Friday at Hancher Auditorium

Donika Kelly, 6:30pm

A fitting opener for a festival about exploration and discovery, poet and University of Iowa English professor Donika Kelly will kick off the Stop/Time festival with a short, fifteen-minute reading at Hancher. Kelly’s poetry is reflective and expansive, covering themes from consuming love to blinding pain and everything in between. Her first book of poetry, Bestiary, won the 2015 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, and her most current book, The Natural Order of Things, was released in October 2025 to positive reviews. Many of her individual poems have been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The Paris Review.

–Bailey Vergara

Ambrose Akinmusire, 6:45pm

Hey, you. Do you like jazz? Let’s hope so, because renowned trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire is coming to Hancher Up Close to bless your ears with musings that combine avant-garde jazz, post-bop, hip-hop, and more. With music, Akinmusire hopes to break down the educational barriers surrounding classical jazz and uplift community stories; he borrows from tradition, but is not constrained by it. His newest record, “honey from a winter stone,” is an exploratory journey through a variety of moods, from slow and meandering to restless and lively. And in case you aren’t already sold on his talent, his 2023 album “Owl Song” was nominated for a 2025 Grammy award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album.

–Bailey Vergara

Mei Semones, 8:45pm

24-year-old guitarist and singer Mei Semones will bring her technical talent and playful songwriting personality to Club Hancher in Strauss Hall of Hancher on Friday. Her songs blend indie rock, bossa nova, jazz, and dreamy pop, with lyrics in both English and Japanese. Despite their intricate layering, you’ll still find them easy to hum along to, and you may not be able to stop. Semones’ newest full album, “Animaru,” is dedicated to her trust in her own instincts, built through years of practice and demonstrated by ornate guitar riffs and refined, breathy vocals. Her upcoming EP “Kurage” — which features Liana Flores, John Roseboro, and her own dad — releases April 10th.

–Bailey Vergara

Saturday across Iowa City

Evicshen, 4:30pm at Gabe’s

Tapping into the weirder side of the Iowa City music community, Hancher brought in San Francisco based experimental noise artist Victoria Shen. Performing under the name Evicshen for the past eight years, her music uses powerful walls of sound and intense textures that assault your sonic palette. This often is used with extremely creative ways of bending or playing her records, such as comb filtering and folding records with her nails. 
Within her live shows, she combines this extremely well with creative art installations, and the use of weaponry and other eccentric performance antics to create a vibrant visual experience, and assault on the senses. Watching some of the recorded concerts was a beyond fascinating experience, and something I hope a lot of you guys can enjoy. 
Artists like her aren’t interested in growing a large audience, or mass producing their music. They’re interested in performing for a niche crowd who understand their artistic version, and are open to hearing music on the more experimental and macabre side of the isle. If this intrigues you, she’s playing at Gabe’s at 4:30PM, come with ear plugs.

–Tarik Krob

Sharp Pins, 6:00pm at Gabe’s

Sharp Pins, an exciting new voice in the music underground, is a one man band combining elements of classic rock with more modern indie and alternative stylizations. The side project of Kai Slater, lead singer of fellow Chicago band Lifeguard, has been picking up steam in the last few years with some incredibly unique and high quality albums.
His most recent album Balloon Balloon Balloon is a jangly hallucinatory odyssey connected by three different tracks simply labeled Balloon 1-3. Wearing his influences off his back with zero shame, the album takes the trippy, other worldly sounds of psychedelic bands of the 60s like The Beatles and The Zombies with a more stripped back DIY sound, similar to post punk bands like Joy Division and The Velvet Underground. Their previous release Radio DDR has a similar vibe, but with a more varied song lineup and more pop-centered approach to songwriting. If Balloon Balloon Balloon felt like listening to your grandparents old low fidelity radio, then Radio DDR feels like sifting through random singles in their vinyl collection. 
If any of this at all sounds interesting to you, check them out at 6PM at Gabe’s. Start listening before it’s cool to say you’re a fan.

–Tarik Krob

Danez Smith, 6:45pm at the Englert Theatre

On April 4th, queer, non-binary poet and performer Danez Smith will return to Iowa City to perform at The Englert Theatre for the Stop/Time festival. Smith previously led a workshop and hosted the Writers of Color Reading series in 2017, which was also produced by The Englert. Smith was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and later earned degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Michigan. They’re best known for their poetry collections Boy (2014), Don’t Call Us Dead (2017), and Bluff (2024). Their work has won multiple awards, such as the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Minnesota Book Award in Poetry, and the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, just to name a few. Smith has also performed with rapper Macklemore, back in 2016 on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, along with Chicago-based poet Jamila Woods. 
For those interested in attending a poetry reading or specifically in Smith’s poetry, they will also being hosting a reading at Prairie Lights at 3:15 pm that same day. This reading is presented by Stop/Time Festival, but entry at Prairie Lights is free for all.

