Celebrate Iowa's literary legacy with 50 events at the Iowa City Book Festival (2024)

Jessica RishIowa City Press-Citizen

The Iowa City Book Festival highlights Iowa's rich literary roots and captures the essence of the American story, and this year is no different.

The annual event presented by the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature began in 2009, a year after Iowa City earned its special distinction, one of three North American cities to hold the honor.

Programming for the week-long festival begins on Sunday, Oct. 13, and runs through Sunday, Oct. 20. This year, the Iowa City Book Festival is back to its pre-pandemic speed, with 50 events spread throughout the week, most of which are free and open to the public.

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Partnering with the community

The Iowa City Book Festival teams up with local organizations like the indie bookstore, Prairie Lights, the Refocus Film Festival, and the Iowa City Public Library to host authors from around the world.

The festival also welcomes a multitude of writers, speakers, educators, and artists — often an amalgamation of the four — who will present their works, many of whom are graduates of the UI's writing programs and current students.

"The book festival is an opportunity for us to celebrate the city of literature by highlighting the work of local authors, bringing in prominent national authors, and looking to share stories and add to the ongoing conversation that our community is having about a number of important issues," said the Iowa City of Literature executive director, John Kenyon.

While the book festival doesn't have a guiding theme, this year's festival could be best described as "telling the American story," according to Kenyon, from stories about Native American Identity, the importance of translation in literary spaces, and deep-dive investigation of education privatization and school vouchers.

"We have a lot of authors who speak to some of the big things that we're grappling with as a community and as a country, but also offering a little escape if you're already too inundated by that," Kenyon said. "There's so many different perspectives from politics to place, (The Iowa City Book Festival) is capturing that American story and finding many different ways to tell it."

Check out these can't-miss Iowa City Book Festival events

Literary Legends: Tracy Kidder in conversation with Stuart Dybek

Iowa Writers' Workshop graduate Tracy Kidder will be honored at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 15, in the main lounge of the Iowa Memorial Union. Kidder, a Pulitzer Prize-winning literary journalist, will be joined by Stuart Dybek.

Though earning an MFA degree in fiction, Kidder has built a lasting career in nonfiction. Kidder and Dybek will discuss the power of long-form investigative writing, followed by a Q&A session and book signing. Attendees can pre-register for the event.

Bruna Dantas Lobato — 'Blue Light Hours'

Bruna Dantas Lobato won the National Book Award for translated literature in 2023 for "The Words That Remain" by Stênio Gardel.Lobato has translated nine full bodies of work after receiving her MFA in literary translation from the University of Iowa. She will read from her latest project, "Blue Light Hours," her debut novel, at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 15.

"Blue Light Hours," an expanded story previously published in The New Yorker, is a coming-of-age story that explores the profound sacrifices that come with leaving home.

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Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz — 'The Indian Card'

Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz's latest book, "The Indian Card," explores what it means to be Native American in the United States. Schuettpelz dives into the world of contradictions that exist within the Native American identity. Through in-depth interviews and archival research, she pieces together the story of today's cultural, racial, and political dynamics of Tribal identity while discovering a deeper sense of belonging.

Schuettpelz will be joined by Harry Smith at Prairie Lights Books at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 16. Smith is a famed broadcast journalist who had a long career with CBS and NBC News and is currently a professor at Central College in Pella.

Forrest Gander — 'Mojave Ghost'

Forrest Gander is an American poet, translator, essayist, and novelist. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2019 for his book "Be With." His latest release, "Mojave Ghost," is a novel poem that combines a novel's structural elements with the style and language of the poem. In "Mojave Ghost," Gander recounts the spiritual and physical journey of walking much of the 800-mile San Andreas fault.

He will read from "Mojave Ghost" at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19, at Prairie Lights.

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Amanda Jones — 'That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America'

Part memoir, part manifesto, "That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America," by Amanda Jones, maps the book-banning crisis, specifically in her home state of Louisiana, and the backlash she received after speaking out against the bans.

Jones will be joined bySam Helmick, the American Library Association Council 2024-2025 president-elect, at 10 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 19, at the Iowa City Public Library. The event is co-sponsored by the Intellectual Freedom Festival and the Iowa City Book Festival.

Josh Cowen — 'The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers'

Also co-sponsored by the Intellectual Freedom Festival, Josh Cowen, author of "The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers," will host an event at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 19, at the library.

Cowen is a professor of Education Policy at Michigan State University. He'll highlight the origins of voucher-based education reform and warn of the dangers of education privatization as the vouchers and policy continue to advance throughout the nation.

Jessica Rish is an entertainment, dining and education reporter for the Iowa City Press-Citizen. She can be reached at JRish@press-citizen.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @rishjessica_.

Celebrate Iowa's literary legacy with 50 events at the Iowa City Book Festival (2024)

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