·       The DMACC Celebration of Literary Arts is celebrating its 20th year with a new monthly format that features prominent authors year-round.

·       All events are free and open to the public.

·       Award-winning writers Charles Baxter and Lan Samantha Chang are the Celebration’s featured authors in October.

ANKENY, Iowa—The DMACC Celebration of Literary Arts, which recently launched a new monthly format in celebration of its 20th Anniversary, will host two in-person readings on Wed., Oct. 19, featuring award-winning writers Charles Baxter and Lan Samantha Chang.

The year-round DMACC Celebration of Literary Arts spotlights a variety of local, regional and nationally known authors, and includes mix of both in-person and virtual formats. All events are free and open to the public.

Baxter and Chang will both participate in the following readings:

• Wed., Oct. 19, 12-1 p.m. CT, at the DMACC Ankeny Campus (Building 2, Room 25B)
• Wed., Oct. 19, 7 p.m. CT, at Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Avenue, Des Moines

About the authors: Charles Baxter and Samantha Lan Chang

Charles Baxter is the author of the novels “The Feast of Love,” which was nominated for the National Book Award, as well as “First Light,” “Saul and Patsy,” “Shadow Play,” “The Soul Thief,” and most recently, “The Sun Collective.”

Baxter, who currently lives in Minneapolis, Minn., has also authored the story collections “Believers,” “Gryphon,” “Harmony of the World,” “A Relative Stranger,” “There’s Something I Want You to Do” and “Through the Safety Net,” and several collections of essays, including “Wonderlands,” “Burning Down the House” and “The Art of Subtext.” His stories have appeared in several anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize Anthology and The O. Henry Prize Story Anthology. He has won the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story.

Charles Baxter

Lan Samantha Chang’s new novel, “The Family Chao,” was published by Norton in 2022. She is the author of a collection of short fiction, “Hunger,” and two novels, “Inheritance” and “All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost.” Her work has appeared in Atlantic Monthly and Ploughshares, and has been translated into nine different languages.

Chang’s work has twice been chosen for The Best American Short Stories, and 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. Chang currently serves as director of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She lives in Iowa City with her husband and daughter.

For more information about the DMACC Celebration of Literary Arts, visit https://cla.dmacc.edu or contact Marc Dickinson, DMACC English Professor and Coordinator of the DMACC Celebration of Literary Arts, at (515) 964-6221 or madickinson@dmacc.edu.

Lan Samantha Chang

Select writings by Charles Baxter:

• Loyalty
• Wonderlands (excerpt)
• Author website: charlesbaxter.com

Select writings by Lan Samantha Chang:

• Easy Come, Easy Go
• Why Every Traveler Should Stop at the ‘World’s Largest Truck Stop’
• Additional writings: lansamanthachang.com/other-writing
• Author website: lansamanthachang.com

About DMACC

Des Moines Area Community College, a public institution serving the educational and career training needs of Iowans, is committed to the lifelong success of its students. Situated in one of America’s most vibrant regions, DMACC offers 200 programs, certificates and transfer degrees, annually serving more than 70,000 credit and noncredit students on six campuses and six learning centers. Thanks to college-wide innovation including Continuous Process Improvement (CPI), new programs and affordable tuition, DMACC continues to experience solid growth. For more information, please visit dmacc.edu.

(contributed press release, DMACC)