Prairie Lights Archives, 2005

Live From Prairie Lights Archives 2005 (click on RealAudio icon to listen to program using the free Real Player)
December
	Dec 5	Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Michael Gartner, read from his new book, Outrage, Passion, and Uncommon Sense: How Editorial Writers Have Taken on the Great American Issues of the Past 150 Years. Gartner has been page one editor of the Wall Street Journal and the Des Moines Register among many others and has been involved in every aspect of journalism over his rich life. His fascinating book has been put together with the cooperation of The Newseum, an interactive museum of news, funded by the Freedom Forum. Michael Gartner is also the president of the Iowa Board of Regents.
	Dec 1	David Albahari, the great Serbian fiction writer, who now lives in Calgary read from his powerful new novel Gotz and Meyer, about a middle school teacher in Belgrade who wants his students to understand the Holocaust. He also wants to discover what relatives of his own he can, who might have survived. The book is witty and moving and stern in its judgment of the mindless functionaries who allowed the atrocity to take its course.
November
	Nov 30	Deborah Noyes read from her new novel, Angel and Apostle, the plot of which takes up where Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter leaves off. The story is told through the eyes of Pearl, the bright outcast daughter of suffering single parent Hester Prynne. The writing is very fine indeed and the extension of Hawthorne is respectful and historically appropriate.
	Nov 29	Meredith Broussard, editor of The Dictionary of Failed Relationships, has put together another collection of stories of relationship woe, this time from the male perspective, The Encyclopedia of Exes. One of the contributors to the book, Iowa Writer’s Workshop student Lee Klein, joined editor Broussard in the reading.
	Nov 28	From Minnesota, novelist Faith Sullivan read from Gardenias, her touching novel of an uprooted Midwestern family in the 1940s gone to California to seek its fortune. It features the wonderful characters of her earlier masterpiece, Cape Ann, and illuminates a place and time in America that many of us know only from stories our mothers may have told us.
	Nov 21	Canadian journalist Jeremy Mercer read from his funny, touching, and wonderfully informative memoir Time Was Soft There, about his sojourn in Paris working at the famous English Language bookstore, Shakespeare & Co., whose original owner was a friend of James Joyce. This reading was filled with Mercer's entertainingly eccentric multi-media moments!
	Nov 17	Writers' Workshop student Craig Davidson will read from his first collection of short stories, Rust and Bone. Davidson's stories are rough and dark on the surface, frequented by folks on the wrong side of the law, boxers, and drinkers. The author's macabre sense of humor and his rugged take-no-prisoners view of life make his first collection disturbing, original, and moving.
	Nov 15	Doug Russell, Iowa District Court Judge and an active member of The Churchill Centre, Washington DC, will read from his new book Winston Churchill, Soldier: The Military Life of a Gentleman at War. Russell explores the life of Churchill as an ambitious young man earning his reputation in the far corners of the Great British Empire as it had begun to sway at the beginning of the 20th century.
	Nov 14	David Roediger, University of Illinois History professor and author of The Wages of Whiteness, will read from his new book Working Toward Whiteness: How America's Immigrant's Became White. Roediger is concerned with the symbolic and material values of being "white" in a race-conscious America.
	Nov 11	Jim Heynen, Mary Swander, and Amy Kolen will read from Prairie Weather, a book edited by Steve Semken and dedicated to the proposition that prairie weather can turn on a dime and rearrange your life physically and mentally. Semken's crew has spent a good deal of time on the prairie.
	Nov 9	Nicole Lea Helget, who teaches creative writing at Mankato State University, grew up on a small Minnesota farm with a bitter, angry father, abusive to both his children and his animals. Summer of Ordinary Ways is her tough tender memoir which eschews her how bitterness for clarity and truth-telling. A powerful read.
	Nov 3	University of Iowa Professor Mark Blumberg, author of Body Heat, will read from Basic Instinct: The Genesis of Behavior, in which he writes in on the nature/nurture debate. He discusses intelligence, experience, "intelligent design," Stephen Pinkur, and all manner of other subjects related to his theme.
