8th Annual Mission Creek Festival Announces Literary Lineup, 4/2-7

The eighth annual Mission Creek Festival has announced its slate of literary events alongside the full lineup of musicians and artists performing from 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.

More Articles by This Author...