Iowa poets Blueberry Morningsnow and Melissa Dickey will read from their work at 7 p.m. Monday, July 23, in Prairie Lights Books and on a live stream through the Writing University website.

Iowa Citian Morningsnow, a native of Montana and a former member of the St. Louis bands The Star Death and Hroom Hroom, will read from her debut collection, Whale in the Woods, winner of the Black Box Poetry Prize from Rescue Press. Her recent poems have been published in Thermos and Loaded Bicycle.

Dickey, an alumna of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, will read from The Lily Will. She teaches creative writing at Tulane University and co-edits Thermos magazine. Her poetry has appeared in the New Orleans Review, the Laurel Review, SHAMPOO, the Columbia Poetry Review, and elsewhere.

A review in iO Poetry observed, “A book bound in a square and barely larger than your hand, The Lily Will requires two readings, each ideally the length of one sitting. The first will leave you pondering a meditation. The second will ensnare you in its war.”

Dickey wrote for Goodreads, “If I'm lucky, I went for a bike ride, wrote a poem, prevented my kids from uprooting my garden, and baked a loaf of bread today. That would be a really good day.”

Read a 2010 conversation between Morningsnow and Dickey at the Thermos website.

The Writers' Workshop is a unit of the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Graduate College. For accommodations at the live event, contact jan@prairielights.com.