8th Annual Mission Creek Festival Kicks Off Literary Lineup Today

The eighth annual Mission Creek Festival has announced its slate of literary events alongside the full lineup of musicians and artists performing from today, April 2nd to 7th, 2013. As with past festivals, writers, presses, and literary journals from across the country will appear alongside acts such as Grizzly Bear, Divine Fits, Deerhoof, Tig Notaro, Killer Mike, Iris Dement, Janeane Garofalo, Thao & The Get Down Stay Down, and many more. All literary events are free and open to the public.

This year, the literary lineup includes more than eighteen public events, a small press and literary magazine book fair, two writers-in-residence, a lit crawl, poetry rock show, and a spoken word performance straight from LA and NYC. In all, over 80 authors and 40 presses and magazines from across the country will participate.

The Festival will present readings with accomplished authors including Aleksander Hemon, Roxane Gay, and Cornelius Eady. Bosnian-American writer Aleksander Hemon will read at an event on Saturday, Apr. 6. The reading is co-presented by Granta Magazine and the UI Center for Human Rights. Hemon visits the festival following the publication of his genre-straddling The Book of My Lives. His other books include the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist The Lazarus Project (2008) and Nowhere Man (2002). Roxane Gay (Apr. 2) comes to Iowa City as a Mission Creek Festival Writer-in-Residence. One of contemporary literature's most prolific contributors, Gay's works have garnered fourteen Pushcart nominations the last three years, publishing her fiction and essays in such venues as VQR, American Short Fiction, McSweeney's, Melville House, mud luscious, The Wall Street Journal, and about two dozen other places. Co-Founder of Cave Canem, a national organization supporting African American poetry and poets, Cornelius Eady (Apr. 4) visits on the heels of his recent jazz/poetry release Asking for the Moon. He is the author of several books of poetry, earning him an NAACP Image Award, the Academy of American Poets' Lamont Prize, a Pulitzer Prize nomination, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations.

SCHEDULE OF LITERARY EVENTS:

Roxane Gay & John D'Agata
Apr 2 / Prairie Lights / 7pm / FREE

Roxane Gay comes to Iowa City as a Mission Creek Festival Writer-in-Residence. One of contemporary literature's most prolific contributors, Roxane's works have garnered fourteen Pushcart nominations the last three years, publishing her fiction and essays in such venues as VQR, American Short Fiction, McSweeney's, Melville House, mud luscious, The Wall Street Journal, and about two dozen other places. She frequently contributes to HTMLGIANT, Salon, The Rumpus, Bookslut, and is a notorious Twitter presence. Roxane is the co-editor of [PANK] Magazine, as well as essays editor for The Rumpus. Her novel, An Untamed State, will be published by Grove Atlantic and her essay collection, Bad Feminist, will be published by Harper Perennial, both in 2014. She kicks off this year's reading series alongside John D'Agata, author of the books About a Mountain, Halls of Fame, and The Lifespan of a Fact, and editor of two anthologies on the essay. Up next? John is currently completing a collaboration with the Belgian painter Jean-Baptiste Bernadet entitled On Knowing Not, forthcoming next year. These two renowned, genre-crossing writers will read from their work alongside The Englert Theatre's Executive Director, and UI Nonfiction Writing Program alum, Andre Perry.

Tuesday Agency Presents: Writing Industry Roundtable w/[PANK] Magazine and Black Ocean Press
April 3 / Brix Wine & Cheese Shop / 5pm / FREE

Editors Roxane Gay ([PANK] Magazine) and Janaka Stucky (Black Ocean Press) join Trinity Ray of the Iowa City-based Tuesday Agency (Speaking agents representing Colson Whitehead, Ann Patchett, Khaled Hosseini, Jon Ronson & more) to talk all things writing industry, publishing, and public sphere.

Eileen Pollack & Jen Percy
Apr 3 / Prairie Lights / 7pm / FREE

Eileen Pollack, a professor at the University of Michigan's MFA Program in Creative Writing, is the author of one book of creative nonfiction, two novels, two collections of short fiction and a children's book about AIDS. Her work is widely published and has also appeared in The New York Times and The Washington Post. She will read with Jen Percy, whose nonfiction book Demon Camp, is forthcoming from Scribner.

Michael Zapruder's Pink Thunder
Apr 3 / The Mill / 9pm / $10

Pink Thunder is a record. Pink Thunder is a book of poems. Pink Thunder is an art show featuring the work of 23 poets, illustrated and hand-lettered, and all set to music. A collaboration between the poets (such as D.A. Powell, David Berman, Matthew Zapruder, Joshua Beckman, Matthew Rohrer, James Tate, Mary Ruefle, Dara Weir & more), musician Michael Zapruder, and Black Ocean Press, Pink Thunder will be read and performed at Mission Creek Festival. Readings by Black Ocean Editor Janaka Stucky will accompany Michael's performance. Iowa band Christopher the Conquered will open, and support.

