Prairie Lights
{{Short description|Iowa City, IA, bookstore}}
{{Infobox company
| name = Prairie Lights
| image = Prairie lights iowa city.jpg
| image_size = 240px
| image_caption = Prairie Lights Book Store, Iowa City
| type = Book store
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| foundation = 1978
| founder = Jim Harris
| defunct =
| location_city = Iowa City, Iowa
| location_country = United States
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| homepage = [http://www.prairielights.com/ PrairieLights.com]
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Prairie Lights is an independent bookstore in downtown Iowa City, Iowa, founded in 1978, by Jim Harris.
History
The store's original location was a {{convert|1000|sqft|m2|adj=on}} space on South Linn Street. In 1982, Harris moved the store to an {{convert|11000|sqft|m2|adj=on}} space on South Dubuque Street, which had been a coffee house that had in the 1930s hosted a local literary society and its guests, who included Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Sherwood Anderson, E. E. Cummings and others.{{cite web | url=http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/uwire/iowa-city-ui/college-town-profile/stores.jsp | title=Prairie Lights |publisher=Billboard.com}}{{dead link|date=July 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} The store currently holds approximately 80,000 to 100,000 books, covering three and a half stories. The remaining half-story houses a coffee shop. Its facade, designed to resemble a human face, is a local landmark.
Harris sold the store to longtime employee and poet Jan Weissmiller and the poet Jane Mead in December 2008.{{cite web | url=http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6553759.html | publisher=Publishers Weekly| title=Prairie Lights Has New Owner | author=Claire Kirch | date= 2008-04-22}}
Notable author visits
As one of Iowa's largest bookstores and the major independent bookstore in the hometown of the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop, the building continues to play a role in its region's literary culture.{{cite news | url=http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/travel/stories/2008/01/20/destination_bookstores.ART_ART_01-20-08_F3_8Q92NGR.html?sid=101 | title=Bookstores worth putting on itinerary of ardent readers | publisher=The Columbus Dispatch | date=2008-01-20 | author=By Beth J. Harpaz | access-date=2008-11-16 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110523040718/http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/travel/stories/2008/01/20/destination_bookstores.ART_ART_01-20-08_F3_8Q92NGR.html?sid=101 | archive-date=2011-05-23 | url-status=dead }} Susan Sontag, Gloria Steinem, and Annie Proulx are among the notable authors to participate in events at the bookstore. Seven Nobel prize winners have also had events at the store: Seamus Heaney, Czesław Miłosz, Derek Walcott, Saul Bellow, Toni Morrison, Orhan Pamuk, and J. M. Coetzee.{{cite web | url=http://news.bookweb.org/booksense/5451.html | publisher=American Booksellers Association Website | title=Prairie Lights: Exceptional Author Venue Approaches 30 | date=2007-08-01 | access-date=2008-11-16 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071012172416/http://news.bookweb.org/booksense/5451.html | archive-date=2007-10-12 | url-status=dead }}
President Obama visit
President Barack Obama made a surprise visit to the store after a speech in Iowa City on March 25, 2010. He visited the store after using Prairie Lights as an example of small businesses struggling to pay for health care coverage for their employees. During his visit he bought a couple of children's books.{{cite news | url=http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/obama-stops-to-browse-at-a-bookstore/ | work=New York Times | date=2010-03-25 | title=Obama Stops to Browse at a Bookstore}}
Radio program
WSUI in Iowa City broadcast "Live from Prairie Lights", a series of readings by authors appearing at the store, for 18 years. Among others, actor Mike Farrell, and authors Michael Chabon and Daniel Mason appeared on the program in 2008.{{cite web | url=http://wsui.uiowa.edu/prairie_lights.htm | title=Live from Prairie Lights | publisher=Iowa Public Radio website | access-date=2008-11-12 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081103125230/http://wsui.uiowa.edu/prairie_lights.htm | archive-date=2008-11-03 | url-status=dead }} The program stopped airing on Iowa Public Radio in December 2008.{{cite news | url=http://www.thonline.com/article.cfm?id=222561 | publisher=Iowa Telegraph Herald | title='Live from Prairie Lights' to end | date=2008-11-12 }}{{dead link|date=March 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} In October 2010, the University of Iowa college radio station KRUI-FM began broadcasting "Live from Prairie Lights.",{{cite news|title='Live from Prairie Lights' to return|url=http://www.dailyiowan.com/2010/10/12/Metro/19349.html|access-date=2011-04-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718040058/http://www.dailyiowan.com/2010/10/12/Metro/19349.html|archive-date=2011-07-18|url-status=dead}} and the readings are streamed live and archived at http://www.writinguniversity.org.
References
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External links
- [http://www.prairielights.com/ Official Web site]
- [http://www.booktour.com/places/443-Prairie-Lights-Books Upcoming speakers at Prairie Lights]
{{coord|41|39|39.31|N|91|31|59.72|W|region:US|display=title}}
Category:Independent bookstores of the United States