	Nov 2	University of Iowa Press Short Fiction Award winners Doug Trevor and Anthony Varallo will read from their new collections. University of Iowa English Professor Doug Trevor will read from Thin Tear in the Fabric of Space. "The final paragraphs of Trevor's stories are among the most knowing and beautiful you are ever likely to read."- Kevin Brockmeier. Workshop graduate Anthony Varallo will read from This Day in History. "A piece of art, plain and simple, made out of love for the word and humanity." -Bret Lott
October
	Oct 31	U Sam Oeur, Cambodian poet and Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate from the 1960s read from his memoir Crossing Three Wildernesses. It is a true life account of how he and his family survived Pol Pot's vicious Khmer Rouge regime. He co-wrote the book with writer Ken McCullough, who befriended Sam during his time at Iowa prior to his returning to Cambodia's Killing Fields.
	Oct 28	Chinese poet Mai Mang read from his collection, Stone Turtle. He did the translation of his book into English. Mai was born in Changde, Hunan, China in 1967 and grew up there during the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath. He moved the United States in 1993 and currently teaches Chinese Language and Literature at Connecticut College.
	Oct 27	Psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison, author of The Unquiet Mind, the personal story of her own bipolar disorder, read from Exuberance: the Passion for Life. “Her lyrical stream flows abundantly, her generosity of spirit is everywhere, and her wisdom has never been greater. A delight of a book." Antonio Damasio
	Oct 26	Richard Burgin, writer of stories, songs, poetry and editor of The Boulevard Magazine, read from Identity Club: New and Selected Stories. Burgin writes in dark tones and his stories are full of surprises that can shock and delight.
	Oct 25	Poet Laureate Ted Kooser came to Iowa City to read from his 2005 Pulitzer-Prize-winning collection, Delights and Shadows. Throughout a long and distinguished career, Ted Kooser’s work has remained deeply imbued with a sense of quiet amazement. Nothing escapes his “genius for making the ordinary sacramental.” The New York Times
	Oct 21	Author of Banvard’s Folly and Not Even Wrong, Paul Collins, a new resident of Iowa City, read from his newest book The Trouble With Tom: The Strange Afterlife and Times of Thomas Paine. This is not exactly a biography, but more like an archeological dig into the mystery of his remains which seem to have disappeared. Only a writer as witty and fact-hungry as Paul Collins could have written a book like this.
	Oct 20	Long-time Des Moines Register reporter and columnist Rob Borsellino read from So I’m talkin’ to this guy. . . a collection of stories he’s written over the last eight years. His stories are funny, compassionate, and refreshingly conversational and reflect the impressions of a bright sophisticated New Yorker as he embraces Iowa and the people he comes to know and appreciate. Reka Basu, Des Moines Register columnist and Borsellino's wife, joined him on this program.
	Oct 13	Ornithologist Donald E. Kroodsma, author of The Singing Life of Birds, was joined by Bill Thompson III, editor of Iowa Bird Watching and nationally renowned wildlife illustrator Julie Zickefoose. Thompson and Zickefoose's new book is Identify Yourself. Kroodsma, also the author of Ecology and Evolution of Acoustic Communication in Birds, puts the reader inside the mind of a research scientist to explore how and why birds sing and how we can better understand birds through their song. This program included some bird songs.
	Oct 11	Susan Wheeler is one of those rare writers fluent in multiple genres. She read from her simultaneously published novel Record Palace and her prize-winning collection of poems, Ledger. Jazz sings throughout Susan Wheeler’s new novel Record Palace in a story of Cindy a young woman living on the edge while earning a degree in art history in Chicago…she left her alcoholic and down and out parents in California and befriends an elderly black man named Acie, a record shop clerk… hooks up with his son and commits an usual crime. Just listen to who is singing praise of wheeler’s fiction: Record Palace is an astonishment. Susan Wheeler's deft touch an flawless ear have produced an irresistible work, both fresh and sage."—Toni Morrison Susan Wheeler also read from her new collection poems called, Ledger Part narrative, part satire, part cri de coeur,” says Marjorie Perloff, author of The Vienna Paradox.
