The Oct. 8-11 readings at Prairie Lights Books and on Virtual Writing University live streams will feature two Iowa Poets Laureate, Marvin Bell and Mary Swander, and an all University of Iowa line-up.

Bell and Merrill will read from their new book of prose poems, Everything at Once, which they wrote collaboratively by e-mail over a period of several months. This book builds on their previous collaboration on 7 Poets, 4 Days, 1 Book.

The full schedule will be:

• Bell, an emeritus faculty member in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and UI International Writing Program Director Christopher Merrill, at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 8.
• Iowa Writers’ Workshop alumnus Antoine Wilson reading from his new novel, Panorama City, at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 9.
• Swander, an alumna of the workshop, at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 10.
• Writers’ Workshop alumnus Jeremy Jackson at 7 p.m Thursday, Oct. 11.

Bell, one of America's leading poets, has published 17 books of poetry and has received numerous honors, including the Lamont Award from the Academy of American Poets, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and Senior Fulbright appointments to Yugoslavia and Australia. He taught for 40 years at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Bell, who the Harvard Review described as having "the largest heart since Walt Whitman," is known for inventing the startling poetic form called the DeadManpoems. The Dead Man is alive and dead at once—not a persona, but an overarching consciousness, embedded in poetics and philosophy.

Merrill, who led the initiative that resulted in UNESCO designing Iowa City as a City of Literature in the Creative Cities Network, has published four collections of poetry, translations, several edited volumes, and five books of nonfiction, most recently The Tree of the Doves: Ceremony, Expedition, War. His work has been translated into 25 languages and his awards include a knighthood in arts and letters from the French government.

Wilson is also the author of The Interloper; his work has appeared in the Paris Review, Story Quarterly, Best New American Voices, and other publications; and he is a contributing editor of A Public Space.Wilson’s Panorama City traces 40 days and nights navigating the fast food joints, storefront churches, and home-office psychologists of the San Fernando Valley. Ping-ponging between his watchful and sharp-tongued aunt and an outlaw philosopher with the face of “a newly hatched crocodile,” protagonist Oppen Porter finds himself constantly in the sights of people who believe their way is the only way for him.

Swander is a contributor to Farmscape: The Changing Rural Environment, inspired by a community play that documents the contemporary Midwest.

She has written poetry, memoirs, and nonfiction, and has also co-authored a musical, Dear Iowa, which has been produced across the Midwest and on Iowa Public Television. Her awards include the Whiting Award, a National Endowment for the Arts grant for the Literary Arts, the Carl Sandburg Literary Award, and the Nation-Discovery Award.

Jackson’s new book is the memoir I Will Not Leave You Comfortless. Spanning one year of the author's life, it tells of a young boy coming to consciousness in small-town Missouri in 1984—the year that greets ten-year-old Jeremy with first loves, first losses, and a break from the innocence of boyhood that will never be fully repaired.

Jackson has written two novels and three cookbooks, one of which was nominated for a James Beard Award.

The Writers’ Workshop is a program of the UI Graduate College and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The IWP is also part of the Graduate College.

For accommodations at the live events, contact jan@prairielights.com. For a UI arts calendar and details about upcoming events, visit the new Arts Iowa website.