Award-winning journalist and essayist Lee Sandlin will read from Storm Kings at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 20, 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.

Sandlin grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. He briefly attended the University of Chicago and Roosevelt University before leaving school to travel and write. He has written feature journalism, historical studies, and music reviews on opera and classical works—mostly for the Chicago Reader, where he was also for many years the TV critic. More recently, he has become a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal.

In Storm Kings, Sandlin retraces America's fascination and unique relationship to tornadoes. From Ben Franklin's early experiments to "the great storm debates" of the 19th century, to heartland life in the early 20th century, Sandlin shows how tornado chasing helped foster the birth of meteorology, recreating with vivid descriptions some of the most devastating storms in America's history, including the "Tri-State tornado" of 1925 and the Peshtigo "fire tornado," whose deadly path of destruction was left encased in glass.

For more information or special accommodations to attend this reading, call Jan Weissmiller at Prairie Lights, 319-337-2681. For a UI arts calendar and details about upcoming events visit the new Arts Iowa website.