In a special event co-sponsored by the Mission Creek Festival, University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduates Leslie Jamison and Adam Fell will read from their new work at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 1, 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.

Jamison will read from her new collection of essays, The Empathy Exams. Winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize, and a Publishers Weekly Top Ten Essay Collection of Spring 2014, The Empathy Exams asks essential questions about our basic understanding of others. From personal illness and bodily injury to phantom diseases, street violence, reality television, and incarceration, Jamison explores this deeply fascinating human emotion.

“Leslie Jamison has written a profound exploration into how empathy deepens us, yet how we unwittingly sabotage our own capacities for it… This riveting book will make you a better writer, a better human,” says poet and essayist Mary Karr.

Jamison is the author of the novel The Gin Closet. Her essays have appeared in Believer, Harper’s Magazine, Oxford American, and Tin House. She lives in New Haven, Conn.

Fell will read from his new book of poetry, Dear Corporation. Fell is the author of I Am Not A Pioneer, which won the 2011 Posner Poetry Book Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers. He lives in Madison, Wis., where he teaches at Edgewood College and co-curates the Monsters of Poetry Reading Series.

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

Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all UI-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to attend this reading,call Jan Weissmiller at Prairie Lights in advance at 319-337-2681.

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