Iowa Writers’ Workshop alumna Allison Amend will read from her new novel, A Nearly Perfect Copy, at 7 p.m. Monday, April 15, 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.

A Nearly Perfect Copy tells a story of family and forgery set amid the rarefied international art world. Elm Howells has a loving family and a distinguished career at an elite Manhattan auction house. But after a tragic loss throws her into an emotional crisis, she pursues a reckless course of action that jeopardizes her personal and professional success. Meanwhile, talented artist Gabriel Connois wearies of remaining at the margins of the capricious Parisian art scene and, desperate for recognition, embarks on a scheme that threatens his burgeoning reputation. As these narratives converge, with disastrous consequences, A Nearly Perfect Copy challenges presumptions about originality and authenticity, loss and replacement, and the pursuit of perfection.

Amend is the author of the Independent Publisher's Award-winning short story collection Things That Pass for Love and the novel Stations West, which was a finalist for the 2011 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the Oklahoma Book Award. She lives in New York City, where she teaches creative writing at Lehman College in the Bronx and for Red Earth Low-Residency MFA program at Oklahoma City University.

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

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.