With the event co-presented by the Midwest Writing Center, the Quad Cities' longest-running reading series SPECTRA returns to Rock Island's Rozz-Tox on April 10, with Elizabeth Willis reading from her latest book Liontaming in America, longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award in poetry, Iowa Student Poet Ambassador Tanya Rastogi, and Sophia Best, whose first chapbook PINK BATHWATER won the Iowa Chapbook Prize.

Having made Vulture’s 2023 list of “Comedians You Should and Will Know,” and having been identified by GQ as “at the front of a new wave of comedians," Stavros Halkias brings his tour to Davenport's Capitol Theatre on April 12, the funnyman also noted for being a founding member of the popular podcast Cum Town and appearing in Steven Soderbergh’s sci-fi series Command Z.

A wildly popular presence on TikTok and Instagram, and the 2022 winner of the inaugural James Beard Award for Best Social Media Account. Alexis Nikole Nelson serves as the latest virtual guest in the Illinois Libraries Present series, her April 10 program The Act of Foraging, co-presented by the Rock Island and Silvis Public Libraries, designed to celebrate all the edible plants hiding in plain sight.

Presented as part of the Davenport venue's popular “Kaffee und Kuchen” series, the German American Center's March 23 program Singing Wheels: August Fruehauf & the History of the Fruehauf Trailer Company will find August's granddaughter Ruth Fruehauf celebrating the exhibit opening of Immigrant Innovators: The Fruehauf Trailer Company, August's invention of the truck trailer having played a key role in transforming transportation in the 20th century.