Monday, January 6, 2025
by Allison Manley
One of my personal goals for 2025 is to attend more lit events. I usually only attend a handful a year, but that’s not for lack of opportunity. Each month in Chicago, there are dozens of events, including author events and book launches, literary lectures, live lit and readings, conferences, and more. We couldn’t possibly list them all, but each month, we’ll share…
Tuesday, December 31, 2024
by Randall Albers
“An honest woman is a provocation to the meanness of the world.”—Dorothy Allison, “Spirit Healing,” Chicago Literary Hall of Fame Fuller Award Tribute to Sandra Cisneros
Gut punch.
Word came in a text from writer and longtime friend Megan Stielstra. “Do you know Sapphire?” she asked. “Yes,” I texted back. We had brought Sapphire to our Story Week Festival of Writers…
Wednesday, December 11, 2024
by Donald G. Evans
A year is a super long time that is gone in a snap. You do, do, do, do some more…and then it’s done. Before we move on, we want to reflect on what 2024 meant to the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame and those we serve. This past year was our 15th as an organization, depending on how you do the math.…
Monday, November 11, 2024
by Richae Mastrolonardo
When I log on to Zoom, it’s a Saturday morning, and I’m instantly greeted by enthusiastic questions from Mark Fishbein: “Tell me about you, what are you studying?” In an online world, it can feel hard to forge any kind of real connection, but this isn’t an issue for Fishbein. Before I ask any questions, we spend the first few minutes talking…
Monday, October 21, 2024
Director Rana Segal’s documentary The Light of Truth: Richard Hunt’s Monument to Ida B. Wells will be screened on Sunday, October 27 as part of the 60th Chicago International Film Festival. The 66-minute film will be shown at the Chicago History Museum, starting at noon. According to the festival’s notice, the film “weaves together Hunt’s…
Monday, September 23, 2024
by Rosellen Brown
It isn’t easy to make a mark in the world by being a good guy, a friend, an acute observer more kind than critical. Those qualities don’t sound dramatic enough to constitute a career but Alex K, soft-spoken and content to stay out of the limelight, has brought us a number of remarkable portraits made accessible by the way he watches, listens, sympathizes…
Tuesday, September 17, 2024
by Miles Harvey
What Alex Kotlowitz remembers about his first apartment in Chicago is lugging dozens of cinderblocks up three flights of stairs to build makeshift bookshelves for his growing library. He remembers the downstairs neighbor who ran an informal bike-repair shop out of his first-floor flat and the heroin addicts across the way who ended up breaking into the young writer’s apartment through the…
Monday, September 16, 2024
by Michael Antman
“Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom and Charley,
The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter?
All, all are sleeping on the hill.
“One passed in a fever,
One was burned in a mine,
One was killed in a brawl,
One died in a jail,
One fell from a…
Monday, September 9, 2024
Mike Royko: The Toughest Man in Chicago, writer and actor Mitchell Bisschop’s nostalgic love letter to Mike Royko, opened this weekend and provided a feast for those who grew up reading and loving the legendary columnist. For others who are not familiar with Royko, it may have been a meal lacking some courses.
The one-man show…
Wednesday, July 10, 2024
by Barbara Egel
I couldn’t stop writing.
I wrote myself angled and tress-topped
I wrote myself hero, I wrote myself white,
Cherokee, cheerleader, distressed damsel in Alan Ladd’s arms,
I wrote myself winged, worshipped.
– “Related to the Buttercup, Blooms in Spring”
In this poem from her 2006 collection, Teahouse of the Almighty, Patricia Smith falls desperately in love. She…
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