Mission Creek Festival

Mission Creek Festival is a 3-day music and literature festival that takes place every spring in downtown Iowa City, Iowa. The festival thrives on intimacy and visceral connections between artists and audiences. We host events indoors at traditional venues and local shops converted into performances spaces solely for the festival.

Schedule of Events:

Sarah Minor:

Sarah Minor is the author of Slim Confessions: The Universe as a Spider or Spit (Noemi Press 2021), Bright Archive (Rescue Press 2020), and The Persistence of the Bonyleg: Annotated (Essay Press 2016). She’s the recipient of the Barthelme Prize for Short Prose, an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, and an Individual Research Grant to Iceland from the American-Scandinavian Foundation. She serves as the Video Essay and Cinepoetry Section Editor at TriQuarterly Review and teaches in the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program.

Lynne Nugent:

Lynne Nugent is Editor of The Iowa Review. Her chapbook of essays on motherhood and domesticity, Nest, won the 2019 Jeanne Leiby Memorial Chapbook Award and was published by The Florida Review in 2020. Her writing has appeared in the North American Review, Brevity, the New York Times, Full Grown People, Mutha Magazine, and elsewhere. Her essay “The Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card” was named a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2016, and her essay “My Grief Is a Student of the Humanities” was runner-up for Mid-American Review‘s Fineline prize. She holds an MFA in nonfiction writing and a PhD in English from the University of Iowa. In 2020, she won the Jean Jew Award for Women’s Rights, presented by the UI’s Council on the Status of Women.

Walid Rachedi:

Walid Hajar Rachedi was born in France in 1981 and spent several years in Latin America and the US. His debut novel Qu’est-ce que j’irais faire au paradis? was a finalist for the Goncourt Prize for a debut novel in 2022, and his second novel, Nos destins sont liés, was published in September, 2023.

He is also the co-founder and director of Frictions, an online media platform, widely renowned for its podcast series, which investigate global social issues in a long-form narrative style.

He is currently co-writing a film screenplay, produced for television by Alain Pancrazi (Brain Productions).

Thea Brown:

Originally from the Hudson Valley in New York, Thea Brown is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was a Truman Capote Fellow. She is the author of the chapbook We Are Fantastic (Petri Press 2013) and the full-length poetry collections Think of the Danger (H_NGM_N 2016), Famous Times (Slope Editions 2019), and Loner Forensics (Northwestern University Press 2023). Poems can be found in Oversound, Denver Quarterly, Pinwheel, the Iowa Review, LitHub, Vinyl, and elsewhere. She lives in Baltimore, where she’s been the Tickner Fellow at the Gilman School and a Rubys Artist Project Grant awardee, as well as the recipient of a UCross Foundation fellowship and the 2020 Art Alliance Poetry Prize. She teaches creative writing at the George Washington University.

Cindy Juyoung Ok:

Cindy Juyoung Ok is the author of Yale Younger Poets Prize-winning Ward Toward. A MacDowell Fellow, Kenyon Review Fellow, and poetry editor at Guernica magazine, she is a former high school science teacher and now teaches creative writing at Kenyon College. Her poems are out now or soon in New England Review, Sewanee Review, and The Yale Review.

Hadara Bar-Nadav:

Hadara Bar-Nadav is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, the Lucille Medwick Award from the Poetry Society of America, and other honors. Her books include The Animal Is Chemical (Four Way Books, 2023), awarded the Levis Prize in Poetry; The New Nudity (Saturnalia Books, 2017); Lullaby (with Exit Sign) (Saturnalia Books, 2013), awarded the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize; The Frame Called Ruin (New Issues, 2012), Editor’s Selection/Runner Up for the Green Rose Prize; and A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight (Margie/Intuit House, 2007), awarded the Margie Book Prize. She is also the author of two chapbooks, Fountain and Furnace (Tupelo Press, 2015), awarded the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize, and Show Me Yours (Laurel Review/Green Tower Press 2010), awarded the Midwest Poets Series Prize. In addition, she is co-author with Michelle Boisseau of the best-selling textbook Writing Poems, 8th ed. (Pearson, 2011). Her poetry has appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Believer, The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, and elsewhere. She is a Professor of English and teaches in the MFA program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Zachary Pace:

Zachary Pace is a writer and editor who lives in New York City, whose writing has been published in the Baffler, BOMB, Bookforum, Boston Review, Frieze magazine, Interview magazine, Literary Hub, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the PEN Poetry Series, the Yale Review, and elsewhere. I Sing to Use the Waiting is their first book.

