Young Writers: Sign Up for Open Mic at PRLF

On Saturday, September 7, as part of the Printers Row Lit Fest's action-packed schedule, the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame will host an open mic reading for young writers. The readings take place from 1-1:45 p.m. at North Stage (on Dearborn St., just south of Ida B. Wells Drive). Poets Billy Tuggle and Marty McConnell will emcee the open mic, which is open to all high school-aged students. Billy is a South Side Chicago native; a writer, vocalist, performance poet and event producer; a mentor, an activist and HipHop culturalist; recorded, published, a poetry slam champion. Marty is a seven-time National Poetry Slam Team member, the 2012 winner of the National Underground Poetry Individual Competition, and the author of two prize-winning poetry collections and a nonfiction book about community-based workshops. 

All interested readers need simply to email Don Evans to reserve a place in the lineup. The Randall Albers Young Writers Awards enters its third year, and will begin taking submissions in the late fall. 

Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation Awards CLHOF 3-Year Grant

The board of the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation has awarded the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame a three-year operational grant totaling $18,000. GDDF's continuing support of our organization has enabled us to sustain and grow operations, including programming and the production of book projects. With this new grant, the CLHOF will be able to upgrade and expand website content, stage our signature programs, and continue to vigorously connect our audience to Chicago authors, books and literary programs. 

Alex Kotlowitz to Receive Fuller Award on Tuesday, Sept. 24

Alex Kotlowitz will receive our Fuller Award for lifetime achievement at the Chopin Theatre on Tuesday, Sept. 24, starting at 7 p.m.. Kotlowitz is the author of four books, including his most recent, An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago which received the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize. His other books include the national bestseller There Are No Children Here, which the New York Public Library selected as one of the 150 most important books of the twentieth century. It received the Helen B. Bernstein Award and was adapted as a television movie produced by and starring Oprah Winfrey. It was selected by The New York Times as a Notable Book of the Year along with his second book, The Other Side of the River which also received The Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize for Nonfiction. His book on Chicago, Never a City So Real, was recently released in paperback. Kotlowitz has also worked in film and radio. His documentary, The Interrupters, a collaboration with Steve James, premiered at Sundance in January 2011 and aired as a two-hour special on PBS’s FRONTLINE. It was cited as one of the best films of the year by The New Yorker, The Chicago Tribune, Entertainment Weekly and The LA Times. For the film, Kotlowitz received an Emmy, a Cinema Eye Award and an Independent Spirit Award. A former staff writer at The Wall Street Journal, Alex’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine and on This American Life. His stories, which one reviewer wrote “inform the heart”, have also appeared in Granta, Rolling Stone, The Chicago Tribune, Slate and The Washington Post, as well as on PBS (Frontline, the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour and Media Matters) and on NPR’s All Things Considered and Morning Edition. His play, An Unobstructed View, written with Amy Drozdowska, premiered in Chicago in June 2005. In 2016, Alex worked with inmates at Illinois’ Stateville prison on essays about their cells. The stories which ran on The New Yorker’s website and on The New Yorker’s Radio Hour became the basis for the podcast Written Inside. NPR’s Lauren Ober, who picked it as one of the top ten podcasts of the year, wrote: “It’s an intimate look at life behind bars that will likely change the way you think about incarceration.” Alex has been honored in all three mediums, including two Peabodys, two Columbia duPonts, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and the George Polk Award. He’s the recipient of eight honorary degrees, the John LaFarge Memorial Award for Interracial Justice given by New York’s Catholic Interracial Council and the 2019 Harold Washington Literary Award. He also received the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters for his books which “illuminate astonishing national inequities through the lens of individual experience.”