Killer Angels which was made into the movie Gettysburg, Michael Shaara also authored For the Love of the Game, also made into a movie.
Play Janet Desaulniers and Merrill Feitell reading Nov 15
Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate and winner of the 2004 John Simmons Short Fiction Award Janet Desaulniers talked about and read from her collection What You've Been Missing. Desaulniers teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the Art Institute of Chicago and was the program's first chair. This reading also featured short fiction writer Merrill Feitell, a native New Yorker, Feitell read from her collection, Here Beneath Low-Flying Planes, winner of the 2004 Iowa Short Fiction. Both collections are published by the University of Iowa Press.
Play Bradley Paul reading Nov 12
Poet, Film maker and Iowa Writer' Workshop graduate Bradley Paul read selections from his debut collection The Obvious.
Play Larry Baker reading Nov 11
Larry Baker, Iowa Citian, former City Council member, and author of the book Flamingo Rising, read from his latest Athens, America. A small college town's politics; distrust of local law enforcement after two young people die in a terrible accident; shots are taken at the city's deer population; a well known cemetery's statue called the Black Angel also plays a role. Sound familiar?
Play Barbara Robinette Moss reading Nov 8
Barbara Robinette Moss, author of the highly acclaimed memoir Turn Me Into Zeus' Daughter read from her latest book Fierce. The memoir of short vignettes follow Moss' life escaping from a family churned up by an alcoholic father and coping with her own addiction to selecting abusive partners.
Play Patricia Foster reading Nov 5
Patricia Foster, a faculty member in The University of Iowa's Non-Fiction Writing Program read from her new collection of essays Just Beneath My Skin: Autobiography and Self Discovery. Foster's reading is just as marvelous as her prose.
Play Nancy Reisman reading Nov 4
Nancy Reisman, winner of the 1999 Iowa Short Fiction Award read from her new novel The First Desire. A rich family saga set in America's Great Depression. Reisman teaches Creative Writing at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
Play Jennifer K. Dick and Julie Carr reading Nov 1
Poets Jennifer K Dick and Julie Carr read from their respective works. Jennifer K Dick read from Fluorescence and Julie Carr read from Mead: Epithalamion.
October
Play Chuck Rosenthal reading Oct 29
Chuck Rosenthal read from his moving, disturbing and candid new memoir Never Let Me Go. Its an account of how his mentor and basketball coach physically and sexual abused him from age thirteen to adulthood. The coach was William Garvey who is now president of Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pennsylvania. Just recently, other men have come forward naming Garvey as their abuser. Rosenthal is the author of several novels, which include Loops Progress, and Loops End. He is the fiction editor for the Los Angeles Review and teaches narrative writing and theory for the Syntext Program at Loyola Marymount University in L.A. Never Let Me Go is Rosenthal's first book of non-fiction.
Play Russell Banks reading Oct 28
Renowned author of the books Cloudsplitter, and The Sweet Hereafter, Russell Banks read from The Darling. It is a thriller set in the U.S. and Liberia that follows the life of a woman in flux to her allegiances both politically and personally. The volatile 1960s group the Weathermen Underground; civil unrest in West Africa; and a sanctuary for chimpanzees all come into play in Bank's latest book.
Play Eric Baus and Noah Eli Gordon reading Oct 27
Poets Eric Baus and Noah Eli Gordon read from their respective new collections. Baus read from The To Sound and Gordon read from The Frequencies.
Play Gish Jen reading Oct 26
Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate and highly acclaimed novelist Gish Jen read from her latest work The Love Wife. A humorous yet profound story about mixed marriages in the Chinese-American community. Jen is also the author of Typical American, and Mona in the Promised Land.
Play Mary Vermillion reading Oct 25
Cedar Rapids based Mount Mercy College professor Mary Vermillion read from her first in a series of lesbian detective novels, Death By Discount. In this story, detective Mara Gilgannon takes on her hometown Wal-Mart after the mysterious death of her Aunt Glad. The Gilgannon books promise to be a lively and humorous mystery series.