	Oct 10	Melanie Rehak read from her new book Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her. In it she tells the history of the series that made American girls believe they could think on their feet. She takes care to follow the changes Nancy goes through over the years and the deep and abiding influence these books made on the American girl.
	Oct 7	Two top-notch writers of crime fiction Libby Hellmann and W. Kent Krueger read from their latest work. Hellmann’s detective in A Shot to Die For is Ellie Foreman a Chicago film-maker who manages to be where the murders are. Kent Krueger is the author of a series of Boundary Waters mysteries and his new one is Mercy Falls.
	Oct 4	Ann Bauer, graduate of the UI Non-Fiction Writing Program read from her first novel, Wild Ride Up the Cupboards. Rachel is a young mother with a handsome husband and a life she adores when suddenly her older son, Edward, withdraws from the world. By the age of four, he is mute and sleepless, stony and distant from everyone who loves him. But Rachel is determined to reach him by any means and bring him back home. A Wild Ride Up the Cupboards is a story about the extraordinary things a mother will do in order to help her child. It poses questions about what interventions and sacrifices are right—and which ones go too far.
	Oct 3	Fiction writer Myla Goldberg whose Bee Season became a book club favorite and soon to be major film read from her new historical novel, Wickett's Remedy. Set in early 20th century Boston. Goldberg's convincing depiction of the Spanish Influenza is heartbreaking.
September
	Sept 26	Gregory Rabassa, the revered translator of Gabriel Garcia Marquez whose English version of 100 Years of Solitude put contemporary Latin American fiction on the literary map for English-language readers, read from his memoir, If This Be Treason: Translation and Its Dyscontents. Rabassa's visited the UI as an Ida Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor in the International Writing Program. He has translated more than 40 books from Spanish and Portuguese, winning the National Book Award and the John Steinbeck Award. In 2001, the PEN American Center honored him with the Gregory Kolovakos Award, a career achievement award, for his contributions to the appreciation of Hispanic literature.
	Sept 19	Pulitzer Prize-winning Jane Smiley will return to Iowa City to read from her new book, 13 Ways of Looking at a Novel, a non-fiction book which is at once an anatomy of the art of fiction, a guide for readers and writers, and a memoir of literary life.
	Sept 16	Susanna Clarke will read from the paperback edition of her huge, fabulously successful novel of magic and history, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. "Many books are to be read, some are to be studied, and a few are to be lived in for weeks. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is of this last kind." —Washington Post
	Sept 14	Margot Livesey, revered Scottish novelist and teacher at The Iowa Writers' Workshop, will read from her latest novel, Banishing Verona. "Margot Livesey's is such a personal, endearing, sharp voice, and this is a sly, special, and funny book." —Diane Johnson
	Sept 8	In conjunction with this year's Slow Food Field to Family Forum we'll have Sherri Brooks Vinton talking about her book Real Food Revival. Learn about the joys of eating the food grown in your own community.
	Sept 7	Heather Smith of Mt. Vernon, Iowa, will read from her new collection of poems, Each End of the World, an astonishing first book located, mostly, in the Bosnia of the 1990's. "The language of devastation courses through this book, and seems to course through the poet herself." —Mark Doty
	Sept 6	Aimee Bender, the short story writer who set the literary world on fire with her highly praised Girl in the Flammable Skirt, will read from her marvelously goofy new collection of stories, Willful Creatures, a book of witty, often surreal stories that no other writer in America could have written.
	Sept 1	John Peters, F. Wendell Williams Distinguished Professor of Communications at the University of Iowa, will discuss his new book Courting the Abyss: Free Speech and the Liberal Tradition, in which he rethinks the subject of free speech based on the ideas of Martin Luther King, Jr., Paul of Tarsus, and others.
August
	Aug 31	Prominent and exceptional crime writers Denise Hamilton and Julia Spencer-Fleming will be reading from their new novels. Denise will read from her new Eve Diamond masterpiece, Savage Garden, rich in plot and "careful not to delve into a cliched woman-in-jeopardy plot." Julia Spencer-Fleming will read from To Darkness and To Death, the fourth in her series chronicling the experiences of ex-Army-pilot-turned-Episcopal-priest Claire Fergusson.
