Des Moines Area Community College
09/17/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 09/17/2026 10:26
Celebration of Literary Arts Welcomes Acclaimed Authors This Fall
DMACC's annual Celebration of Literary Arts series returns for the fall semester, bringing a lineup of four nationally recognized writers to the Ankeny Campus for free public readings and discussions.
The events feature bestselling novelists, award-winning poets, and university faculty, offering students and community members the opportunity to hear from leading voices in contemporary literature.
The series begins Sept. 23 with poet and novelist Kaveh Akbar, author of the New York Times bestselling novel Martyr!, and poet and novelist Paige Lewis, author of Space Struck and the newly released novel Canon. Both Akbar and Lewis teach creative writing at the University of Iowa and have earned national recognition for their work.
On Oct. 19, DMACC will host novelists Bonnie Jo Campbell and Tom Lin. Campbell is the author of The Waters and Once Upon a River and Lin wrote the novel The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu, which won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Lin's novel, Babylon, South Dakota, has been recognized among TIME's most anticipated books of the year.
Free books from participating authors will be available while supplies last.
Mark Your Calendar
Celebration of Literary Arts - Fall 2026
DMACC Ankeny Campus, Building 2
Wednesday, Sept. 23
11:15 a.m.
Kaveh Akbar and Paige Lewis
Kaveh Akbar is the New York Times bestselling author of the novel Martyr! - a finalist for the National Book Award and one of the New York Times Ten Best Books of the Year - and two books of poetry: Pilgrim Bell and Calling a Wolf a Wolf. He is also the author of a chapbook, Portrait of the Alcoholic and editor of The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse: 110 Poets on the Divine and, with Paige Lewis, co-editor of Another Last Call: Poems on Addiction and Deliverance.
Kaveh is the recipient of fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Poetry Foundation, Civitella Ranieri, and elsewhere, and has been awarded the American Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Family Foundation Award, the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize, the Levis Reading Prize, multiple Pushcart Prizes, and named one of the TIME 100 Next.
Kaveh's writing appears in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Paris Review, New Republic, GQ, The Atlantic, Best American Poetry, Best American Sportswriting, and elsewhere. He was the founding editor of Divedapper, and since 2020, has served as poetry editor for The Nation. Born in Tehran, Iran, Kaveh is the Roy J. Carver Professor of English at the University of Iowa. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages.
Paige Lewis is the author of the poetry collection, Space Struck (Sarabande Books, 2019) and the novel Canon (Viking Press, 2026). They Co-edited Another Last Call: Poems on Addiction and Deliverance (Sarabande Books, 2023) with Kaveh Akbar. Paige teaches creative writing at the University of Iowa.
Monday, Oct. 19
11:15 a.m.
Bonnie Jo Campbell and Tom Lin
Bonnie Jo Campbell is the best-selling author of The Waters and Once Upon a River, which was adapted into a full-length feature film and released to international critical acclaim in 2020. She is also author of Q Road, a Barnes & Noble Great New Writers novel. Her critically acclaimed short-fiction collections include, Women and Other Animals, which won the AWP Prize for Short Fiction; and Mothers, Tell Your Daughters; and American Salvage, which was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critic's Circle Award and was heralded as a top 10 rural noir book of all time.
Tom Lin was born in Beijing, China, and grew up in New York City. His second novel, Babylon, South Dakota, is TIME Magazine's most anticipated book of the year, and his debut novel, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu, won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, making him its youngest winner. Tom's scholarly research explores the relationship between science fiction and high technology.
For more information about the Celebration of Literary Arts, contact Marc Dickinson.
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