Presented as part of the Bettendorf Public Library's “Community Connections” series, a number of Iowa's most notorious and horrific unsolved killings will be explored in the October 14 program Fiend Incarnate: Villisca Axe Murders of 1912, with Dr. Edgar Epperly discussing his book of the same title and the Midwestern mystery that continues to puzzle professional and amateur true-crime investigators.

Hailed by O the Oprah Magazine as "an attentive and precise writer who dazzles with natural and supernatural observations and lyrical details," bestselling author Jesmyn Ward will take part in a virtual conversation hosted by the Rock Island and Moline Public Libraries, her October 12 event treating participants to an audience with the talent lauded by Entertainment Weekly as "one of the most searing and singularly gifted writers working today."

Presented in a collaboration between the University of Iowa International Writing Program, the German American Heritage Center, the Midwest Writing Center, and Rock Island's Rozz-Tox, the latter venue will host a special International Edition of the Midwest Writing Center's SPECTRA Reading Series on October 13, with the featured guests and readers being native German Tunay Őnder and Chinese native Chun Sue.

A ballet program that promises to be brilliant, bold-as-can-be and possibly precedent-setting will be brought to the Adler Theatre on October 8. Our Will to Live, Ballet Quad Cities’ contribution to the Out of Darkness series (OutOfDarknessQC.com) will present new original choreography by Courtney Lyon and Emily Kate Long celebrating and dramatizing works by Jewish composers who fled the Nazis or tragically died in the camps. [Read Mike Schulz's interview with Ballet Quad Cities' Artistic Director Courtney Lyon at: Ballet Quad Cities' “Our Will to Live,” October 8.]