11:00 AM - 6:00 PM: 7th Annual I.C.E. C.R.E.A.M Zine Fair - PS1 Close House

Join us for the 7th annual Iowa City Expo for Comics and Real Eclectic Media (I.C.E. C.R.E.A.M.) Zine Fair, presenting the work of local cartoonists, zinesters, and art books/handmade book artists. Stay tuned for more information on vendors!

12:00 PM - 4:00 PM: Small Press & Literary Magazine Book Fair - Spare Me! Bowling Alley

Not to be missed this year is the Small Press and Literary Magazine Book Fair, being hosted inside Spare Me Bowling Alley. This singular event highlights the best of local and national presses, as well as the work of award-winning authors and publishers such as Sarabande Books, Dorothy, a publishing project, Two Dollar Radio, Container, The Iowa Review, and Rescue Press. This year’s featured presses also include:

Fonograf Editions / Split/Lip Press / Flood Editions / American Short Fiction / Europa Editions / Arrowsmith Press / Meekling Press / Perugia Press / PromptPress / Brink / Cleveland Review of Books / Long Day Press / New Moon Magazine / Flexible Press, LLC / Feral House / MWC Press / earthwords: the undergraduate literary review / Ink Lit Magazine / 508 Press / Quartet / Middle West Press LLC / The Mad Duck Coalition

2:30 PM: YXNG RASKAL - Trumpet Blossom Cafe

YXNG RASKAL is an avant-garde punk rap project. noisy, post-apocalyptic music for women that are hot, marginalized, and a little bit evil.

3:00 PM: The Blake Shaw Big(ISH) Band - ReUnion Brewery

The Blake Shaw BIG(ish) Band is an action packed, fun ensuing, dream band lead by bassist/vocalist/educator Blake Shaw of Iowa City. Shaw writes and arranges all the music using the Duke Ellington model of exploiting all his friends’ talents and strengths on their instruments. The show contains many burning solos, grooves for days, and plenty of eye candy. The rest of the band is made up of some of the best improvising musicians Iowa has to offer ranging from music professors, retired band directors, public school educators, and the most popular local musicians.

Blake Shaw is a composer/arranger, bandleader, double/electric bassist, vocalist, private lessons teacher, and jazz professor at Cornell College and Kirkwood Community College. Originally from Lisbon, Iowa, Blake has earned an Associate of Arts degree from Kirkwood Community College as well as a Bachelor of Music (‘13) and Master of Arts (‘17) degree both from the University of Iowa. He has called Iowa City, IA home for the past 14yrs where he has provided insight on festival boards for around half that time for the Iowa City Jazz Festival as well as the Iowa City Pride Fest where he serves as Entertainment Director. Shaw is a frequent performer and band leader in many different groups across Iowa and the US. He can also be found teaching private lessons to young dedicated classical and jazz double bass players. Shaw has had the pleasure of playing with jazz greats like Carmen Bradford, Wycliffe Gordon, Rachel Eckroth, Dave Pietro, O’had Talmor, and Dick Oatts. He’s also been in groups opening for bands like Kurt Elling, Charlie Hunter, Lake Street Dive, Donny McCaslin, Margaret Glaspy, John Raymond and the Real Feels, Bridget Kearney, Caroline Smith, The Marcus King Band, and Euforquestra. You may go “like” all of his cute pics on instagram @theeblakebass

For fans of (FFO): bass, funk, hot people, and a good time

3:30 PM: New Standards Men - Trumpet Blossom Cafe

Committed to experiencing music as it occurs, New Standards Men (NSM for true heads) work through cycles of improvisation and experimentation for long stretches at a time, often building on the bedrock laid by what dirtier minds call ‘jamming’ and is also referred to as ‘stretching’ out. Previous excursions into the motorik mode have given way to a more languid pace, yet one that is no less tense and climactic. NSM’s Drew Bissell and Jeremy Brashaw (the core of this project since 2017) are these days joined by Bob Bucko, Jr. and Isaac Turner, fellow travelers and eager partners on this trip.

