Over the next two nights, a local bookstore will feature several area authors reading selections from their most recent works.

Tonight and tomorrow night at 7:30 p.m., Big Table Books, located at 330 Main St. in downtown Ames, will be featuring two readings from area authors who have recently had their works published as parts of larger works.

Tonight’s reading will be by Ames resident Deb Coates, a contributor to the collection of science fiction short stories Starfarer’s Dozen, said Cheryl McGough, Big Table Books publicist.

Coates is tentatively scheduled to read the short story “Flyboy,” which was published in the anthology.

“It is real unusual to get a science fiction author to come in. They usually don’t go on tour or make themselves available,” McGough said.

Thursday evening the store will honor National Poetry Month with discussion and readings that will focus on Party Train: A Collection of North American Prose Poetry. As a part of the readings, the store will play host to at least two of the collection’s contributors: Deb Marquart, an assistant professor of English at ISU, and Rick Christman.

Marquart said she is planning to read her works that were published in the anthology as well as her earlier book, Everything’s a Verb, and the works of other authors in the book.

Marquart said she submitted her works “Getting Ready,” “Small town Cafe” and “My Father Tells a Story About his Brother Frank and the Wick (Every Time I Ask Him for Money)” because of the unique aspects of the work.

The form of prose poetry has been one that has traditionally received little respect because many poetry editors consider it to be more like a short, short story than a form of poetry, Marquart said. She said that when the selections for the book were chosen, this debate was reflected as the editors disputed the differences between the two types of writing. “It’s interesting to see the borderline between storytelling and poetry,” Marquart said.

In the end, she said, the book shows the different types of prose poetry with some of the poems showing more narrative qualities than others. The book also shows a kind of history of the art form by including some works by turn of the century authors Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein.

Christman, who is the author of Falling in Love at the End of the World, is scheduled to read from his prose poetry from the collection including “Asylum,” “Whiteout” and “Boondocks, Iowa.”

All books being discussed will be available for autographing. Both events are free and open to the public.