Cave Canem Reading: feat. Cornelius Eady, a Special Cave Canem Guest, & Kiki Petrosino
Apr 4 / Clinton Street Social Club / 5pm / FREE

Co-Founder of Cave Canem, a national organization supporting African American poetry and poets, Cornelius Eady visits Mission Creek on the heels of his recent jazz/poetry release Asking for the Moon. He is the author of several books of poetry, garnering him an NAACP Image Award, the Academy of American Poets' Lamont Prize, a Pulitzer Prize nomination, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. His work has also been adapted for the stage, including the Obie Award-winning Running Man (1999). Cornelius will be joined by local jazz musicians, one member of the Cave Canem family and Writers' Workshop alum Kiki Petrosino.

Mary Jo Bang
Apr 4 / Prairie Lights / 7pm / FREE

Poet Mary Jo Bang returns to Iowa City to read, we hope, from her recent translation of Dante's Inferno (featuring the likes of Eric Cartman, John Wayne Gacy and the Rolling Stones). She is the author of numerous collections of poetry including Apology for Want, Louise in Love, The Downstream Extremity of the Isle of Swans, The Bride of E, and Elegy, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Bellagio Foundation. She is currently a professor at the University of Washington in St. Louis.

Lit Crawl
Apr 5 / Downtown Iowa City / 5-8pm / FREE

5-5:45pm - M.C. Ginsberg, Dublin Underground, Takanami
6-6:45 - Beadology, White Rabbit, R.S.V.P.
7-7:45 - Foxhead, Clinton Street Social Club

Writers and publishers from across the country will invade downtown for three hours of readings featuring more than 60 authors representing over 15 publishers, including n+1, Vice Magazine, Coffee House Press, [PANK] Magazine, Dzanc Books, The Collagist, Spork Press, Black Ocean Press, Forklift Ohio, H_NGM_N, Rescue Press, Wag's Revue, MAKE Magazine, UI Press and Green Lantern Press. This three-hour tour will take you across and into a number of Iowa City's small businesses, where you'll hear fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and translations from some of today's best writers.

4th AnnuAl Small Press and Literary Journal Book Fair
Apr 6 / The Mill / 11am-6pm / FREE

Presses large and small, literary magazines in print and online, from all corners of the U.S., once again gather at The Mill to sell some of the most exciting books being published today. Publishers and Editors will be on hand from Granta Magazine, n+1, Cave Canem, A Strange Object (formerly American Short Fiction), Milkweed Editions, Vice Magazine, Coffee House Press, [PANK] Magazine, POETRY Magazine, Sarabande Books, Dzanc Books, The Collagist, Spork Press, Black Ocean Press, Forklift Ohio, H_NGM_N, Rescue Press, Birds LLC, MAKE Magazine, Hobart, Perfect Day Publishing, jubilat, Canarium Books, Black Clock, draft: the journal of process, The Iowa Review, UI Press, Wag's Revue, The Doctor T.J. Eckleberg Review, Autumn Hill Books, The Examined Life, Ninth Letter, and many, many more. And once again, New Belgium Brewery will be handing out a selection of their newest brews.

Granta Magazine and UI Center for Human Rights Present: Aleksander Hemon
Apr 6 / The Mill / 6 pm / FREE

Granta Magazine will once again host a reading directly following the Book Fair, this year by Bosnian-American writer Aleksander Hemon. In Iowa City as part of The University of Iowa's Center for Human Rights' conference on refugee culture in the Midwest, Aleksander will come to the festival following the publication of his genre-straddling The Book of My Lives. His other books include the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist The Lazarus Project (2008), Nowhere Man (2002), among others and his work is often featured in The New Yorker, Esquire and The Paris Review. Joining him are poets Patricia Smith and Amber Tamblyn, and fiction writer Dina Nayeri.

Write Now Poetry Society Presents: The Drums Inside Your Chest Series
Apr 7 / Englert Theatre / 6 pm / $10 - $15

The Drums Inside Your Chest is a critically acclaimed, Broadway-quality poetry concert series that, staged in theatres across New York and Los Angeles since 2007, features the best performance poets in America today. For Mission Creek, co-founder Amber Tamblyn brings her "shoulder-shaking heart-charging poetry variety show experience" to Iowa City with a cast featuring some of the world's most formidable performers, including Patricia Smith, Beau Sia, Rachel McKibbens, Derrick Brown, and Jennifer L. Knox. Collectively, they are University of Iowa graduates, Tony award winners, performers on HBO's Def Poetry Jam, Sundance Film Festival award winners, National Poetry Slam team mainstays, a former paratrooper for the 82nd airborne, Cave Canem faculty member, National Book Award finalist, President of Write Bloody Publishing, and a poetry teacher through the Healing Arts Program at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. Their work has been featured in the Paris Review, Granta, Tin House, The Rumpus, Los Angeles Review, The New Yorker, McSweeney's, Bomb, Fence, and American Poetry Review. They have published more than twenty books of poetry, collaborated with jazz and blues musicians, orchestras, and dance and theatre companies, and will take the stage with musician frequent Drums collaborator Emily Wells, whose 2012 record 'Pillowfight' was produced by Dan The Automator.

To post a comment, you must register and login.