4:15 PM: Subatlantic - ReUnion Brewery

Subatlantic, an indie rock band based in the Quad Cities, where Iowa and Illinois meet, features Becca Rice–lead vocals, guitar, and keyboards; Adam Kaul–guitar; Phil Pracht–drums; and Sean Chapman–bass and cello. Subatlantic formed in 2008 and released their first EP, Not Louder But Closer in May of 2015 on Bandcamp. Their first album, Villains, came out in spring of 2019. Using flexibility in arrangements and instrumentation, Subatlantic displays different textures in their songs, creating a unique sound that ranges from dark and sonorous to danceable post-punk. Subatlantic’s new album, Say It Again, is streaming everywhere, and LPs will be out soon.

For fans of (FFO): Yo La Tengo, Low, Throwing Muses, Tears for Fears, Tennis, ALVVAYS

4:45 PM: Bootcamp - Trumpet Blossom Café

Iowa City hardcore punk from the prairie. Bootcamp is a Hardcore Punk band from Iowa City, IA featuring members of Dryad, Piss Exorcist and Death Kill Overdrive. They formed in May, 2023. They released their Demo on August 15th, 2023. Their Instagram is https://www.instagram.com/bootcamphotties

5:30 PM: Dave Helmer Band - ReUnion Brewery

Dave Helmer is a songwriter’s songwriter from eastern Iowa. Helmer has toured across the country for over ten years with his rock pop group Crystal City, and adds the Dave Helmer Band as his newest project.

In addition to his music career, Helmer’s love of guitar is reflected through his work as a professional luthier proudly supporting area musicians.

Helmer’s signature Rock & Roll sound on his newest release “Such a Clown” has honest lyrics, catchy melodies, and ripping guitar work that sticks in your head.

For fans of (FFO): John Couger Mellancamp, Tom Petty, The Replacements

7:00 PM: Live Wire Radio - The James Theater

Live Wire Radio is a dynamically entertaining live radio show that artfully blends conversation and live music. Hosted by NPR’s Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me’s Luke Burbank and University of Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program alum Elena Passarello, the seasoned program is produced in Portland, Oregon and will be co-presented live at Mission Creek by Sarabande Books, an independent nonprofit celebrating 30 years of publishing.

7:30 PM: 24thankyou - Riverside Theatre

24thankyou is an unstable collection of distortion and intimacy from Iowa City.

FFO: Beach House, Dijon, The Microphones, 100 Gecs, JPEG Mafia

Members: Emma Parker (She/Her), Scott Griffin (He/Him), Michael Muhlena (He/Him), Nick Wilkins (He/Him), Ethan Traugh (He/Him)

7:45 PM: M Denney - Gabe's

M denney is a sound artist, electronic musician, guitarist, writer, and occasionally lies about being a composer. Her practice focuses on the use of ritualized repetitive action, engaging technology and destructive, uncontrollable recording processes as ways of exploring memory, self, and the construction of our pasts and histories. Called “haunting,” “violently joyful,” and “fever dream tricks-up-her-sleevery,” m’s work looks to build aural spaces for raw, vulnerable intimacy. Her long-running project The Water Will Come uses poetry and performance texts to examine our relationships to nature, and relates ideas of queer experience through the discovery of the self as nature. She is a frequent collaborator with dance and movement artists around her home base in Iowa City. m is a member of sound collective This Machine, a member of experimental guitar group Trio Ampliphonic.

8:00 PM: SG Goodman - The Englert

“No one escapes the marks left behind when it comes to love or the absence of it,” says singer-songwriter S.G. Goodman, describing the inspiration behind her sophomore album Teeth Marks. “Not only are we the ones who bear its indentations, but we’re also the ones responsible for placing them on ourselves and others.”

When the Kentucky native released her debut album, Old Time Feeling, she was rightly coined an “untamed rock n roll truth-teller” by Rolling Stone. The roots-inflected rock n’ roll record saw Goodman lending her gritty, haunting vocals to narrate the dual perspectives of her upbringing as the daughter of a crop farmer, and a queer woman coming out in a rural town.

Now with Teeth Marks, co-produced by Drew Vandenberg (Faye Webster, Drive-By Truckers, Of Montreal) in Athens, Georgia, she picks up the threads of Old Time Feeling. But where her critically acclaimed, Jim James-produced debut zeroed in on the South, reframing misconceptions in slough water-soaked tones, her latest album pulses with downtown Velvet Underground electricity, shifting its focus inward – though never losing Goodman’s searing and universal point of view. Teeth Marks is what you might get if Flannery O’Connor and Lou Reed went on a road trip.

