University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate Donna Stonecipher and Karen Russell will present a free reading at 8 p.m. Thursday, March 27, in the Frank Conroy Reading Room of the Glenn Schaeffer Library, adjacent to the Dey House.

Stonecipher grew up in Seattle and Teheran, and lived in Prague from 1994 to 1998. She graduated from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop with an Master of Fine Arts in 2001. She has published three collections of poetry: The Reservoir, Souvenir de Constantinople, and The Cosmopolitan. Her poems have appeared in Denver Quarterly, Field, The Indiana Review, New American Writing, and Conjunctions. She translates from French and German. Her translations have appeared in Circumference, Action Yes, and chicagopostmodernpoetry. Stonecipher was a National Poetry Series award winner in 2007.

Russell is an American novelist and short story writer. Her debut novel, Swamplandia!, was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She was also the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" in 2013. Her stories have been featured in The Best American Short Stories, Conjunctions, Granta, The New Yorker, Oxford American, and Zoetrope. A collection of short stories by Russell, Vampires in the Lemon Grove, was published in February 2013. Russell received a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish from Northwestern University in 2003 and graduated from the Master of Fine Arts program at Columbia University in 2006.

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 the Writers’ Workshop in advance at 319-335-0416.

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