Play Tamora Pierce reading Oct 22
One of our most popular young adult novelists, Tamora Pierce engaged an audience of young people while discussing her latest book Trickster's Queen. Pierce's books are feminist based in a medieval fantasy setting with female protagonists who possess remarkable strength and courage while ably coping against tremendous odds. Her works highly resonate with young girls. Her most well known literary quartets are The Song of the Lioness, The Immortals Quartet, The Circle of Magic and The Circle Opens. Tamora Pierce website.
Play David Gilbert reading Oct 19
David Gilbert read from his new novel The Normals. A group of slackers certified "normal" are housed in a dormitory where drug companies test potentially horrifying drugs on them. Through the sharp-eyed, self-doubting Billy Schine, David Gilbert exposes the crisis of the contemporary human condition: how to connect? As funny as it is profound, The Normals is a tour de force from a writer of astonishing intelligence and imagination.
Play Ricj DeMarinis reading Oct 18
One of America's greatest deadpan fiction writers, Rick DeMarinis read from his latest collection of short stories Apocalypse Then. He is the author several novels, which include The Year of the Zinc Penny, The Mortician's Apprentice, and Sky Full of Sand. His short story collections include Borrowed Hearts, Under the Wheat, and The Voice of America. Booklist's starred review says "The power of DeMarinis' disconcerting short stories is generated by his card-shark ability to transform the realistic into the bizarre." DeMarinis is also the author of The Art and Craft of the Short Story.
Play Creation Tales reading Oct 15
Creation Tales featured an evening of artists from the disciplines of music, writing, dance, and bookmaking who told stories of how they tap into their creative process. Steven Thunder-McGuire, Judy Polumbaum, Rene Lecuona, Mary Helen Stefaniak, Alan Sener, Glen Epstein, and Dave Zollo took part in this inspiring and unusual program.
Play Thomas Frank reading Oct 15
Political journalist Thomas Frank discussed his new book What's the Matter with Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. Columnist Molly Ivins says "A heartland populist Frank, is hilariously funny on what makes the red-staters different from blue-staters (not),....I promise y'all, this is the only way to understand why so many Americans have decided to vote against their own economic and political interests. And, Frank explores the subject with scholarship, understanding, passion."
Play Mona Z. Smith reading Oct 12
Mona Z. Smith read from her powerful biography Becoming Something: The Story of Canada Lee. The great African-American actor, film personality, and civil rights activist is profiled in the first biography written about him. He was targeted as a Communist during the McCarthy era but eluded the blacklist until 1949, when he was pilloried during the notorious spy trial of Judith Coplon and then publicly ridiculed and betrayed by long time friend Ed Sullivan. Lee's film credits include Cry, the Beloved Country,
and Hitchcock's Lifeboat.
Play Peter Turchi reading Oct 7
Peter Turchi, fiction writer, critic, and director of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers in Asheville, North Carolina, reads from his new non-fiction book on the creative process, Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer. Turchi explores the parallels between cartography and writing.
Play David Means reading Oct 6
Short story author David Means read from his new collection of edgy, dark and captivating stories The Secret Goldfish. Means is also the author of the collection Assorted Fire Events. His work is receiving high praise on both sides of the Atlantic.
Play Timothy Liu and Bruce Beasely reading Oct 4
Poets Timothy Liu and Bruce Beasely read from their respective works. Liu read from his latest collection, Of Thee I Sing, and Beasely read from, Signs and Abominations.
September
Play Curtis Bauer reading Sept 30
Poet Curtis Bauer read from his new collection of poems, Fence Line. The collection is the winner of the 2003 John Ciardi Prize for Poetry selected by Christopher Buckley. Bauer brings a sharp eye and distinctive new voice to American poetry. He is a graduate of Central College and earned the Master of Fine Arts in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. His poems have appeared in Rivendell, The Cortland Review, Barrow Street, The North American Review, Rhino and numerous other journals. Bauer co-directs the Writing Studio at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa.
