Archway Reading and Lecture Series to Host Author Nickolas Butler

DUBUQUE, Iowa - The Archway Reading and Lecture Series at the University of Dubuque will host a reading and discussion on campus by author Nickolas Butler at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, October 28, 2025, in the Multicultural Student Center, Peter and Susan Smith Welcome Center.

The event is free and open to the public. It will include a question-and-answer session.

Butler's first novel was the internationally best-selling and prize-winning Shotgun Lovesongs, which has been optioned for film development and translated into over 10 languages. Beneath the Bonfire, a collection of short stories, followed a year later. In 2017, Butler published The Hearts of Men. The book was short-listed for two of France's most prestigious literary prizes even before its American publishing. Butler's fourth book, Little Faith, was published to critical acclaim in 2019. He published Godspeed in 2021, a literary thriller set in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, that was long-listed for the Reading the West Book Award. Butler's latest, A Forty Year Kiss, is a small-town love story set in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.

The recipient of many literary prizes and commendations, Butler has published articles, reviews, short stories, and poetry in publications such as Ploughshares, Narrative, and The New York Times Book Review. He was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, raised in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and educated at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Copies of Butler's books will be available for purchase.

The Archway Reading and Lecture Series is presented by the Office of Academic Affairs and Department of English at UD.