The University of Iowa Libraries was awarded $5,000 for the Iowa City Book Festival by Humanities Iowa, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities<\/p>\n
The grant was one of 17 totaling more than $160,000 awarded at the recent HI board meeting in Ames.<\/p>\n
The Iowa City Book Festival will be a daylong celebration of books, reading and writing. The festival also is a celebration of the five millionth volume purchased by the UI Libraries as well as the 40th anniversary of the UI Press. Kristi Bontrager, the library\u2019s public relations coordinator, said it also is a way to thank the public for their help moving books during last summer\u2019s flood.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt brought back the idea that books are an important part of people\u2019s lives,\u201d Bontrager said. \u201cWe saw this as a way to create a dialogue between writers and readers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The festival will include workshops on starting a writer\u2019s group, and finding book discussion groups.\u00a0 There will also be food and music and activities for children.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Iowa City Book Festival brings together everything that makes our community so refreshing in summertime: books, reading, writing and sweet corn,\u201d said Holly Carver, the editor at UI Press. \u201cAs we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the University of Iowa Press, we are delighted to be part of this first-but-not-last annual festival.\u201d<\/p>\n
The festival will also include book vendors and book arts demonstrations as well a program by Iowa\u2019s poet laureates, Mary Swander, Robert Dana and Marvin Bell. There also will be a presentation by the editors of \u201cThe Biographical Dictionary of Iowa,\u201d David Hudson, Marvin Bergman and Loren Horton; and a keynote address by \u201cThe Oxford Project\u201d creators Peter Feldstein and Steven Bloom.<\/p>\n
Other programs to promote literacy include workshops on adult literacy, starting up a writer\u2019s group, finding a book discussion group, library research for writers and writing a literary blog among others.<\/p>\n
\u201cBooks are one of the things that makes Iowa City a special place,\u201d said HI executive director Christopher Rossi. \u201cThe Iowa City Book Festival is a great way to celebrate that heritage while also promoting the literary arts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nancy Baker, university librarian for the University of Iowa Libraries, said the book festival should help fill a \u201ccultural gap\u201d in the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe noticed that a book festival was missing from the landscape of our City of Literature,\u201d Baker said. \u201cThe Iowa City Book Festival will be a place that brings all kinds of writers, readers and book-lovers together in conversation. With the help of Humanities Iowa and our other partners, we hope to make the Iowa City Book Festival an annual tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n
To learn more about the Iowa City Book Festival, check the website www.iowacitybookfestival.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The University of Iowa Libraries was awarded $5,000 for the Iowa City Book Festival by Humanities Iowa, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities The grant was one of 17 totaling more than $160,000 awarded at the recent HI board meeting in Ames. The Iowa City Book Festival will be a daylongContinue reading “Iowa City Book Festival Receives Humanities Iowa Grant”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,15],"tags":[],"syndication":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1106"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1106"},{"taxonomy":"syndication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/syndication?post=1106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}