Play Liza Ward reading Sept 29
Novelist Liza Ward read from Outside Valentine, her disturbing story incorporates "Natural Born Killers" Charles Starkweather and his teenaged girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate. The couple killed Ward's grandparents during their 1950s murder spree throughout the Midwest. Ward reinvents the story as a way of finding closure to the horrible crimes visited upon her family.
Play Lawrence Thompson reading Sept 27
The author of the critically acclaimed Imagining Argentina, novelist Lawrence Thornton read from his new book Sailors on the Inward Sea.
Joseph Conrad, Conrad's well known characters and those who influenced them are major players in Thornton's latest work!
Play Vendela Vida reading Sept 24
Vendela Vida read from her novel And Now You Can Go. The story follows the aftermath in the life of woman who encounters a mugger who holds her at gun point because he does not want to die alone. She escapes unharmed but the trauma changes her and eventually she is faced with the opportunity for revenge. Vida is co-editor of The Believer magazine and author of the non-fiction book Girls on the Verge: Debutante Dips. Drive-Bys, and Other Initiations.It investigated the wide variety of both traditional and contemporary rituals girls use to fashion their own identities.
Play Francisco Goldman and Aaron McCollough reading Sept 22
Francisco Goldman, the author of the highly praised Long Night of the White Chickens, and The Ordinary Seaman read from his latest novel, The Divine Husband. The 19th century revolutionary poet hero of Cuban independence Jose Marti and his famous poem "La Nina de Guatemala" drive the heart of the story.
Play Rebecca Wolff and Catherine Wagner reading Sept 21
Poets Rebecca Wolff and Catherine Wagner read from their respective new collections. Wolff read from Figment, winner of the Barnard Women Poets Prize. Wagner read from Macular Hole. Alice Notley calls the poems "absolutely insouciant; energy constant, focused and ingenious."
Play Dan Chaon and Aaron McCollough reading Sept 20
Dan Chaon, author of the short story collections Fitting Ends and Among the Missing, which was a finalist for the National Book Award read from his new novel You Remind Me of Me. Chaon explores the secret connections that irrevocably link a series of separate events. In the process he examines questions of identity, fate, and circumstance: Why do we become the people that we become? How do we end up stuck in lives that we never wanted? And can we change the course of what seems inevitable?
Play and Teresa Marrone and Lucia Watson reading Sept 17
Two authors who a specialist in locally grown food joined us as part of an event co-sponsored by the From Field to Family Festival. Few cooks are more comfortable working with wild edibles than Teresa Marrone, author of the newly published Abundantly Wild: Collecting and Cooking Wild Edibles in the Upper Midwest. Marrone brings together her love of wild places with her skill as a cookbook author and editor. Lucia Watson, chef and owner of Lucia's Restaurant in Minneapolis and co-author of Savoring the Seasons of the Northern Heartland. Embracing the traditional cooking of the diverse peoples of the Upper Midwest the book presents over 200 recipes for the modern kitchen, many of them with seasonal variations that take advantage of the freshest fruits and vegetables available throughout the year.
Play Lewis Robinson and Aaron McCollough reading Sept 16
A dose of poetry and prose on this edition of the program as two Iowa Writer's Workshop graduates read from their works. Lewis Robinson, the author of the mordantly funny short story collection Officer Friendly read a selection from yet to be published novel, which promises to be as satirical and humorous as his other work. Poet Aaron McCollough read selections from new and earlier work. He is the author of the highly praised collection Welkin and his new collection is called Double Venus. Although his poetry is serious, his delivery is entertaining. The two writing friends on this edition complemented one another nicely!