	Aug 30	David Hamilton, Editor of the Iowa Review, presided over the annual program dedicated to authors who have published in the Iowa Review. This year Jim McKean, author of Home Stand: Growing Up in Sports, will read a Pushcart Prize-winning essay, "Dl'Altered."
	Aug 26	Hiking Iowa, by local outdoorswoman Elizabeth Hill, is one of the best Iowa guide books ever written. Elizabeth will make a special appearance here to tell you how she researched and composed this fabulous guide.
	Aug 25	Mary Anne Mohanraj will read from her third collection of stories, Bodies in Motion. Two families struggle with two cultures, American and Sri Lankan, over two eventful centuries. "These stories are gorgeous and sexy, and Mohanraj tells them beautifully." — Karen Joy Fowler
July
	July 27	Novelist Katherine Towler read from Evening Ferry. Following the success of Snow Island, Katherine Towler returns to the fictional New England island with Evening Ferry the second installment of the multi generational trilogy about family bonds, unexpected love, and the threat of war. Author John Barth says, "Readers familiar with Snow Island, Katherine Towler's fine first novel, will be further delighted by her return to those hard scrabble New England water folk in Evening Ferry: a strong and deeply satisfying tale of the islanders' lives, loves, and losses from the Great Depression of the 1930s to America's war in Vietnam. Readers new to Towler's fiction have a happy discovery awaiting them."
	July 26	Poet Rustin Larson read from his collection of poems, Crazy Star, published by Loess Hills Press. Poet Naomi Nye says, "Larson is a terrific, elegant, original poet whose voice rings so truly we become better people just by reading him."
	July 22	Poet Kevin Boyle read from his new collection, A Home for Wayward Girls. It is the winner of the 2004 New Issues Poetry Prize. “Kevin Boyle’s poems are ambitious in form, theme, and style, but never merely egotistical. When they are not singing with a full-throated, operatic grace, they are telling memorable stories." -Rodney Jones, Judge. Kevin Boyle teaches at Elon University in North Carolina.
	July 21	Novelist Bart Yates, author of Leave Myself Behind read from his new book, The Bishop Brothers. Two brothers, both gay, one promiscuous, the other, lives a solitary life are faced with coming to terms with an abusive family history and current dangerous liaisons. Booklist says it is "well-paced exploration of issues of fathers and sons, forgiveness and acceptance."
	July 20	Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate and former professional skakeboarder Bret Anthony Johnson read from his highly praised collection of shorts stories, Corpus Christi. Author Jane Hamilton says, “What I especially love about these stories is how many of the characters walk the finest line between violence and love, and do so with a tenderness that is heartbreaking.”
	July 19	Poet Hermine Meinhard read from her latest book of poems, Bright Turquoise Umbrella.
	July 18	Poets Marvin Bell and Jonathan Stull read from their respective works. Bell, former Iowa Poet Laureate recently retired as a long time faculty member in the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Among Bell's many other poetry collections are Iris of Creation, The Book of the Dead Man, Ardor (The Book of the Dead Man, Vol. 2) and Nightworks: Poems 1962-2000. His most recent volume is Rampant, which ends with a long poem that critic Judith Kitchen called "one of the most important poems of the last 20 years. UI alumnus Stull teaches Creative Writing at Northern Iowa University. He's the author of the poetry collections Kryie and Singing the Lake's Desire.
	July 12	Elizabeth Kostova read from The Historian, it is currently the number one best-selling novel in the country. Generations of historians have risked their reputations, their sanity, and even their lives to learn the truth about Vlad the Impaler and Dracula. Now one young woman must decide whether to take up this quest herselfto follow her father in a hunt that nearly brought him to ruin years ago. What does the legend of Vlad the Impaler have to do with the modern world? The answers to these questions cross time and borders, as first the father and then the daughter search for clues, from dusty Ivy League libraries to Istanbul, Budapest, and the depths of Eastern Europe.
