A wedlock-shy coffee house poet finally meets the perfect woman. There's one little problem--he's convinced she's an axe murderer.

Set in a Mediterranean sea-side village, Kamila cleans house for exiled artist and poet Mustafa, but the more difficult job is keeping her free-spirited young daughter, Almitra, out of trouble. The three embark on a journey meant to end with Mustafa's return home, but first they must evade the authorities who fear that the truth in his words will incite rebellion.

Roland is an academic researcher who discovers some important letters written by a famous Victorian poet, Randolph Henry Ash. Ash was presumed to have been totally devoted to his wife, but Roland finds letters written to another unnamed woman, and soon determines that the intended recipient was another, less well-known poet, Christabel LaMotte. Roland contacts Maud, an expert on LaMotte's life and work. Despite her skepticism, the two begin to investigate,...

From 1981 to 1983, the Dunbar High School boys' basketball team in Baltimore was arguably the best high school basketball team that ever played. Over two seasons, they went 59-0, and eleven players on their rosters went off to Division I programs. Four would become future NBA players: David Wingate, Reggie Williams, Tyrone 'Muggsy' Bogues and Reggie Lewis, three of them making history by being selected together in the first round of the 1987 draft....

A 1950 update of the Orphic myth by Jean Cocteau that depicts a famous poet scorned by the Left Bank youth, and his love for both his wife Eurydice and a mysterious princess. Seeking inspiration, the poet follows the princess from the world of the living to the land of the dead through Cocteau's famous mirrored portal. Orpheus represents the legendary Cocteau at the height of his abilities for peerless visual poetry and dreamlike storytelling.

In the mid-nineteenth century, Emily Dickinson is writing prolifically and enjoying a passionate, romantic relationship with her friend and sister-in-law Susan. While seeking publication of some of her poems, Emily finds herself facing male literary gatekeepers too confused by her genius to take her work seriously. Instead, her work attracts the attention of an ambitious woman editor, who also sees Emily as a convenient cover for her own role in buttoned-up...

Video recordings of author and poet lectures given during the annual AViD program sponsored by the Des Moines Public Library Foundation.