–Ria Das

The Branford Marsalis Quartet, 7:00pm at the Englert Theatre

The Branford Marsalis Quartet is a jazz band, closer described as a chamber group, headed by American saxophonist Branford Marsalis. Marsalis is a composer and the leader of the band. He has played with Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Sting, the Grateful Dead, and Dizzy Gillespie. He has been playing the saxophone in bands and solo since the 1980s. The quartet officially formed in 1986 with members Kenny Kirkland on the piano, Jeff “Tain” Watts on drums, and Robert Hurst on bass. Pianist Kenny Kirkland died in the 90’s and was replaced by Joey Calderazzo and Robert Hurst was replaced by Eric Revis on bass. Later Tain left the band and was replaced by Justin Faulkner. On Saturday night they will be featuring their newly released album Belonging, which came out last March. Expect an experimental yet classic jazz sound from this quartet. As Marsalis notes, “it doesn’t really matter where our journey goes, as long as we keep the dance going.”

–Moira Grant

Golomb, 8:00pm at Gabe’s

Golomb is a alternative rock band from Columbus, Ohio and are made up of three members, two of which are married (members Mickey and Xenia Shuman). The third member is Xenia’s brother, Hawken Holm who plays drums while Xenia and Mickey sing and play bass and guitar. They have a dream-like/indie sound, leaning into noise and experimental rock. They write their own songs and were formed in 2018. Expect a lively show with folksy-sounding guitar riffs and country elements such as a pedal-steel guitar, especially in the song “Sweet Release (Ain’t No Devil)” but also a loud, lively, and heavy sound from the song “The Beat Goes On.” This band is experimental as well. The lead singer Mickey sounds just like Stephen Malkmus, the lead singer of Pavement. Xenia often does the background vocals and harmonizes excellently with Mickey. Perhaps being unified in marriage also transfers to being unified in sound and music? Find out this Saturday.

–Moira Grant

Tortoise, 9:15pm at The Englert Theatre

The post-rock Chicago legends Tortoise join us in Iowa City to close out The Englert Theatre’s share of events this weekend. This is one of those bands that people on the internet debate about at such a mighty length that this discourse can only be achieved through the means of doctorate dissertations or through Reddit. But at their core, they’re a rock band built from atmosphere. Influenced by electronica, krautrock, and jazz, their music is this kind of eclectic and wondrous mish-mash. It feels a stretch to call it “rock,” the sound is so minimal yet so captivating in how it pulls a listener directly into this world they’re creating. They’re current tour follows the release of Torch, their newest album from last year released after nearly a decade record hiatus, yet still ringing out the same quality as their 1998 landmark TNT album. I’d truly recommend seeing this band, they’ve played such a major part of the post-rock foundation and seeing them at this festival really encapsulates the exact artistry that Stop/Time Festival is creating space for.

–Pauly

Frankie and the Witch Fingers, 10:30pm at Gabe’s

Punk-rock band Frankie and The Witch Fingers performs at Gabe’s for Stop/Time Festival and as part of their tour for their newest album, Trash Classic. The band was originally formed in Indiana by founding member Dylan Sizemore, the band’s vocalist and rhythm guitarist, and later relocated to Los Angeles. Currently, the band consists of Josh Menashe (vocalist, lead guitarist, and synthesizer), Nikki Pickle (bassist), Nick Aguilar (drummer), and Jon Modaff (synths). Frankie and the Witch Fingers evolved from Sizemore’s original solo act into a band, signing to record labels such as Permanent Records, and released their self-titled first album in 2015 with their psych-pop/acid-rock second album Heavy Roller out a year later. The band has since released more albums, with their most recent Trash Classic in 2025, described as plunging, “into a sewer-slick fusion of proto-punk venom, fractured new wave, and industrial grime. Brimming with wiry synths, angular melodies, and grooves that squirm and bite.” If any of that sounds interesting to you, consider attending their show for the chance to rock out with them live!

–Ria Das

There’s plenty more to see at Iowa City’s first Stop/Time Festival this weekend, with a huge spread of incredible local and touring artists, authors, and poets presented by Hancher Auditorium. For more information on further events and to purchase tickets, check the Stop/Time website here.

