The summer 2012 schedule of live streams on the University of Iowa www.writinguniversity.org website will begin with June 6-9 readings ranging from new poetry to the dangers of voting technology. The streams will originate in free events at 7 p.m. in Prairie Lights Books in downtown Iowa City.

• Adam Clay will read from his collection of poetry, Hotel Lobby at the Edge of the World, on Wednesday, June 6.
• Nationally recognized electronic voting expert Douglas Jones, UI professor of computer science, will read from Broken Ballots: Will Your Vote Count? on Thursday, June 7.
• Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate Mark Leidner and Bianca Stone will read from their new poetry books on Friday, June 8.
• Poets Caryl Pagel and Emily Pettit will read from their new books on Saturday, June 9.

Clay is also the author of The Wash, and his poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the Boston Review, Ploughshares, the Denver Quarterly, Tarpaulin Sky, the Black Warrior Review, the Iowa Review, the New Orleans Review, and elsewhere. He co-edits TYPO Magazine.

Jones has served on the UI computer science faculty since 1980, and in 1994 he volunteered to serve on the Iowa Board of Examiners for Voting Machines and Electronic Voting Systems, including several years as chair. His involvement in voting system evaluation has included work as an international election observer, consulting, and fundamental research. He also served as technical consultant on the Emmy-nominated HBO documentary film, Hacking Democracy.

His new book, co-written with Barbara Simons, examines the ways in which Americans vote today, gauging how inaccurate, unreliable, and insecure our voting systems are.

Kevin Shelley, former California secretary of state, wrote, “The cornerstone of our democracy is the right to vote and the right to have that vote counted as it was intended. Broken Ballots first demonstrates clearly and compellingly the extent to which that right is in jeopardy. Then it lays out a plan to preserve and protect that right.”

Beauty Was the Case that They Gave Me is Leidner’s first full-length poetry collection, following several chapbooks.

Stone is the creator and co-curator of the Ladder Poetry Reading Series in New York City and is a regular contributor to THEthe Poetry Blog. Her most recent poetry publications include the Patterson Literary Review, Fou, Agriculture Reader, and Conduit. Besides writing poetry, she is also a visual artist and freelance illustrator, often combining poetry and illustration in her Poetry Comics.

An alumna of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, poetry editor of jubilat, co-founder of Rescue Press, and a staff member of the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, Pagel has published poems in Gulf Coast, Gut Cult, notnostrums, Tarpaulin Sky, and Thermos. Her first collection of poetry is Experiments I Should Like Tried at My Own Death.

Pettit is the author of Goat in the Snow and two chapbooks: How and What Happened to Limbo. She is an editor for notnostrums and Factory Hollow Press, as well as the publisher of jubilat. She teaches at Flying Object, a non-profit organization in Massachusetts.

For information or accommodations for the live events, contact Prairie Lights at 319-337-2681.