Play Judith Claire Mitchell reading Sept 15
Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate Judith Claire Mitchell read from her novel The Last Day of the War. It is the love story of a Jewish girl and an Armenian-American soldier who together enter a maze of underground politics at the conclusion of the First World War. Mitchell is on the English faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Play Debbie McGillivary reading Sept 14
The focus of this program is pet psychic communication! Freelance author Eve Adamson teamed up with pet psychic Debbie McGillivary to write The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pet Psychic Communication. According to the book, everyone possesses the ability to communicate psychically with animals, it is a primitive skill, and the book is a self-guide on to how to develop it. In this program, some members of the bookstore audience divulged their experiences with the phenomenon! Eve Adamson is a veteran pet writer with hundreds of published articles and is contributing editor to Dog Fancy. She is also co-author of several books including The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Yoga Illustrated, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Meditation, and Empowering Your Life with Joy. She is also a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop in Poetry.
Play Poet Michele Glazer reading Sept 13
Poet Michele Glazer read from her new collection poems Aggregate of Disturbances. Aggregate of Disturbances springs from the inside of nuance and feeling. One senses at every turn how clear-eyed yet emotionally committed this writing is. At once dispassionate and tender, sexy, and edgy. A singular voice, killer diction, a tough mind, and a vulnerable heart. This is exceptional writing, of that striking quality that compels rereading and rewards it." ­Marvin Bell. The book is the winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize. Glazer is an Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate. She resides in Oregon, and teaches at Portland State University.
Play Alexis Stamatis and Shimada Masahiko reading Sept 10
Two visitors in this year's International Writing Program read from their respective works. Alexis Stamatis of Greece is the author of five novels and five collections of poems, numerous translations and magazine articles, two opera librettos, and two plays. His most recent works are the novel Theseus Street (2003) and the poetry collection The Closer I Get the More the Future Gets Away (2004). Mr. Stamatis worked as a writer for the 2004 Olympic Games, and is currently the chief editor for foreign literature for The Metaixmio. Shimada Masahiko is one of the most visible authors and commentators in Japan today. He published the novella "A Tender Divertimento for Leftists" (1983), which was named runner-up for the Akutagawa Prize. The following year he received the Noma New Writer's Award for Music for a Somnambulant Kingdom (1984). Shimada founded and directed a successful theater group during the 1990s. He is currently teaching at Hosei University.
Play David Hamilton and Yiyun Li reading Sept 3
The University of Iowa's renowned literary journal The Iowa Review once again graced our airwaves with long time editor David Hamilton. Hamilton was joined by one of the contributors to the journal, Yiyun Li of Peking, China, a student in the Iowa Writer's Workshop, who originally came to the UI to study Immunology.
Play Thisbe Nissen reading Sept 1
Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate and Iowa City resident Thisbe Nissen reads from her highly praised novel Osprey Island,the story of a group of year-rounders on an island off the east coast as they work through past passions and new perils. Thisbe is always graces the airwaves with grand enthusiasm and surprise!
August
Play Robert Molsberry reading Aug 31
Robert Molsberry is the pastor of his church in Grinnell, Iowa, energetic and athletic but a hit and run accident seven years ago left him paralyzed from the waist down. His memoir Blindsided by Grace: Entering the World of Disability tells the story of one family's courage and recovery from a terrible event. Molsberry views disability more as an adventure than an adversity. His new found advocacy for the disabled is wisdom for all of us.
Play Donald Justice reading Aug 13
In memory of Pulitzer Prize winning poet Donald Justice, this is a special edition of Live From Prairie Lights that was first broadcast in 1995. Donald Justice read from his book of New and Selected poems. Justice died August 6th, 2004 at the age of 78.
Play William Kent Krueger reading Aug 2
Thriller novelist William Kent Krueger read from his latest Blood Hollow. The fourth in Krueger's Cork O'Conner series in which the part Irish, part Ojibwa former sheriff is caught up in solving another crime that has more loose ends than just murder. Krueger is also the author of Boundary Waters, Purgatory Ridge, and The Devil's Bed.