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The childhood scenes within this psychological fiction gave me an unreasonable sense of hope for the cliches of a coming of age story, but instead I was met with characters I loved to hate and their ostentatious scenes. Nina’s character evolution never led her to true maturation despite her painful eagerness to better herself during her search for love, and remained as a shell of a writer. True Love’s other characters include a sexually deviant snob, a chaotic failed attempt of a boyfriend, a “filmmaker” that still lives with his parents, and a single mother with unendurable taste in men.

the exploration of love and its myriad facets. Nina’s journey, although not a traditional romance, delves into the intricacies of human connection and the emotional rollercoaster that is often associated with love. The novel’s satirical approach to psychological fiction allows readers to navigate the complexities of relationships with both humor and depth. Love, in its various forms, becomes a lens through which the characters grapple with their own vulnerabilities, unveiling the raw and authentic aspects of the human experience.

In moments of uncertainty and introspection, one might ponder not only the characters’ dilemmas but also personal questions about love and connection. Seeking guidance on matters of the heart is not uncommon, and people often wonder what to ask a psychic in their quest for clarity. The novel, much like life itself, invites readers to reflect on the unpredictable nature of love and the questions that linger in the depths of our minds. In this intricate dance between fiction and reality, the exploration of love becomes a thread that weaves through the narrative, offering both solace and contemplation for those navigating their own complex emotional landscapes.

I applaud Gerard for her surprising, nonlinear storytelling. It kept me on my toes and ready to see what would come next. Another merit included a scene that detailed the abuse experienced by the main character without reducing it to trauma porn.

The dialogue felt far fetched from reality, as if the only goal was to create conflict between the – already insufferable – characters. It felt somewhat counter intuitive that Gerard introduced humor early on only to result in an excessively bleak ending. If the book was not so hard to put down I would have torn it in half.

Nina’s search for love is a stinging critique of current society, as well as a sensitive analysis of our desperate need for connection in an age of alienation. These realizations only came to me after I peeled away the agonizing details.

All in all, True Love encompassed the best themes within Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë [pen name Currer Bell] and the worst captious characters in the psychological thriller Like Me, written by Hayley Phelan.

I would rate True Love a 4/5 because True Love is in no way the average YA romance novel I expected but was the chilling call to reality I needed.

Come see Sarah Gerard read her book and Kaveh Akbar read his, Pilgrim Bell, at Prairie Lights in Iowa City at 1:00 on Saturday, April 9. True Love is available for purchase at Prairie Lights.

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Prairie Lights’ modest upstairs was packed with people of all ages eager to hear from the author herself about her book, and her experiences. A police detail lingered at the edges of the throng of Iowa City’s white, liberal elite. Crucet was recently met with outright hostility and violence (violence is of course, beyond physical bodily harm) after her forum at Georgia Southern University, culminating in a book burning of her work.

Despite the knowledge of this incident on the minds of most people at her reading and the broader awareness of our current political climate, Crucet invited the audience to laugh and engage in her work. There was a lightness that Crucet brought to her discussion of topics that are anything but, in a way that was restorative yet candid about the importance of the discussion of racism in America. The two essays Crucet read excerpts from were frank and autobiographical, encompassing issues of xenophobia, whiteness, the politics of names, and the importance of context. Touching on events from her life, Crucet illuminated the subtle ways oppression is enacted and the nuanced way people experience it. The discussion of these ideas through curated audience questions and the presenter’s thoughtful commentary made the space a safe one for questions and answers, but more importantly a type of civil discussion that is largely absent from our current society.

Crucet spoke of her experiences as a professor at the University of Nebraska, whose demographic is similar to Iowa’s, and navigating a certain kind of whiteness that was different from the ‘whiteness’ she had access to in her home state of Florida. Crucet spoke of being acclimated to seeing Cuban people as authority figures and in positions of power and having access to the whiteness that provided her. From this, Crucet detailed the idea that whiteness is not as much of a race as it is a mode of power and a dominant culture over other groups. This led into a discussion of how contemporary whiteness in America is further illuminated by an understanding of the social construction of race and whiteness.

The discussion ended with two revelations, one chilling and one restorative. She acknowledged the book burning at Georgia Southern as something that was not an isolated event and expressed that to her it was the fact that her book happened to be the first to be burned, but wouldn’t be the last, that was unsettling about it. Lastly, the importance of our personal feelings in discussions about race and power came with the responsibility to do something substantial toward change with our feelings.