	July 11	C.J. Hribal read from his new novel, The Company Car. It is a family epic that moves from past to present on its journey to the truth of how we grow out of, away from, and into our parents. Richard Russo says, "ten pages into The Company Car you know you're in the hands of a masterful storyteller. C.J. Hribal's characters are as real as anyone we know in "real life," and their story is the story of America on the brink of monumental change. The canvas is broad, the sights and sounds true, the vision both hilarious and heartbreaking." Hribal is the author of The Clouds of Memphis, The Boundaries of Twilight, Matty's Heart, and American Beauty.
	July 7	Cathy Day read from her novel, The Circus in Winter. Based on true events from Day's native, Peru, Indiana, are loosely connected tales of a circus troupe who not only spend the winter in the small Midwestern town but also define the place; the lives of circus people when they are not performing "under the big top."
	July 6	Ingrid Hill read from her widely praised first novel, Ursula, Under, now in paperback. A little girl's fall down an abandon mineshaft in Michigan's Upper Peninsula leads back to her ancestors in China. How much is one's fate guided by the actions of those who came before us?
June
	June 30	Mary Helen Stefaniak celebrated the paperback edition of her novel, The Turk and My Mother. Stefaniak gave another charming and humorous reading of her book, which is loosely based on tales from her own family of Croatian-Hungarians immigrants, some of whom ended up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
	June 29	Iowa City nature writer, and founder and editor of The Ice Cube Press, Steve Semken read from his new book, The Great Blues, an unusual perspective and insight into the graceful and wondrous Great Blue Herons.
	June 28	Poet Michael Dennis Browne read from his latest collection of poems, Things I Can't Tell You. Browne gave a wonderful performance of his work. He is professor of English and directs the Creative Writing Program at the University of Minnesota.
	June 27	Thomas Fox Averill read from his new collection of short stories, Ordinary Genius. Averill is also the author of two novels, Secrets of the Tsil Cafe, and The Slow Air of Ewan MacPherson. He is Writer-In-Residence and Professor of English at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas.
	June 24	Award winning and New York Times Bestseller detective novelist Lee Child read from his latest in his Jack Reacher series, One Shot. Child is as entertaining as his writing.
	June 23	Novelist Michael Cunningham, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Hours, read from Specimen Days. Walt Whitman is at the heart of Cunningham's latest work.
	June 22	Novelist Eric Goodman read from his new novel, Child of My Right Hand. An insightful story of a gay teen coming out in a small conservative Ohio town.
	June 20	Poet and fiction writer Ander Monson read from his collection of short stories, Other Electricities and from his prize winning first book of poems, Vacationland.
	June 17	Jane Desaulniers, winner of the John Simmons Award for Short Fiction from the University of Iowa Press, read form her collection, What You've Been Missing.
	June 16	Elizabeth Crane, author of the story collection, When the Messenger is Hot, read from her new novel, All This Heavenly Glory.
	June 15	Mary Kay Zuravleff, the author of Frequency of Souls, read from her latest novel, The Bowl Is Already Broken. A Museum's valuable Chinese bowl is accidentally broken and the incident throws the institution's staff into disarray. Zuravleff says the book is her love letter to museums; she used to work for the Freer and Sackler Galleries of The Smithsonian in Washington D.C.
	June 14	Thomas Swick, the travel editor for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, discussed his new book, A Way To See The World: From Texas to Transylvania With A Maverick Traveler. His travels cover a wide range of diverse cultures-- half the stories are set in the U.S. , half abroad - the book also examines the meaning of travel, and celebrates its beauty at a time when many are questioning its importance. Swick’s itinerary spans the hobo convention in Brit Iowa, the last leg of the Oregon Trail, Columbus,Ohio where he searches for the spirit of James Thurber and places abroad include Normandy, France, Trinidad, Vietnam, Croatia, and Cuba.
	June 13	Jeremy Jackson read from his latest cookbook, Good Day for A Picnic: Simple Food that Travels Well. His other culinary works are, The Cornbread Book: A Love Story With Recipes, and Desserts That Have Killed Better Men Than Me. The Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate is the author two books of fiction, In Summer, and Life at These Speeds.