July
Play Justin Cronin reading July 30
Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate and the author of the highly praised Mary and O'Neil, Justin Cronin read from his latest novel, The Summer Guest. On an evening in late summer, the great financier Harry Wainwright, nearing the end of his life, arrives at his long time Maine fishing idyll. He comes bearing two things: a wish to spend his final days in a place that has brought him solace for thirty years; and an astonishing bequest that will forever change the lives of everyone he loves.
Play Lauren Grodstein reading July 29
Author of the short story collection The Best of Animals, Lauren Grodstein read from her new novel Reproduction is the Flaw of Love. The commitment phobic male is at the heart of this story. While nervously waiting outside the bathroom door as his girlfriend takes a pregnancy test, a young man reflects back on his twenty-eight years, and ponders whether he is ready for fatherhood -- whether he should go or stay.
Play Lan Samantha Chang reading July 27
Lan Samantha Chang, author of Hunger read from her new novel Inheritance. Two sisters become entangled in a love triangle that begins during Japan's invasion of China in 1931. The story traces the echo of betrayal through generations and explores the elusive nature of trust.
Play Elizabeth Oness reading July 26
Elizabeth Oness read from her new novel Departures. Three adult sisters struggle to manage their lives in the wake of their mother's disappearance. Oness is also the author of the award-winning short story collectiion, Articles of Faith.
Play Mary Helen Stefaniak reading July 22
Iowa Citian, Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate and Creighton University teacher Mary Helen Stefaniak read from her new novel The Turk and My Mother. An usual saga in storytelling that spans from a small Hungarian village during World War I to the outer reaches of Siberia to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The author plumbs her own Hungarian-Croatian family history for reference. Stefaniak is also the author of the collection Self Storage and Other Stories.
Play Katie Ford and Douglas Goetsch reading July 20
Poets Katie Ford and Douglas Goetsch read from their latest respective works. Katie Ford's latest published collection is Deposition. She teaches at Loyola University in New Orleans. Douglas Goetsch read from his new book, The Job of Being Everybody. He teaches creative writing to incarcerated teens in the Bronx.
Play George Hagen reading July 19
Thumbnail of Hagen postcard
Click here to see the card Hagen sent Julie Englander
Novelist George Hagen read from his latest book The Laments. A witty philosophical novel, which begins with babies switched at birth in South Africa and continues with lovably dysfunctional family on the road from Rhodesia to New Jersey.
Play Wayne Johnson reading July 16
Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate and Pulitzer Prize finalist Wayne Johnson read from his new thriller The Devil You Know. A teenaged boy comes of age in a life and death struggle to save his family from savage outlaws. Johnson is the author of the books Don't Think Twice and Six Crooked Highways.
Play John McNally reading July 13
Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate and winner of the University of Iowa John Simmons Short Fiction Award John McNally read from his new novel The Book of Ralph. Two neighborhood friends wreak havoc on the streets of Chicago in the 1970s. A story of male puberty with the high-jinks and angst that goes with it.
McNally is also the author of the short story collection Troublemakers.
Play Jeremy Jackson reading July 12
Novelist, cookbook author and Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate Jeremy Jackson read from his latest fiction In Summer. The first summer after high school graduation is the time frame for this coming age story of a young man facing stunning truths, accidents and other distractions. Jackson is also the author of Life at These Speeds, The Cornbread Book, and Desserts That Have Killed Better Men Than Me.
Play Joy Harjo reading July 9

Joy Harjo reading at Live from Prairie Lights
Poet, musician and a member of the Muscogee Nation Joy Harjo read from her latest collection of poems How We Became Human and she also played the saxophone as she performed selections from her latest CD Native Joy For Real. Her visit was sponsored by The University of Iowa's Graduate College in conjunction with 2004 CIC Summer Research Opportunities Program Conference. Harjo is also an Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate.
Play Kent Haruf reading July 7
The author of the National Book Award finalist Plainsong, Kent Haruf, reads from his sequel Eventide. Holt, Colorado is again where Haruf's latest novel is set and revisits some familiar characters in a story of partings, re-establishing ties, and the bonding of others. There are sad children in peril, and adults at a loss. All, striving for more, some gaining little, others only a bit more than what they had before. The New York Times says "Haruf makes us care about these plain-spoken, small town folks without every resorting to sentimentality or clichés. Instead, he uses their own language--simple, laconic and uninflected with irony or contemporary slag--to capture the mood and mores of the town."