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Anyone who is at all familiar with Iowa City knows the wonderful feelings associated with attending a Prairie Lights reading. The smell of books, the faint sound of an espresso machine echoing from beyond the closed doors of the coffee shop, the tenderness each reader seems to bring to the mic as they crack open the glossy pages of their book, brand new copies beckoning you to purchase them from the front table.

“Notes from the Underground” was humbly named as four writers from a wide range of genres shared their work. Marcus Brown, Paloma Yannakakis, Katherine Faw, and Richard Hell splayed their selections for the standing-room-only crowd. Works of poetry, fiction, and hints of creative non-fiction. Notes from the Underground might’ve been more aptly named “Raw Emotion: where poetry and fiction meet at poignant, effective language.”

First to read was recent Iowa grad, Marcus Brown. His poem, “Open Letter to My Mentor” is a piece of some length. However, it is clear each word was chosen carefully, painstakingly.

His poem set a tone for the rest of the readers to follow. A tone of intimacy with the audience that was not only effective, but necessary. Brown reminded each audience member why it matters to take a poem off the page and let it live in air.

Paloma Yannakakis is a grad student in the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. She followed Marcus and read a series of poems her own. Yannakakis’s voice was melodic as it painted vivid pictures spanning several millennia. There is a wise-scope to her work. Her poems, including “The Moth”, create a certain unity between the inner world—exploring the self, and the natural world—exploring details from the minute to the grandiose.

Katherine Faw is a fiction writer whose book, “Ultra-Luminous”, was named a New Yorker Must-Read. Though a first timer in Iowa City, Faw was clearly no stranger to a captivating reading. She read a generous section from “Ultra-Luminous”, explaining the book’s main premise of following a sex worker named “K”.

The selection calls no men by their name but remains heavily about them. Instead, Faw chose to give these characters their own nicknames (i.e. “Art Guy” and “Guy Who Buys Me Things”). The plot of the novel provides a certain air of tragedy to the story, but instead of just drawing upon that sympathy, Faw engages all the senses. Her work is difficult and funny. She engaged the audience at every turn.

The reading closed with Richard Hell. He has written many books of poetry as well as non-fiction. As he tapered up to the mic, he immediately took to establishing a personal connection with the audience. He flipped through pages while telling us of his “creative partner turned bitter enemy” and showcased the slightly slack binding in one of the books from which he had planned to read.

Ultimately, he chose to dazzle with his poetry. His work is brilliant. Expert at elongating a moment, and making that moment worth more, he unapologetically discusses the visceral, the sexy, the awful, and the gruesome. The six poems he read were of alternating lengths but each had their own divine humor. Perhaps most notably, Richard Hell is a writer who asks “the emotional question” of a work. Sometimes, he’ll answer it. Sometimes, he doesn’t. Either way, I was with him the whole way.

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Lina Maria Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas is the author of Drown/Sever/Sing, winner of the 2016 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award as well as Don’t Come Back. Her fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and translations have been featured in journals including The Bellingham Review, The Chicago Review, Fourth Genre, Poets & Writers and the Sunday Rumpus, among others.

She won the Best of the Net, the Iron Horse Review’s Discovered Voices Award, has been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes and is a Rona Jaffe fellow.

Cabeza-Vanegas opened the reading with a power and poignant reflection on her experience grappling with recent political injustices against her native country. This injustice inspired her to translate a poem a day for seventy-eight straight days.

Cabeza-Vanegas read a poem she recently translated called “Monday Song” written by an El Salvadorian poet. She encouraged us to reflect on our own political stances and view all countries for what they truly are.

Cabeza-Vanegas read from her essay collection Don’t Come Back, which reimagines nonfiction through a balance of evidence and transcendence. Small moments accumulate, creating lyrical and narrative harboring great emotional intensity.

Don’t Come Back, “chronicles the immigrant’s ever-present tug of family and the familiar—what is left behind—and the equally strong pull of the new land with its lure of stability and security,” said Norma E. Cantu. “Lina’s story asks readers to venture into the migrant heart’s dilemma—to go back or to stay in the new country.”

Cabeza-Vanegas used the image of a gun being pressed against one’s body that when the trigger is pulled the gun burns through one’s clothing to describe the process of writing Don’t Come Back.

“I knew a book that jumped genres, timelines, and perspectives, while utilizing diagrams, images, and untranslatable aphorisms, was the most impractical book I could write, and I thought I’d never be able to place it,” Ferreira said.