May
	May 24	Adrienne Miller, literary editor of Esquire Magazine, read from her first novel, The Coast of Akron. A story about that all too human urge to own what is unknowable, no matter what the cost. The setting is Miller's native Akron, Ohio. The Chicago Tribune says "Adrienne Miller is a gifted ventriloquist . Imaginative, refreshingly eccentric and, at times, strangely moving, this is truly a book whose characters stay with you long after you put them back on the shelf."
	May 23	One of the co-founders of Codepink, the renowned women for peace organization, Jodie Evans discussed the book, Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism. Evans co-edited the book with another Codepink co-founder Medea Benjamin. The book is a collection of essays by over seventy experts, scholars, artists, activists and journalists who discuss stopping the current war and preventing the next and what it will take to create peace. Contributors include, Barbara Ehrenreich, Terry Tempest Williams, journalist Helen Thomas, Dr. Helen Caldicott, writers Arandoti Roy and Alice Walker, and playwright Eve Ensler, Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto.
	May 19	Jim Fergus, the author of the highly praised, One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd, read from his second novel The Wild Girl: The Notebooks of Ned Giles 1932. Fergus sets his based-on-fact book in the American West, during the early 20th Century, and tells the story of an Apache girl who was abducted and used as ransom to recover the kidnapped son of a wealthy Mexican rancher. Photographer Ned Giles becomes entranced by the girl, and follows her and her story.
	May 18	Poet Jerry Harp read from his second collection of poems, Gatherings, winner of the 2004 Robert McGovern Prize fro Ashland University Press. Harp teaches at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon and is currently working on a booklength study of the poet Donald Justice.
	May 10	Adam Mansbach, author of Shackling Water read from his highly charged new novel that takes on white privilege, racism, hip-hop, and baseball, Angry Black White Boy or the Miscegenation of Macon Detorney.
	May 9	Elizabeth Berg, author of thirteen highly popular bestselling novels, which include, Talk Before Sleep and Range of Motion, reads from her latest book, The Year of Pleasures.
	May 6	Columbia Academic Peter Pouncey read from his first novel. Rules for Old Men Waiting, a touching thoughtful novel of England spanning two world wars. “A tender, beautifully expressed rumination on love and loss by a highly intelligent and marvelously brave old man.” William Begley
	May 5	Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate Alex Parsons read from his powerful World War II novel, In the Shadows of the Sun. Set in the high desert badlands of New Mexico and the ravaged, war-torn landscape of the Philippine jungle, In the Shadows of the Sun is the story of the Stricklands, a ranching family struggling to hold on to their way of life in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor.
	May 4	Several contributors to Living With Topsoil: Tending Spirits, Cherishing Land, a collection of essays about Iowa ecology. The book features contributions by many of Iowa's leading writers, who consider both the environmental and spiritual dimension of living atop the world's most fertile soil. Reading from book, which was published last fall by Ice Cube Press, will be author Steve Semken, a UI alumnus who founded the Standing By Words Center, sponsor of the Harvest Lectures Series; UI Writers' Workshop alumna Mary Swander, who teaches at Iowa State University; Connie Mutel, Historian and Archivist in hydroscience and engineering for the UI College of Engineering; and Tom Dean, Special Assistant to UI President David Skorton.
April
	April 29	Prairie Lights welcomes popular African American fiction writer, Yolanda Joe, and self-help and inspirational writer, Terrie Williams. Joe read from her latest novel The Hatwearer's Lesson. In this story, Yolanda Joe demonstrates the importance of family traditions and having the courage to follow our instincts and our hearts. Terrie Williams discussed her new book of non-fiction, Stay Strong: Simple Lessons for Teens.
	April 27	Poets Megan Johnson and Carrie Bennett read from their award-winning collections of poetry. Megan Johnson will read from The Waiting, winner of The 2004 Iowa Poetry Prize and Carrie Bennett will read from Biography of Water, winner of the 2004 Washington Prize.