Play Marilyn Taylor reading July 1
Poet Laureate of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Marilyn Taylor read from her latest collection, Subject to Change. A. E. Stallings says “From start to finish, Marilyn Taylor's Subject to Change takes on the big themes: aging and death, love and its betrayals, the secrets lurking beneath the surface of family life. Yet despite such weighty subject matter, this is a buoyant book... While never shying away from real darkness, Subject to Change holds out the hope that ‘Maybe things are better than we imagine.'" Taylor is just as generous answering questions and discussing the art as she is in creating it!
June
Play Sandra Scofield reading June 29
Novelist Sandra Scofield read from her beautiful and highly praised memoir Occasions of Sin. Scofield, the author of seven novels, commemorates the memory of her mother in this painful and powerful new book. Scofield is also the author of A Chance to See Egypt, Plain Seeing, Gringa, and Walking Dunes.
Play Larry Watson reading June 28
Inscription by Larry Watson
Click here to see the book Watson inscribed at the reading
Novelist Larry Watson read from his latest book Orchard. Obsession, power and betrayal is at the heart of Watson's latest story of the allowances made for a genius artist and the lives that unravel around him. Watson is also the author of the bestseller Montana 1948, Laura, and White Crosses.
Play David Sedaris reading June 27
David Sedaris Postcard Link
Click here to see the card Sedaris sent Julie Englander
National Public Radio humorist and bestselling author David Sedaris read from his new collection of essays Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. Our favorite Macy's green tights clad elf, David Sedaris also shared some yet unpublished work on this special edition of the program. He captivated listeners and audience members with his unique brand of wit and humor.
Play Jennifer Stevenson reading June 25
Chicago based author Jennifer Stevenson read from her new book Trash, Sex, Magic. The damage we're doing to the natural world is interwoven into this story of erotic fantasy where men are turned into trees and women possess magical powers beyond their control.
Play Gina Franco reading June 22
Inscription by Gina Franco
Click here to see the book Franco inscribed at the reading
Poet Gina Franco read from her collection The Keepsake Storm. Franco's work draws from a rich tradition of Latino storytelling infused with her scholarly interest in Nineteenth Century British Literature. Her poems explore the transformative power of compassion as she addresses themes of cultural alienation, lost family roots, and uncertain resiliency of the self. Gina Franco was raised in small mining town in Arizona, she's a graduate of Smith College and Cornell University and teaches at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois.
Play Robert Rosenberg reading June 21
Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate and former Peace Corps volunteer Robert Rosenberg read from his new novel This is Not Civilization. Four lives from disparate worlds converge in Istanbul where they find common bonds, unaware that they will undergo one of most devastating earthquakes in the history. Two characters are from post Soviet central Asia, one from an Apache Reservation in Arizona and the other is a Peace Corps volunteer. Roesenberg was in Turkey during the horrific earthquake that shook the area in 1999.
Play Seth Kantner reading June 18
Seth Kantner read from his novel Ordinary Wolves. The Alaskan tundra is the setting for Kantner's story of a white family who immerse themselves into the environment's native culture; residing in sod igloo and living off the land as hunters and gatherers. The book engages us to think about the damage being done to our last vast American wilderness and the wildlife that live there. Kantner was raised also raised in a sod igloo on the Alaskan tundra.
Play Ingrid Hill reading June 17
Iowa City author Ingrid Hill read from her highly praised epic novel, Ursula Under. A little girl takes a tumble down an abandoned mine shaft. The tale alternates between the rescue to retrieve her and stories of her ancestral lineage--those ancestors with the most interest in her safe return.
