The Writer Next Door Reading Series with Lynne Nugent and Lauren Haldeman

The Writer Next Door Reading Series

Iowa is unique in its high concentration of writers of every stripe: investigative journalists, poets and novelists, spoken word artits, playwrights and children's book authors. This limited seating reading series offers a chance to say "hello" to your neighbor writers, and to hear them read from and talk about their newest work. Join us  throughout the year as each member of the Porch Light team hosts their favorite "writer next door."

For this summer's installment we have a twofer!

Lynne Nugent is Editor of The Iowa Review. Her chapbook of essays on motherhood and domesticity, Nest, won the 2019 Jeanne Leiby Memorial Chapbook Award and was published by The Florida Review in 2020. Her writing has appeared in the North American Review, Brevity, the New York Times, Full Grown People, Mutha Magazine, and elsewhere. Her essay “The Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card” was named a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2016, and her essay “My Grief Is a Student of the Humanities” was runner-up for Mid-American Review‘s Fineline prize. She holds an MFA in nonfiction writing and a PhD in English from the University of Iowa. In 2020, she won the Jean Jew Award for Women’s Rights, presented by the UI’s Council on the Status of Women.

LAUREN HALDEMAN is the author of the poetry collection Calenday (Rescue Press, 2014, finalist for the 2014 Julie Suk Award) and the artist book The Eccentricity is Zero (Digraph Press, 2014). Her work has appeared in Fence, jubilat, Fourteen Hills and The Rumpus. A comic book artist, illustrator, puppeteer and poet, she has taught in the U.S. as well as internationally, including a reading and lecture tour of South Africa sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she was a recipient of the 2015 Sustainable Arts Foundation Award. You can find her on Twitter @laurenhaldeman, or online at http://laurenhaldeman.com