Drawing influences from the aforementioned Velvets, as well as Pavement, Karen Dalton, and Chad VanGaalen, Goodman brings 11 powerful vignettes to life, with a sound that ventures deeper into indie rock and punk territory than she ever has before. Though Teeth Marks is a love album, Goodman doesn’t aim her focus on romantic relationships alone. Instead, she analyzes the way love between communities, families, and even one’s self can be influenced by trauma that lingers in the body. Teeth Marks is about what love actually is, love’s psychological and physical imprint, its light, and its darkness. It’s a record about the love we have or don’t have for each other, and perhaps, more significantly, the love we have or don’t have for ourselves.

8:45 PM: Nadah El Shazly - Riverside Theatre

Nadah el Shazly is a producer, vocalist and sound artist from Cairo, Egypt. Her debut album “Ahwar” radically reinvents the popular music of her homeland from the early 19th century and explores new sonic and harmonic frontiers. Using voice, field recordings and instruments, she creates haunting sound pieces and songforms that hijack the perception of time with their complex layers and dynamic structure.

Backing up her release with extensive worldwide touring through a solo set and a four-piece band, El Shazly has been featured in local and international festivals including Irtijal, Le Guess Who?, REWIRE, Best Kept Secret, Nusasonic, Marfa Myths, amongst others. She continues to compose for film and visual art and has been featured on compilations including Nashazphone’s This is Cairo Not the Screamers and C.A.N.V.A.S.’ s Apocope.

Most recently El Shazly curated the Egyptian Leather Pavillion for Nyege Nyege Festival 2020. She currently hosts a monthly show on Cashmere Radio, Live from Viper Mountain, where she deep-dives into music that fascinates her.

9:00 PM: Sqvce - Gabe's

Shawn Jarrett also known as Sqvce (Space) is a Des Moines-based hip hop artist who has made a name for himself in the music industry. He is known for his exceptional ability to adapt to any flow or beat, making him a versatile artist. With years of experience in the game, Space has honed his skills and has become a seasoned performer, crushing shows with his electrifying stage presence. His music is a reflection of his unique style, blending different genres to create a sound that is truly his own. With his undeniable talent and passion for music, Space is a force to be reckoned with in the hip hop scene.

9:45 PM: Osees - The Englert

Headlining Saturday is San Francisco psych rock band, Osees (formerly known as OCS, The Oh Sees, and Thee Oh Sees). They have released 28 studio albums alongside countless EPs, singles, and even a split with Iowa City songwriter, Paul Carey. The band’s leader, John Dwyer, is regarded as an institution of 21st century garage rock. The ensemble tours extensively and is known for their energetic live shows featuring two full-kit drummers.

11:00 PM: Pelada - Gabe's

Pelada, the duo of singer Chris Vargas and producer Tobias Rochman, broke out of Montreal’s underground warehouse rave scene in 2014 after uploading tracks to Soundcloud which caught the attention of the global dance music scene. They spent the next five years touring the globe extensively before signing with Berlin experimental label PAN in 2019 and releasing their debut LP ‘Movimiento Para Cambio’. A record which Mixmag included in their ‘Best Albums of the Decade’ list, Resident Advisor named it ‘One of the Best Records of 2019’ while DJ Mag asserted “they are a vital and contemporary addition to dance music’s punk cannon”. The LP was featured twice on the godfather of punk Iggy Pop’s BBC6 radio show who personally told his listeners “They always wake me up. I like this.”

Their collaboration is a blend of urgent Spanish language vocals centered around themes of power, control, social justice with hardware samplers, synths, and drum machines. The unique sound has led them to perform in many different contexts, whether it be entire tours opening for more traditional punk acts like Iceage and Shame, to the exact opposite, performing live during peak times at techno clubs such as Berghain.

In 2023, Pelada return to the live stage for a 3-part world tour. Part 1, which concluded in June, included stops in Italy, Switzerland, Japan, and Australia. Part 2 will see them visit the USA, Canada, France, and Germany in support of their highly anticipated 2nd album ‘Ahora Más Que Nunca,’ which they are self-releasing. The new album features notable guest appearances, including Zambian-Canadian rapper and 2020 Polaris Prize winner Backxwash and trumpet player Aquiles Navarro (of Irreversible Entanglements, Impulse! Records).

Both Pelada’s sound and ethos translate to a galvanizing live show that will spring dancefloors to action in festival contexts, switched-on club zones, and punk bunkers alike.

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