Play Maureen McCoy reading June 16
Maureen McCoy, author of Divining Blood, and Walking After Midnight, read from her new novel Junebug. A mother and daughter are bonded by love and a terrible crime. For most of Junebug's childhood, her mother has served prison time for the ax murder of a neighbor. Now, at seventeen, Junebug wants her mother set free, but she also yearns to free herself from the constraints of a small town.
Play Steven Sherill reading June 15
Steven Sherrill, author of the humorist satire The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break, read from his latest novel, an eerie thriller, called Visits From the Drowned Girl.
Play Doug Unger and Rachel Pastan reading June 14
A double reading. Doug Unger read from his latest collection of short stories Looking for War, and novelist Rachel Pastan read from her latest, This Side of Married.
Play Tim Tyson reading June 8
Book inscription by Tim Tyson
Click here to see the book Tyson inscribed at the reading
Tim Tyson read from Blood Done Sign My Name. It is Tyson's memoir of a small Southern town struggling with racial change in the early 1970s. An account of the murder of a black man by a white family on the streets of Oxford, North Carolina. Tim Tyson knew the family who committed the crime.
Play Le Ti Diem Thuy reading June 3
Vietnamese-American writer Le Ti Diem Thuy read from her new novel The Gangster We Are All Looking For. A moving and lyrical story of a family of Vietnamese boat people washing ashore to America and their struggle to make a new life in a new culture.
May
Play Karen Joy Fowler reading May 25
Book inscribed by Karen Joy Fowler
Click here to see the book Fowler inscribed at the reading
Author Karen Joy Fowler read from her latest novel The Jane Austen Book Club. Fowler the author of the highly praised Sarah Canary is receiving rave reviews for her newest book. Fowler's reading is filled with the candor, humor and wit that glows in her work!
Play James Hynes reading May 24
James Hynes, the author of The Lecturer's Tale reads from his latest book Kings of Infinite Space. This time, Hynes' satirical macabre humor targets the office work place. Writer John Griesemer says "Mordant wit meets the Morlocks; the undead go up against the underemployed."
Play D.K. Smith reading May 21
D.K. Smith read from his new novel Nothing Disappears. After the death of his teen love, a young man escapes his small town life and becomes a magician's apprentice. He later returns home where he must come to grips with his girlfriend's death; a brother's betrayal; and his own culpability. Smith is a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop, and this year, he was visiting professor in the University of Iowa's Medieval and Renaissance Studies program.
Play Anchee Min reading May 20
Author Anchee Min grew up during China's Cultural Revolution. She was a devout Maoist, worked in the labor camps, and was a star for Madam Mao's propagandist film company, but she finally escaped a terrible fate and came to the U.S. Min's 1994 memoir, Red Azalea, catapulted her onto the American literary scene. She read from her fourth novel Empress Orchid. It is the story of China's last Empress dowager.
Play Andrei Codrescu reading May 10
Andre Codrescu inscription
Click here to see the book Codrescu inscribed at the reading
NPR commentator, poet, novelist and essayist Andrei Codrescu read from his new novel, a satirical neo-Faustian tale entitled Wakefield.
Play John Price reading May 6
John Price inscription
Click here to see the book Price inscribed at the reading
Iowan John Price who currently teaches at the University of Nebraska read from his new book Not Just Any Land: A Personal and Literary Journey Into the American Grasslands It is a collection of non-fiction pieces blending memoir and nature writing that bears witness to the life of the prairie that once immense and beautiful wilderness of grass now so depleted and damaged as to test even the deepest faith. Price interviewed four nature writers for the book, Iowa based author Mary Swander was one of them and she joined Price in this reading.
Play Jenna Blum reading May 5
Jenna Blum read from her new novel Those Who Save Us. In alternating time periods, Blum's debut novel tells the story of Anna, a German who survived World War II, and her daughter Trudy, a history professor researching the war. Combining a passionate, doomed love story, a vivid evocation of life during the war, and a poignant mother/daughter drama. Those Who Save Us is a profound exploration of what we endure to survive and the legacy of shame."
