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A Look Ahead at Chicago Lit: January

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…

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Losing Dorothy: Reminiscences and Impact of Dorothy Allison

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…

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Chicago Literary Hall of Fame: 2024 in Review

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.…

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A Whole Wide World of Poetry: A Conversation with Mark Fishbein About the Place of Global Poetry in Chicago

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…

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Director Rana Segal and Author Michelle Duster on the Ida B. Wells Monument and the Documentary of its Making

Monday, October 21, 2024

by Donald G. Evans

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…

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A Mensch at Work

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…

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A Lucky Gold Miner: Alex Kotlowitz Stakes His Claim

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…

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Spoon River House Festival Gets Inside Edgar Lee Masters’ Old Home

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…

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One-Man Royko Show at Chopin Theatre

Monday, September 9, 2024

By Robert Chiarito

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…

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“There is nothing that can’t become a poem”: The Work of Patricia Smith

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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