The Iowa City Book Festival is a playground for literary minds

Iowa City is widely known as a paradise for literature, whether for aspiring authors or published veterans.

If you pop into any coffee shop in Iowa City, you will see people typing away on their laptops, which isn’t abnormal for a college town. Still, in this town, it is more likely that in a few weeks or even in a few years, what that person in the coffee shop was working on will be in a magazine or between book covers.

The upcoming Iowa City Book Festival celebrates that rich literary history.

The annual event presented by the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature began in 2009, a year after Iowa City earned the special UNESCO distinction.

Iowa City is one of three North American cities to hold the honor. Programming for the festival begins on Oct. 8 and runs through Oct. 15.

A festival of opportunity

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

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.

“It’s a celebration of the local literary culture,” said the Iowa City of Literature executive director, John Kenyon.

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The festival offers readings, panels, and discussions at local venues, common Iowa City events that will have a little bit of extra flair.

"There are many people on our schedule this year who have some tie back to university and are coming back to celebrate the work. Sometimes it’s just bringing in nationally or internationally prominent people,” Kenyon said. “The reasons why [Iowa City is] a city of literature are evident, every day when you’re walking around with you’re looking at all these different events going on, and so we’re always looking for a way do something a little bigger and different.”

A jam-packed festival schedule

The festival boasts more than 30 programs, with most events being free and open to the public in addition to a few ticketed events.

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Here are some of the biggest events to look forward to:

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: Translation! Ever New, Ever Elusive

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is a professor at Columbia University, but her first job was at the University of Iowa, where she founded The MFA in Translation in the Department of Comparative Literature. Fifty years since the founding of the MFA in Literature, she is coming back to speak about the program and current projects.

“Because of [Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s] efforts, Iowa has become one of the most prominent places in the country, if not the world, for literary translation," Kenyon said. "And so a lot of the literary translation happens because of the people who have come through here, people who studied here are taught here at The University of Iowa,”

Nathan Hill: Wellness

Nathan Hill is an Iowa native and a University of Iowa graduate. His best-selling debut novel, “The Nix,” was named the number one book of 2016 by Entertainment Weekly and one of the year’s best books by The New York Times. His recent release, “Wellness,” is an Oprah book club pick. It is a moving novel about modern marriage that leaves no topic untouched from detox diets and home-renovation hysteria. Hill will be at the Iowa City Public Library at 2:30 p.m. on Oct. 14 to read excerpts from “Wellness.”

Ayana Mathis: The Unsettled

Ayana Mathis is an Iowa Writer’s Workshop graduate and will speak with program director Lan Samantha Chang about her recent release. “The Unsettled” is Mathis first novel since the release of her 2012 best seller “The Twelve Tribes of Hattie.” “The Unsettled” challenges readers to reject the impersonal and find the real story by following three central characters across time: the emotionally delicate Ava, a young mother trying to create a sense of home for herself and her son; her profane mother; Dutchess, and Ava’s precocious son, Toussaint.

The Iowa City Book Festival strives to challenge guests to explore new worlds they might otherwise not visit through literary art.

"This is an opportunity to come," Kenyon said. "Maybe hear some new things, maybe be exposed to some new ideas or perspectives in one week, with opportunities that don’t just happen every day, and then incorporate that into what you’re doing as you move forward."

Jessica Rish is an entertainment, dining and business reporter for the Iowa City Press-Citizen. She can be reached at JRish@presscitizen.com.

This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: The Iowa City Book Festival offers literary fun for all