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Serious Fun: The Spectra Poetry-Reading Series, Opening September 15 at Rozz-Tox
To grasp the concept of the Midwest Writing Center’s new Spectra poetry-reading series, we might start with the 1916 book of the same name. In its preface, Anne Knish explained that the “Spectric”...
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Life on the Mississippi – the Real Story: Author Lee Sandlin Creates a...
“Many in the crowd got roaring drunk – and the drunks at their most extreme were hard to tell apart from the fallers and the jerkers and the howlers. Others gave in to the general mood of riot and...
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Winners and Favorites from the 2012 Short-Fiction Contest
We received 69 entries in our fiction contest, and prize-winners and a selection of other favorites are published here. To refresh your memory, we set a limit of 250 words per entry. (For future...
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Inhabited by It: Novelist Peter Geye, November 29 at Augustana College
It happens in the second paragraph of the first chapter of his first book. Peter Geye’s 2010 debut, Safe from the Sea, concerns a father and son, but it quickly establishes another character:...
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Southern (Ohio) Gothic: Donald Ray Pollock, April 25 at Augustana College
Because there’s no rational response to a terminal cancer diagnosis, Willard Russell’s course of action following his wife’s death sentence doesn’t seem as strange as it should. In Donald Ray...
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Winners and Favorites from Our 2013 Short Fiction Contest
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” These are the first words of the Bible, and they were also one of 50 “great beginnings” that we offered our readers as opening lines for our...
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Emerging from His Fantasy World: Augustana Professor Kelly Daniels’ Lean,...
In ninth grade, Kelly Daniels was called to the principal’s office, where his father was waiting. Dad took Kelly and his younger brother Ole for a drive, and after a while, he said, “I figured you...
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The Girl with the Dragon or Two: River Readings at Augustana Presents...
Rachel Hartman, the April 28 guest in Augustana College’s River Readings at Augustana series, is the author of the 2012 young-adult novel Seraphina. It’s a fantasy tale of royalty and knights and the...
View ArticleEnter the Reader’s 2014 Short-Fiction Contest: I’m with the Banned! Deadline...
For our 2014 short-fiction contest – co-sponsored by the Bettendorf Public Library – we’re celebrating banned and challenged books. Our 20 prompts are all drawn from famous (and sometimes infamous)...
View Article“I’m with the Banned!”: Winners and Favorites from Our 2014 Short-Fiction...
Our challenged-books-themed “I’m with the Banned!” short-fiction contest drew 52 entries, and we’re pleased to present 22 of our favorite stories here. Authors were required to include one of 20...
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