“Even though Don’t Come Back is a book from a fairly small press, and is written in a language none of my subjects speak, writing down their stories to the best of my abilities is my most sincere act of rebellion against a system that refuses to acknowledge their heroism.”

Don’t Come Back features an experimental form, meshing prose with translations, illustrations, and graphs. Cabeza-Vanegas mentioned that translation and description were, “metaphors for the same life.”

Cebeza-Vanegas weaves between, “nations, languages, and mythologies,” said E.V. De Cleyre. “The re-telling of Jorge Gaitán’s assassination in Colombia in “The Peach Orchard” is reminiscent of Elena Ferrante’s depictions of Naples. The images and graphs in “Empire of Toes” look and feel like the essays of Ander Monson or Patrick Madden. The shifting perspectives and circling of minor, and major violence read like Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Small Backs of Children.”

After six years of reporting for both national and regional newspapers, Sarah Viren enrolled in IWP. Her writing has appeared in the Oxford American, Texas Monthly, Guernica, the Iowa Review, The New Inquiry, and others. Her essay “My Murderer’s Futon” was selected by Lee Martin for The Pinch literary journal’s 2014 Nonfiction Prize.

Viren read from Mine: Essays, which was the recipient of the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize. Viven said the essay collection was “ownership and the contingency of facts.”

She read an essay titled “My Wife” which grappled with the inequalities of same-sex marriage. The essay documents her experiences marrying her wife Marta in Iowa and moving to Texas where that marriage was no longer valid under federal law. The essay differentiates the ideals of life from its stark realities.

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A winner of four Pushcart Prizes, she is currently an associate professor at the University of Texas, also actively involved in the education program she started at a local prison.

Unferth is a rebel. She ventured to Central America after dropping out of college at 18 years old to “join the revolution,” as she says in an interview on Stop Smiling Online. After hopping from El Salvador to Nicaragua to Panama to El Salvador to Costa Rica, she finally came

back to the states to begin her writing career.

She is known for her unapologetic fiction and nonfiction—vinegary, dark, and humorous. For instance, Voltaire Night, which appeared in the Paris Review, narrates a tradition of a teacher and her adult-ed class has, in which they share their terrible experiences, starting as a “recent bad experiences” to “worst ever.” One can imagine the strange places to which this narrative would lead.

In these stories, one might notice Unferth’s omission of names. In The Rumpus interview, she ascribes this choice to the feeling that names make a story sound synthetic.

I always felt that putting names in a story is artificial. It feels like, Oh, now I’m writing a story when I include a name. It feels phony. If I use a name, I have to feel like it’s almost in quotes. Any name that I use has to be doing other work. The work cannot be that it’s just a name for my character. It’s never that easy. –from “It’s Never That Easy: Talking with Deb Olin Unferth”, The Rumpus, 24 Jan 2018. 

Though not many would describe their writing or reading experience as auditory, Unferth does. In an interview with Nate Martin on Stop Smiling Online, she describes remembers how reading biographies of Frank Lloyd Wright involved sound—”the hum of the words on the pages were coming up at me and making almost a song.” –-“The Contestant: Deb Olin Unferth,” Stop Smiling Online, 17 August 2007. She further depicts her writing experience as not a result of one sound, but “It is more like I hear the story before I start writing it. Sometimes I hear the entire story before I write it down.”

Also reading at Prairie Lights that evening is Andrea Lawlor from Massachusetts, who teaches creative writing and edits fiction for Fence.

Lawlor has published a chapbook, Position Papers, and the recent Paul takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Rescue Press. According to an interview in the Vesto P.R. and Books, Lawlor mentions that this debut novel is a “thinly veiled memoir” –“A Q & A with Andrea Lawlor,” Vesto P.R. and Books, Claudia Acevedo, Jan 2018.

Written by a devoted professor and enthusiastic human being, Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl is the product of personal experience, meticulous research, and years of rich stop-and-go writing.

The major part of this book and Lawlor’s efforts are the LGBTQ experience, and Lawlor has often spoken about how the writing scene can become more accessible and friendly to up and coming LGBTQ writers, voicing the hope that

“Once people are writing and getting support to write, maybe the biggest challenge is to make something good, to be an artist rather than a content producer? That’s a good problem to have.”

I advise you not to miss seeing these thrilling authors read at Prairie Lights—mark your planners! Calendars! Put up a sticky note!

Check out this and more events the Mission Creek Lineup Page.

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As part of the Mission Creek Festival in April, author and translator Lina Maria Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas will be reading at Prairie Lights Books on Wednesday, April 4th at 5:30pm.

