Joy Castro, a guest of the University of Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program, will read from her work. Joy Castro is the author of the memoir The Truth Book: Escaping a Childhood of Abuse Among Jehovah’s Witnesses, a BookSense Notable Book, and she contributed to White Ink: Poems on Mothers and Motherhood, Faith & Doubt: An Anthology of Poems, and Avery: An Anthology of New Fiction.
 
She was named one of 2009’s Best New Latino Authors by LatinoStories.com. She has recently completed a collection of short stories, How Winter Began, and is working on a novel, The Desire Projects. She is also developing a collection of essays by various writers on the ethical dilemmas of writing about family. She teaches in the department of English and the Institute for Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.