Play Elizabeth Berg reading May 4
One of America's most popular novelists, Elizabeth Berg returned to the program to read from her latest book The Art of Mending. In Berg's latest story, unearthed truths force one seemingly ordinary family to reexamine their disparate lives and to ask themselves: Is it too late to mend the hurts of the past?
April
Play Paula Peterson reading April 29
Writer Paula Peterson read from her new book Women in the Grove. It is a powerful collection of short stories about women living with HIV infection. The stories filled with humor, love, redemption, Peterson is also the author of the memoir Penitent, With Roses: An HIV+ Mother Reflects.
Play Frank Conroy reading April 28
Frank Conroy inscription
Click here to see the book Conroy inscribed at the reading
Director of the Iowa Writer's Workshop Frank Conroy read from his latest book, Time and Tide: A Walk Through Nantucket. Its collection of essays on Conroy's other home place, where he's lived most summers since 1955. He reflects on the changes he's witnessed in the island's population, environment, and social scene.
Play Faith Adiele reading April 27
Faith Adiele read from her nonfiction book Meeting Faith: The Forest Journals of A Black Buddhist Nun. It is an account of Adiele's search for self-awareness while on a Harvard scholarship to study Thailand's Buddhist nuns she decides to become ordained making her northern Thailand's first black Buddhist nun. Adiele is a graduate of the nonfiction and fiction writing programs at the University of Iowa.
Play Robert Dana reading April 26
Robert Dana read from his latest collection of poems Morning of the Red Admirals. Dana is professor emeritus and former poet-in-residence at Cornell College, and Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate from the famous John Berryman days.
Play "Fifty Ways to Love Your Country and be a Catalyst for Change " reading April 21
The focus of this edition, MoveOn political action group, voting machines, and voter turn-out. Guests Johnson County Auditor Tom Slockett and University of Iowa Professor of Computer Science Douglas Jones provided a lively discussion with members of the bookstore audience. The book that was featured was written by MoveOn members titled, Fifty Ways to Love Your Country: How to Find Your Political Voice And Be A Catalyst for Change.
Play Cole Swensen reading April 20
Poet, translator, and Iowa Writer's Workshop faculty member Cole Swensen read from her ninth book of poems called Goest.
Play Matthew Rohrer, Joshua Beckman and Matthew Zapruder reading April 19
An evening of three poets: Matthew Rohrer read from A Green Lights, Joshua Beckman read from his book Your Time Has Come, and Matthew Zapruder read from American Linden.
Play Paula Morris and Anna Livesey reading April 16
Voices from New Zealand on this edition. Novelist Paula Morris read from her book Queen of Beauty and poet Anna Livesey read from her book of poems Good Luck.
Play Leslie Pietrzyk reading April 15
The author of the highly praised novel Pears on a Willow Tree Leslie Pietrzyk read from her latest work, A Year and A Day. The story is set in a small town near Iowa City in the 1970s. Fifteen year old Alice comes of age after the jarring loss of her mother who committed suicide by parking in front of a moving train. Iowa Citians will recognize several landmarks and aliases; Pietrzyk grew up in Iowa City but now teaches at the Writers Center in Maryland.
Play Victoria Bissell Brown reading April 14
Grinnell College professor Victoria Bissell Brown read from her engaging nonfiction book, The Education of Jane Addams. This accessible scholarly work focuses on Addams early life; we learn of the influences which shaped the person who become the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Peace. Addams, the 19th century advocate for social progress, was one was one of the most influential women in the country and co-founded the famous Chicago settlement house, Hull House.
Play Amy Stewart reading April 7
Nature essayist Amy Stewart read from and discussed her entertaining and informative new book The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms. Stewart was joined by one of the experts she cites in her book, earthworm taxonomist Sam James.
Play John Dalton reading April 6
Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate John Dalton read from his highly praised new novel Heaven Lake. Set in Taiwan and Mainland China, the story revolves around a young Christian missionary who becomes caught