She graduated from the University of Iowa with a creative nonfiction writing and literary translation MFA. Among her written works are Drown Sever Sing, and, quite recently, Don’t Come Back.

She has received the 2016 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award and the Iron Horse Review’s Discovered Voices Award, among others, and has been published in multiple platforms, including the Baltimore Review, the Chicago Review, Anomalous Press, Bellingham Review, The Iron Horse Review, and Inscape.

An author of many talents, Vanegas deftly handles multiple genres of writing, including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and translation. A major theme in her work is her early background in Colombia and experiences as an immigrant, which she explores through written works.

Perhaps what makes Vanegas especially fascinating is her experimentation with nonfiction, translation, mythology, and other forms of expression, and how she melds these forms together to accomplish a multi-layered approach.

For instance, Vanegas incorporates Colombian mythology in both Drown Sever Sing and Don’t Come Back, producing a “hybrid” work of nonfiction and myth, which not only provides a complex view into Colombia’s culture and mythical tradition but also explores the very purpose and limits of nonfiction and the space between genres.

In an interview for The Normal School, Vanegas talks about her experience with and decisions about nonfiction:

The best nonfiction, for me, deals with the confrontation of our own fictional nonfictions and nonfictional fictions. We all exist in liminal spaces—not just immigrants—and we are perpetually entertaining a series of contradictory notions all at once.

–“A Conversation with Lina Maria Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas”; The Normal School, 03 November 2017.

Later in the interview, Vanegas talks about her sentiments behind this weaving of mythology into her nonfiction, mentioning how little she initially knew about the mythical traditions of Colombia, which she explains thus:

Why? After the European invasion, it was decided that there was only one culture that could be called culture, and the rest was at best a quaint bedtime story, and at worst heresy.

Finally, a word about her work in translation (because it’s one of my favorite things). In keeping with her experimentation with genre, she takes a bold and ambitious approach to translation, seeking to translate the untranslatable—aphorisms. In the pursuit of translating

these notoriously difficult expressions, with their thick, deep roots in cultural context, language, and tradition, Vanegas has gone beyond text, and employed drawings and graphs and other experimental forms, which, she says in the interview, started during her time in the MFA Translation program at Iowa.

She offers this engaging thought:

Because, what I really wanted to translate was the untranslatability of a translated experience. Of being caught between times, places, languages, and selves, and if I gave the reader the impression that it all could easily fit into this new English skin, then, I would have failed in my primary objective.

–“A Conversation with Lina Maria Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas”

What also makes Vanegas’ nonfiction especially arresting, is the sense of immediacy and candid passion that is intertwined in the text. I am not a die-hard fan of nonfiction, but after reading “BOG-MIA-CID”, the last essay in Don’t Come Back, and an excerpt from “The Peach Orchard,” I found myself totally absorbed.

Read the whole interview here, and check out “BOG-MIA-CID” here—and once you get done with that, get to see this spectacular writer at Prairie Lights!

Be sure to check out this and other Mission Creek Events!

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As this was my first time attending a literature reading, I was quite unsure what to expect. I arrived at Prairie Lights (one of my favorite bookstores) around 5:30pm. I then headed up stairs to catch a few pictures and grab a coffee before the reading started.

By 5:55 all of the chairs were full, with a group of overflow sitting on the floor in the back. I was pleasantly surprised to see this large of a turnout.

After a lovely introduction that gave the crowd an idea of the presenting author’s writing style, Kristen Radtke took the floor. She began by starting the night with the unfortunate news that her good friend who was set to do the reading with her, Lina Maria Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas, was not going to be in attendance due to being caught in a flight delay in Charlotte.

She then began reading, accompanied by various art from Imagine Wanting Only This projected across the large screen next to her. While we only got a short bit of the book, and she jumped around quite a lot I was able to gather that the story was focused around a young adult girl and all of the trials and tribulations she faces throughout the course of these years. Radtke mentioned at one point that the young girl depicted throughout the book was in the crowd at Prairie Lights.

Many of the scenes took place in Iowa City, as the main character was a student at the University of Iowa for part of the book. This character states that she appreciates Iowa City as it is “an easy place to feel you have conquered.”

Throughout these depictions Radtke mentioned various aspects of daily Iowa City life from the ‘cobblestone road leading to her front porch at her apartment’ to ‘looking through bar windows downtown’. It was very interesting to see the author’s view of Iowa City presented in this form.