	April 25	Poet Carolyne Wright read from her latest collection of poems, Seasons of Mangoes and Brainfire. The book is the winner of an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. Among her books and chapbooks of poetry are Premonitions of an Uneasy Guest and From a White Woman's Journal. Wright has also written a collection of essays, A Choice of Fidelities: Lectures and Readings from a Writer's Life and has translated several volumes of poetry from Spanish and Bengali. She currently teaches at Cleveland State University.
	April 22	Thomas Wolf and Patricia Bryan co-authored MIdnight Assassin: A Murder in America's Heartland. They read from and discussed their book, which examines the true story of an axe murder that took place in Warren County Iowa in 1900. What also emerges is the story of early feminist Susan Glaspell, who covered the Hossack murder case as a young reporter and later used it as the basis for her acclaimed work A Jury of Her Peers.
	April 20	Elizabeth George, one of America's best known and most respected detective novelists, read from her latest book, With No One As Witness. Issues of racism within the police are brought to the fore in this latest of the Lynley and Havers series. George's books have been made into movies for the PBS Mystery series produced by the BBC.
	April 19	Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate Daniel Alarcon read from his highly praised collection War by Candlelight: Stories. It is a portrait of a world in flux. Alarcon takes the reader from Third World urban centers to the fault lines that divide nations and people. Wars, both national and internal, are waged in jungles, across borders, in the streets of Lima, in the intimacy of New York apartments. These are lives at the margins and not-yet-globalize words, the stories of those who shuttle between them and never quite feel at home in cities where they were born. Alarcon was born in Lima, Peru, and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. A former Fulbright Scholar to Peru and the recipient of a Whiting Writer's Award for 2004, he lives in Oakland, California.
	April 19	Historian Linda Ben-Zvi discussed her new book, Susan Glaspell: Her Life and Times. Glasspell, a native of Davenport, Iowa, is called female playwright, winner of the 1931 Pulitzer Prize for drama, and one of the most respected novelists and short story writers of her time. In her life she explored uncharted regions and in her writing she created intrepid female characters who did the same. As a young Iowa reporter, her major newspaper stories involved the case of State v. Hossack. She covered the 1901 trial of an Iowa farm wife charged with killing her husband with a hatchet while he slept. The story later became the basis for Glasspell's renowned work, A Jury of Her Peers. Biographer Linda Ben-Zvi is Professor of Theatre Studies at Tel Aviv University and Professor Emerita of English and Theatre at Colorado State University.
	April 14	Fiction writer Sarah Stonich reads from her new novel, The Ice Chorus. A complex love story which moves from Toronto to a charming town on the coast of Ireland, and then to a Mexican archaeological dig. "Stonich effortlessly conjures multiple vivid settings and uncommonly interesting characters even as she moves seamlessly between the past and the present. A subtle, lovely evocation of the transforming power of love." -Booklist
	April 11	Jodi Picoult, author of eleven novels that include, Plain Truth and Pact: A Love Story, which were made into made for TV movies by Lifetime, read from her latest book, Vanishing Acts. It is about the nature and power of memory; about what happens when the past we have been running from catches up to us… and what happens when the memory we thought had vanished returns as a threat. "As usual, Picoult spins a terrifically suspenseful tale by developing just the right human-interest elements…an experience novelist takes her sweet time to rich rewards: overall, an affecting saga, nicely handled.” Kirkus Reviews
	April 7	Reza Aslan read from his new book, No god But God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam. Born in Iran and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, Aslan was the first professor Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies in Iowa when he taught at the University of Iowa. He also earned the MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Aslan has written for The Nation, Slate and The New York Times.
	April 4	Novelist Francine Prose read from her newest book, A Changed Man the story of Vincent Nolan, a 32-year-old, former neo-Nazi skinhead who becomes a media celebrity after publicly renouncing racism. "Prose tears into this unusual premise with the piercing wit that has become her trademark…. Her lively skewering of a whole cross-section of society ensures that this tale hits comic high notes even as it probes serious issues. - Publisher's Weekly
		Francine Prose reading at the Live from Prairie Lights series, April 4, 2005
March
	March 30	Celebrated author of detective fiction, George Pelecanos read from his latest novel Drama City. Pelecanos is well known for his stories that are set in his native Washington D.C. His latest is a poignant story of the vulnerable side of life "inside the beltway." Pelecanos also writes and co-produces the HBO hit series The Wire.
