University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate Michelle Huneven and Mona Simpson will read from their new novels at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 16, in a free reading at Prairie Lights Books in downtown Iowa City. The reading also will be streamed live on the University of Iowa Writing University website.

Huneven will read from Off Course, which is about a gifted Ph.D. student in economics who moves into her parents’ shabby A-frame cabin in the Sierras to write her dissertation. Increasingly resistant to her topic (art in the marketplace), she allows herself to be drawn into the social life of the small mountain community.

Huneven is the author of Blame, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, Jamesland, and Round Rock. Huneven's short fiction has been published in Harpers, Redbook, and literary magazines. She received a Whiting Writers' Award in 2002. She lives in Altadena, Calif., and teaches creative writing at UCLA.

Simpson will read from Casebook, her powerful new novel about a young boy’s quest to uncover the mysteries of his unraveling family. What he discovers turns out to be what he least wants to know: the inner workings of his parents’ lives.

Simpson is the author of Anywhere But Here, The Lost Father, A Regular Guy, Off Keck Road, and My Hollywood. She is on the faculty at UCLA and also teaches at Bard College. She lives in Santa Monica, Calif.

The Iowa Writers’ Workshop is a graduate program in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all UI-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to attend this reading, call Jan Weissmiller at Prairie Lights in advance at 319-337-2681.

For a UI arts calendar and details about upcoming events visit the Arts Iowa website.