The tenth and final episode of the first season of Lit City, Iowa Public Radio’s new book podcast, goes live next Thursday, April 13th. Co-hosted by IPR's Charity Nebbe and UI English Ph.D. student Anna Williams, Lit City revisits author interviews from Talk of Iowa while also exploring the sights and sounds of the United States’ only UNESCO City of Literature – Iowa City.
“It’s really an interesting mix of the story behind the literature that the world has come to love – a lot of it connected with the City of Literature as declared by UNESCO – and also sort of the geography, the cityscape that contributed to these writers’ lives,” says River to River host Ben Kieffer.
In the first season of Lit City, find out more about the renowned independent bookstore Prairie Lights, the Catholic church where Flannery O’Connor took solace from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, infamous literary watering hole Dave’s Foxhead Pub, and the sometimes overlooked Literary Walk on Iowa Avenue.
“Although I’ve walked down that street and read some of the quotes, it was fun to really focus in a new way,” says Nebbe. “There were some names that I thought, ‘Ya know, I’ve walked over this quote how many times? And I don’t know who that is.’”
Each episode takes inspiration from these storied City of Literature sites to draw out themes from recent books by authors including John Darnielle, Michelle Hoover, Nathan Hill, and Rick Riordan.
Find the first nine episodes on our website, or you can subscribe on iTunes or Google Play.