Iowa City Book Festival

10/16/2026

Iowa native Tiffany Hanssen said it made sense to set her debut crime novel, "My Name Was Gerry Sass," in her home state: "“I just had a real wave of nostalgia hit me about Iowa and just being there and growing up there, and so it was really important that it be set there." She returns to Iowa to participate in this week's Iowa City Book Festival, where she will appear at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 24, at the Iowa City Public Library. Learn more in this interview with the Gazette.

WNYC host and Davenport native Tiffany Hanssen turned a shocking DNA discovery about her father into a darkly comedic Midwest noir set in 1986 Mystic, Iowa. She brings “My Name Was Gerry Sass” to the Iowa City Book Festival on Oct. 24.

10/16/2026

Some books stay with you. Scott Heim’s Mysterious Skin is one of them.

Hear Scott read from his novel, followed by a Q&A and signing. It’s a story about memory, trauma, sexuality, and two young men trying to make sense of a past that shaped them in very different ways.

Saturday, October 24 at 1 pm. at the Masonic Building (312 E College St) Free and presented in partnership with the Refocus Film Festival.

10/15/2026

Want to learn more about the Book Festival? Check out this article from the Gazette, which offers some highlights and insights about our schedule.

Iowa City's 18th annual Book Festival runs Oct. 18-25, showcasing Pulitzer winners Yiyun Li, Marilynne Robinson and Nicholas Kristof. Most events are free, including a Robinson-Kristof public conversation.

10/14/2026

Gabriel Fisher was born an orphan, weighing eighteen pounds and measuring twenty-seven inches long. No one in Lakota, Wisconsin, knows what to make of him. He walks at eight months, communicates with animals, and seems to possess extraordinary athletic talent. But when the older brother who has been caring for him dies, Gabriel is taken in by his devout Amish grandparents who disapprove of all the attention and hide him away from the English world.

But it’s hard to hide forever when you’re nearly eight feet tall. At seventeen, Gabriel is spotted working in a hay field by the local football coach. What happens next transforms not only Gabriel’s life but the lives of everyone he meets.

Come hear author Ron Rindo talk about his novel, Life, and Death, and Giants, at the Iowa City Book Festival. It’s a story about faith, family, and the things that make us extraordinary, even when we’re just trying to find our place in the world.

Saturday, Oct. 24, 1 p.m. at Prairie Lights Books

10/13/2026

Most everything you need to know about next week's Iowa City Book Festival in six minutes. Our executive director, John Kenyon, joined the team at KCRG's Everyday Iowa program this morning to share the highlights.

A preview of the 2026 Iowa City Book FestivalFor more Local New...

10/13/2026

A mob-connected hitman, a daughter out for revenge, and a priest who witnessed a murder and did nothing. Tiffany Hanssen’s My Name Was Gerry Sass is a darkly funny novel set in small-town Iowa that takes on family, grief, and God.

Hanssen is an on-air host at New York public radio station WNYC, an award-winning radio producer, and a screenwriter. She’ll be at the Iowa City Book Festival on Saturday, October 24, at 1 p.m. at the Iowa City Public Library to talk about her novel.

10/12/2026

What happens when all the expectations we have of our lives are dashed?

In I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning, Keiran Goddard follows five friends who grew up together on the same council estate in England, each trying to figure out what comes next as old friendships, secrets, and expectations collide. It’s a sharp, moving look at poverty, friendship, and the things that keep us going when life doesn’t go to plan.

October 24 @ 11:30 a.m. at the Iowa City Masonic Building, 312 E College St.
Presented by the Iowa City Book Festival in partnership with Refocus Film Festival.
📚 Free and open to the public!

10/12/2026

Today is Paul Engle Day in Iowa! 🎉

Born on October 12, 1908, Engle was a poet, longtime director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and co-founder of the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program with his wife, Hualing Nieh Engle. His vision helped put Iowa City on the literary map and continues to shape the writing community here and around the world.

We’re celebrating his legacy next Sunday, October 18, when we kick off the Iowa City Book Festival with the 2026 Paul Engle Prize ceremony, honoring Christopher Merrill for his decades of work as a poet, writer, and former director of the International Writing Program.

Join us at 2 p.m. at the Coralville Public Library for a conversation with Merrill and Loren Glass, chair of the UI English Department. The event is free and open to the public.

Happy Paul Engle Day, Iowa! 📚

Christopher Merrill has been named the 15th recipient of the Paul Engle Prize, presented by the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature organization. The prize, established in 2011, honors an individual who, like Paul Engle, represents a pioneering spirit in the world of literature through writing, edit...

10/12/2026

Happy Paul Engle Day Iowa!

"We have made Iowa synonymous with writing." - Paul Engle

10/09/2026

Patricia Foster is the author of All the Lost Girls, Just Beneath My Skin, Girl from Soldier Creek, and Written in the Sky: Lessons of a Southern Daughter. She has edited four anthologies and received a PEN Award, a Pushcart Prize, a Hall Waters Award for Distinguished Southern Writing, a Clarence Cason Award, and the 2026 Alabama Truman Capote Award for fiction and nonfiction.

Her new memoir, A Marriage in Startled Air, tells the story of how her husband’s diagnosis with a rare cancer changed the dynamics of their marriage and opened the door to parts of his childhood that had long remained hidden. As Patricia and David confront questions of trauma, memory, family, identity, and aging, they find their way toward a deeper understanding of each other and a new kind of intimacy.

It’s a deeply personal story about what happens when the life we think we know is disrupted, and what can emerge from that disruption.

Saturday, October 24, at 11:30 a.m. at Prairie Lights Books.