Lawrence Weschler will read from his essay collection, Uncanny Valley, at 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 6, in a free reading in the Room 101 of Biology Building East on the University of Iowa campus.

Uncanny Valley collects Weschler’s best narrative nonfiction from the past 15 years. The title piece surveys the hapless efforts of digital animators to fashion a credible human face, the endlessly elusive gold standard of the profession. Other highlights include profiles of novelist Mark Salzman, as he wrestles with a hilariously harrowing bout of writer’s block; the legendary film and sound editor Walter Murch, as he is forced to revisit his work on Apocalypse Now in the context of the more recent Iraqi war film Jarhead; and the artist Vincent Desiderio, as he labors over an epic canvas portraying no less than a dozen sleeping figures.

Weschler, a graduate of Cowell College of the University of California at Santa Cruz, was for more than 20 years a staff writer at the New Yorker, where his work shuttled between political tragedies and cultural comedies. He is a two-time winner of the George Polk Award (for Cultural Reporting in 1988 and Magazine Reporting in 1992) and was also a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award. Weschler has taught, variously, at Princeton, Columbia, UCSC, Bard, Vassar, Sarah Lawrence, and NYU, where he is now distinguished writer in residence at the Carter Journalism Institute. He is currently director of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU.

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