Submit NOW to Enter
the 2025 Randall Albers
Young Writers Award!
Calling all Chicago area high school writers! Submissions for the 2024-25 Randall Albers Young Writers Award are officially open. We again welcome submissions in both poetry and prose. Now in its third year, this award encourages the literary pursuits of our next generation of great Chicago authors. Named after one of Chicago’s most dedicated teachers of writing, Columbia College’s Professor and Chair Emeritus of Fiction Writing, Randall Albers, the contest reflects his passion for supporting and encouraging our city’s next great generation of writers. Albers stated that, “People beyond Chicago need to understand that this city is a hotbed of writing talent and that plenty of young people are focused on creativity. That represents a great hope for the future, one that we hope is contagious. All of this expansion would be another terrific movement toward building a powerhouse city of writers, as the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame always seeks to do.”
The contest is open to all Chicago area students currently enrolled in grades 9-12 and will remain open until March 3, 2025 at 5 p.m. CT or until we reach our submissions cap of 400 entries—whichever comes first. Read the Rules & Guidelines before entering.
Winners in each of our two categories—prose and poetry—will receive awards in the following amounts:
1st place: $250
2nd place: $150
3rd place: $100
4th place: $50
Each winner will also receive publication in the commemorative program we produce for the award ceremony, which is scheduled for May 17, 2025 at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago. Winners will also be listed on our website and will be invited to read from their entries during the awards ceremony.
Year-End Donations:
We NEED Them!!!!!
If and when you make your year-end donations, the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame could use your help. We’re a federally registered 501(c)(3), which enables you to include your gift in year-end tax filings. We’re a very small non-profit organization, so we often do all kinds of gymnastics in order to create wonderful things on a relatively tiny amount of money. SO MANY people enable us to think and do BIG—our volunteers, board and associate board members, our advisory council, authors, scholars, cultural leaders, hard-to-label literature lovers, Chicago boosters...and financial supporters. It’s true that we’ve been able to do more with less, but, man, we’d love to try our hand at doing more with more. The financial contributions we did and do receive are precious to us—each donation, even what others might consider modest, makes us better equipped to grow out of scrappy and into sustainable. We want to continue to serve our literary community for a long time—and we will, with your support.
If you prefer to write a check, send to: Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, 4043 N. Ravenswood Avenue #222, Chicago, IL 60613.
The Man with the Golden Amaretto Set for Early February, 2025, at Colvin House
Registration is now open. The CLHOF’s fifth annual literary cocktail party is set for Saturday, February 8, 2025. The Man with the Golden Amaretto gives us lots of fun options to dress up in the fashion of Nelson Algren-era characters. For the second straight year, we’ll be at the lovely Colvin House (5940 N. Sheridan Chicago, IL 60660), which includes a speakeasy basement. That’s likely to be turned into a gambling den of some sort for the occasion. This party includes appetizers, desserts, and three unique cocktails, plus lessons on drink mixing and cocktail history, literary readings, and more. Mostly a party, though. Cost for the fundraiser is $125.
Illinois Arts Council Awards CLHOF Operating Support Grant
The Illinois Arts Council (IAC) has awarded the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame a grant of $2,500 from State Funds for General Operating Support & Youth Employment in 2025. Thanks to IAC for their continuing support.
