Kecia Lynn

At the Shambaugh House our colleague Kecia Lynn's main project is coordinating the Between the Lines summer program for young  Arabic-language writers.  Periodically, though, she leaves the house, changes hats, and becomes a suave talk show host for the UITV series  "From the Workshop."   Check out her thoughtful interviews with faculty and visitors to the Writers' Workshop -- Marilynne Robinson, Abraham Verghese, Yiyun Li, Michael Cunningham and many others.

When the young psychologist Guesly Michel came to Iowa City from Port-au Prince this summer to learn about writing as a therapeutic procedure (the Patient Voice program at the UI Hospitals and Clinics has had a similar program for a number of years), he was by his own admission new to the game. Two weeks into his stay here, as one of his daily assignments for the ISWF class "Memoirs of Illness and Health" he took, out came a vignette, an 'amniotic memory' of sorts—and also Guesly's very first attempt at writing in English. And yesterday his piece appeared in the UI's arts bulletin, The Daily Palette! Beau travail, Guesly!

In related news, a volume of 15 Haitian writers responding to the January 12th 2010 earthquake is forthcoming from 91stMBooks/AHB.

With the August humidity in its finest form, we give you something to stay inside for: the writers of the 2010 Fall Residency! With 38 writers from more than 30 countries, you'll want to stay involved as we run through a slate of nearly 80 events in 80 days, in Iowa City, across the state of Iowa, and through the U.S. Keep track of our courses, panel lectures, film screenings, and public readings at our website, http://iwp.uiowa.edu.

When President Obama came to Iowa City yesterday to mark the passing of his new health insurance reform bill, he not only cleverly used Prairie Lights Books as an example of a small business about to get a new tax break to keep its employees covered. He also had the wits to go in and actually purchase some books. At first he seemed to stick to a defense theme—a Star Wars pop-up book—but then the word came that his two daughters got some lit as well.

Jan Weissmiller, the co-owner of the local cult book store Prairie Lights, greets a hot customer.

In addition to above-fold in the NYTimes, the story also made overseas news