	March 24	Minneapolis based crime novelist, Erin Hart read from her latest book, Lake of Sorrows. An archaeological dig in the bogs of Ireland unearth more than a couple of mysterious bodies!. Hart is also the author of the book, Haunted Ground.
	March 23	Jane Guill read from her historical epic set in 14th century Wales, "Nectar From A Stone". A Welsh woman, prone to strange visions and the sole survivor of a plague-ravaged family, flees from her village running from a murder she was forced to commit. A story of passion, intrigue and the supernatural.
	March 22	Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate Marilyn Abildskov read form her memoir, a sensually written depiction of an American woman's life in Japan, The Men in My Country.
	March 21	Tom Gass read from his book of non-fiction, Nobody's Home: Candid Reflections of a Nursing Home Aide. A graphic and poignant account of working in a long term care facility; what it is like for the residents who live there and the aides in charge of their care.
	March 10	Remarkable long distance swimmer Lynne Cox discussed her book Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long Distance Swimmer. Cox broke both the men's and women's records of swimming the English Channel, and she was the first to swim many seemingly unswimmable bodies of water, which include the Bering Strait; with that event she was responsible for bridging the gap between the U.S. and the Soviet Union! Her other feats include the Cook Strait between the main islands of New Zealand and the Magellan Strait. Cox was named Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year in 1975, inducted into the Swimming Hall of Fame in 2000, and honored with a lifetime achievement award from U.C. Santa Barbara.
	March 8	Poets Dan Beachy-Quick and Sally Keith read from her new collections. Beachy-Quick read from Spell, the collection is immersed with the influence of Melville's Moby Dick. Keith read from Dwelling Song, winner of the Contemporary Poetry Series Competition form the University of Georgia Press.
	March 7	Dynamic speakers Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards discussed their new book Grassroots: A Field Guide to Feminist Activism is an activism handbook for social justice. Aimed at everyone from students to professionals, stay-at-home moms to artists, Grassroots answers the perennial question: What can I do? Whether you are concerned about the environment, human rights violations in Tibet, campus sexual assault policies, sweatshop labor, gay marriage, or the ongoing repercussions from 9-11, Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards believe that we all have something to offer in the fight against injustice. Baumgardner and Richards also co-authored the highly praised book Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future.
	March 3	Aimee Phan read from her riveting and poignant collection We Should Never Meet. The interlinked tales feature the lives of Vietnamese Amerasian orphans in settings that alternate between Saigon before the city’s fall in 1975 and present day little Saigon in southern California…where Phan grew up. Phan is a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop.
	March 2	Poet Eleni Sikelianos read from her two new collections, The California Poem, and The Book of Jon. The first is a book length poem that meditates all the elements that make up the Golden State. The second book delves into the poet's life with her drug addicted father and living a transient lifestyle. Sikelianos is the great-granddaughter of Angelos Sikelianos, known as the Greek "Walt Whitman."
February
	Feb 28	Nick Arvin read from his new novel Articles of War. A powerful page-turner about a young Iowa man who serves in World War II and confronts grave doubts about his own courage. Arvin is an Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate, and the author of the story collection In the Electric Eden.
	Feb 23	Award winning historian Suzanne Lebsock discussed her new book A Murder in Virginia: Southern Justice on Trial. An historical account of the 1895 ax murder of Lucy Jane Pollard, a white farm women in Lunenburg, Virginia, and the case of the four black people accused of killing her. This is a thrilling courtroom drama and a wise historical narrative illuminating the South in the throes of change, and shows how the legacy of that time-for good and ill-lives on. Suzanne Lebsock teaches at Rutgers University, where she is the Board of Governors Professor of History.
	Feb 22	Kembrew McLeod, who teaches in the University of Iowa's Communications Studies Department, read from his new book, Freedom of Expression: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity. McLeod trademarked the phrase "freedom of expression" as satirical comment of how intellectual property law is increasingly being used to fence off the culture and restrict the way we're allowed to express ideas. McLeod is also a rock music critic.