Fostering community through the literary arts
COLLABORATORS
Porch Light supports interdisciplinary, non-traditional and outreach oriented endeavors in the Literary Arts.
JENNIFER COLVILLE / PROMPTPRESS
JENNIFER COLVILLE/ PROMPTPRESS
PromptPress provides inspiration for and invites collaboration between writers and visual artists. We believe cross-media collaboration strengthens existing art communities and is vital to the creation of innovative work. PromptPress provides a space for artists to connect, study each other’s work, and publish within the national scene. In our exploration of how word becomes image becomes word, we invite book artists, for whom words can be images, to design special editions of our biannual print journal.
Jennifer Colville is the founding editor of Prompt Press. She holds an MFA from Syracuse University and a Ph.D. from the University of Utah. Elegies for Uncanny Girls, a collection of short stories, was published in 2017 by Indiana University Press. Earlier short stories and non-fiction appeared in Diagram, The Iowa Review, The Huffington Post, The Literary Review, The Northwest Review and the Mississippi Review. Jennifer has taught Writing and Literature at The University of San Francisco, The University of Iowa, The University of Arizona, The University of Utah, and Coe College. She currently leads creative writing workshops through the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, and speaks on “The Inventive Female Voice,” and the intersection of writing and visual art. In Iowa City she co-organizes the Free Generative Writing Workshops, an alternative style workshop for writers of all backgrounds, identities and life stages.
CASSI ELTON / ANTELOPE LENDING LIBRARY
Antelope Lending Library, founded in 2012, is an independent, non-profit bookmobile library working to overcome barriers and provide full and equal access to information and ideas in our community. All materials are lent on a no-fees basis, so access is always free, no matter what.
Cassi Elton holds a Masters in Library and Information Science and a Masters Certificate in Book Arts from the University of Iowa. She has 9 years of experience working in libraries and nonprofits in Johnson County and believes passionately in the value of community collaboration and breaking down barriers so great opportunities and resources are truly accessible to ALL. She started the Antelope Lending Library bookmobile in 2012 while a graduate student at the University and continues to serve in the role of Library Director, overseeing a growing team of paid staff and volunteers.
LISA ROBERTS / IOWA CITY POETRY
CALEB RAINEY / IC SPEAKS
A non-profit arts organization, Iowa City Poetry builds community through a love of poetry. We share the wealth of poetry resources in Iowa City, a UNESCO City of Literature and home to the Iowa Writers' Workshop, with writers of all ages, incomes, identities, and experience levels.
Lisa earned her BA at Princeton University and MA at The University of Virginia. Over eighteen years, she taught literature and writing at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, University of Virginia, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and the University of Nebraska. After moving to Iowa City, she served as Assistant Director of the Iowa Youth Writing Project and worked to bring free creative writing workshops to children throughout Eastern Iowa. Her poems have appeared in Plainsongs, The Untidy Season: An Anthology of Nebraska Women Poets, and Little Village. She has performed spoken word poems at a variety of shows, including Was the Word, Voicebox, and The Hook.
ALTHEA DOWNING-SHERER
Althea Downing-Sherer is Porchlight's teen intern. She has lived in Iowa City her whole life and is a junior at City High School. She has attended the Iowa Young Writers Studio and has written for her school newspaper. She is interested in all forms of creative writing, but especially loves poetry.