The Out Loud! Author Series kicks off on Tuesday, April 19 at 7 p.m. with Stephen Lovely, whose novel Irreplaceable is the 2011 Linn Area Reads book.

Lovely attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and worked for seven years as a night clerk in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. In 2005, he became director of the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, a summer residential creative writing program for high school students.

Irreplaceable, which is set in a fictionalized Iowa City, explores the many issues surrounding organ transplants.

For more information, see Linn Area Reads or Lovely’s website.