Bret Anthony Johnston in conv with Lan Samantha Chang - Encounters With Unexpected Animals
Schedule
Wed, 25 Feb, 2026 at 07:00 pm
UTC-06:00Location
15 S Dubuque St, Iowa City, IA, United States, Iowa 52240 | Iowa City, IA
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Bret Anthony Johnston will read from his new short story collection, Encounters with Unexpected Animals, and will be joined in conversation with Iowa Writers' Workshop director Lan Samantha Chang. Described as "an imaginative, moving collection of stories infused with the magic and enigma of the human condition and drenched in Texas heat," Encounters with Unexpected Animals is praised by The New York Times as "A cause for celebration," while John Irving, New York Times bestselling author of The Cider House Rules, says simply: "Flawless storytelling."
Bret Anthony Johnston is the author of the internationally bestselling novel Remember Me Like This and the award-winning Corpus Christi: Stories, and is the editor of Naming the World: And Other Exercises for the Creative Writer. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, The Paris Review, Thrasher Magazine, The Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship and the Sunday Times Short Story Award, he was born and raised in Texas and is the director of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin.
Lan Samantha Chang is the author of a collection of short fiction, Hunger, and three novels: Inheritance; All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost; and The Family Chao. Her work has been translated into nine languages and has been chosen twice for The Best American Short Stories. She has received creative writing fellowships from Stanford University, Princeton University, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
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Where is it happening?
15 S Dubuque St, Iowa City, IA, United States, Iowa 52240Event Location & Nearby Stays:
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