Other parts of the story were a bit darker. Including the loss of one of her friends, Seth, who was a photographer that she seemed to have a high level of admiration for. She also brings in strange post apocalyptic fantasies which I found to be the most intriguing aspect. Radtke has a fascination with ruins throughout the world and you can see certainly see that in her writing.

A few of my favorite quotes from Radtke and her novel were “I wanted to tell someone how much I loved this, so I wrote it down instead” and “We all fantasize disaster”. She not only has a way with creating art, but also an exceptionally beautiful way with words.

The reading was quite short, she began a little after 6pm and finished up prior to 6:30pm. Her reading was followed up by opening the floor to the audience to ask questions.

Through listening to her answer these questions I learned several interesting details about her life and career as a writer. She confessed to not being much a comic book fan as a child, like many graphic novelist tend to be, she even admitted feeling quite overwhelmed by the idea of doing a graphic novel before starting her first. She credits being fired from her high school newspaper staff her senior year, as her motivation for going to art school which I found quite humorous.

My first literature reading experience was eye opening and ensured me that it will not be my last. Being able to see an author present their work in real life brings the book and meaning to life in a whole new way.

In addition to copies available at Prairie Lights, Kristen Radtke’s brand new book Imagine Wanting Only This can be purchased here.

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Witching Hour, according to the festival’s website, highlight’s the “unknown, creative process, and new work.” During its second year, Witching Hour features a diverse lineup ranging from multi-media workshops to comedy shows to cinematic adventures. Here are the events KRUI can’t wait to see!

Music 

Psalm One

After opening for Saul Williams at Mission Creek 2016, Psalm One returns to Iowa City to perform some new art! She’ll perform at 10:30 PM at The Mill on November 4.

White Lung

At midnight on Friday night, White Lung will perform tracks from their fourth album at Gabe’s. Hailing from Canada, this punk rock band will impolitely rock Iowa City on November 4th at midnight!

Wu Fei

Combining cultural and musical influences from Beijing and Nashville, Wu Fei will deftly charm audiences with her new and original compositions on the guzheng. See her perform at 9:30 PM at the Englert on Friday, November 4th!

Jlin

Jlin is known for pushing the boundaries of the footwork genre. Her track “Erotic Heat” from the Planet Mu compilation Bangs and Works Vol. 2 announced her presence to the world. Having attracted critical acclaim for her 2015 LP Dark Energy, Jlin brings her production magic to Gabe’s at 11:59 PM November 4th.

 Rhys Chatham

Guitarist, trumpeter, and composer, Rhys Chatham can rightfully be compared with Philip Glass or Steve Reich, though he likes guitars a lot more (he has composed pieces for up to 200 guitars and more). While he has the minimal edge of Glass and Reich, he also occasionally engages in prog and fusion. We’ll be seeing him in a rare solo performance at 10:00 PM at Gabe’s November 4th.

Jack Lion

Jack Lion is an Iowa City band that blends jazz and electronica seamlessly. At times heady, at other times spaced out, but always in the groove, if you haven’t had a chance to see them live yet, you’ve been missing out. They will be playing at 11:00 PM at Gabe’s November 4th.

Writing/Spoken Word

Pussy Riot in conversation with Jessica Hopper

Radical Russian punk band member Maria Alekhina will join Jessica Hopper at the Englert at 7:00 PM on Friday to discuss music and activism!

Jason Sole: From Prison to PhD: A Journey of Pain, Promise, and Protest

Jason Sole will captivate audiences as he details his life journey from a three-time convicted felon to his personal redemption as a mentor, consultant, and assistant professor of Public Safety and Criminal Justice at Metropolitan State University. This event takes place at 5:00 PM at the Iowa City Public Library.

Jason England: National Anthem: The Sociopathic Nature of Racial Discourse in American Sports

Jason England, graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and full-time faculty member of the University of Iowa Rhetoric Department, will delve into the intersection of racial politics and sports in the United States with his presentation at 7:00 PM at the Englert Theater November 5th.

Writers of Color

Following last year’s highly successful event, visiting writer Rachel McKibbens joins undergraduate and graduate writers of color for a reading of new work at 4:00 PM at The Mill November 5th.

Comedy

Supertalent Show and Friends

Those familiar with Iowa City’s comedy scene will remember many of these faces. Iowa City’s own Arish Singh, now based in Chicago, is a major reason the Iowa City comedy scene is what it is today. A stand-up comedian (in every sense of the word “stand-up”), Singh has been putting together wonderful, politically aware comedy shows for Iowa City and Chicago for the last couple of years. He brings a group of hilarious improv actors and comedians to the Mill November 4th at 9:00 PM. (All images courtesy of WitchingHourFestival.com)

Jen Kirkman

Best-selling author and stand-up comedian Jen Kirkman, whose 2015 Netflix comedy special I’m Gonna Die Alone (And I Feel Fine) earned high praise from The Atlantic, New York Magazine, and The Atlantic, shares her wit and insights with Iowa City at the Englert Theater November 5th at 9:00pm. She will also appear In Conversation at the Mill November 5th at 10:30 PM.

Film

Romeo Is Bleeding

Set in Richmond, CA, Romeo Is Bleeding follows Donté, who, rather than get swept up in a violent turf war between rival neighborhoods, attempts to open up a dialogue about violence in the city by putting together a modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. Will he succeed? Find out at FilmScene November 5th at 1:00 PM.

Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present

A film about, of, for, and by artists, Completely in the Present follows the legendary career of Tony Conrad. Conrad’s cross-disciplinary work has heavily influenced modern independent music, public access television, visual art, and film. Using intimate footage of Tony and collaborators over the last twenty-two years, Completely in the Present gives us access to one of the strangest artistic minds of our time. You can catch it at FilmScene November 5th at 3:00 PM.

Mixed Media, Workshops, and Panels

Hip-Hop Kitchen

Get into a discussion and performance on hip-hop history, cooking, and the art of freestyling. Featuring Sepehr Sadrzadeh, the Chef of Pullman Diner; The Cubist, legendary producer who has worked with Kendrick Lamar; Icon Amerie, rapper and hip-hop culture historian; moderated by André Wright, producer, artist, designer. This discussion and performance will take place at The Mill November 5th at 12:00 PM. (All images courtesy of WitchingHourFestival.com)

Broad Perspectives

This will be a panel discussion and workshop featuring Katie Roche, Rachel McKibbens, alea adigweme, and Teresa Magnum. The discussion will be about creating and maintaining female-only spaces, why it is necessary and important, and how they operate differently than other creative spaces. This panel and workshop will take place at Prairie Lights Bookstore on November 5th at 6:00 PM.

Beforeplay: An Exploration of the Art of Playtesting

Game developers of board and video games to make money come together in a panel discussing playtesting the relationship of dialogue it creates between gamer and make-maker. This event takes place at 2:00 PM at The Mill November 5th. (All images courtesy of WitchingHourFestival.com)

Will Duncan: The Art of Doing Nothing: A Deep Exploration of What Meditation Is and What It Is Not

Will Duncan will be easing us into a deep understanding of the relevance, usefulness, and spiritual potential of the ancient practice of meditation. Duncan completed a Three-Year Silent Meditation Retreat in 2014, and has returned to the world to share his insights with us. The Art of Doing Nothing will occur at the Englert November 5th at 11:00 AM, and he will be giving a lecture about his silent meditation retreat experience at the Iowa City Public Library November 5th at 3:00 PM.

Conclusion

Well, there you have it, folks. KRUI’s Guide to Witching Hour would like to remind you of a couple of things, however: (1) More than half of the acts are free, so if you’re not sure you can afford to go, think again, dear friend. (2) We have only provided highlights. Please see the festival website for the full line-up. (3) The festival spirit is one of exploration and coming out of our comfort zones, so be sure to explore, keep an open mind, and maybe go to something you normally wouldn’t go to!

The post KRUI’s Witching Hour Guide appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Garth Greenwell read a section from his novel, “What Belongs to You.” This novel is about the relationship between an American teacher and a Bulgarian man named Mitko. The teacher pays Mitko for sex, but as their relationship deepens, he begins to develop feelings for Mitko. The section he read was about one of the times they are romantic together and it gets pretty graphic, so if you are squeamish towards those things, this book probably isn’t for you. But the wording was beautiful and you could really feel the attachment the narrator had to Mitko.

Paul Lisicky, a recent Guggenheim Fellowship winner, read the first chapter of his memoir, “The Narrow Door”. This book is about two relationships, one with a woman named Denise who has cancer and the other with his husband, Em. The section he read was mostly about Denise’s cancer. It wasn’t in chronological order, which made it difficult to follow when it was read aloud. It was still interesting and well written, but definitely confusing.

The whole reading was wonderful. The atmosphere of the Prairie Lights was perfect for this performance or even reading a new novel, maybe Paul or Garth’s. The whole experience was breathtaking.

The post Mission Creek: Paul Lisicky and Garth Greenwell @ Prairie Lights 4/7/16 appeared first on KRUI Radio.