by Donald G. Evans

Almost from the start of her education at Little Italy grade schools and then Jones College Prep, Ana Castillo refused to limit herself to one thing or another. Growing up in a politically-charged Chicago, Castillo witnessed the near-demolition of her family’s neighborhood, Martin Luther King, Jr. in Marquette Park, the Democratic Convention riots, and so much more that sparked her interest…

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By Richard Reeder

I had the pleasure of having lunch with author Nancy Johnson at the Cliff Dwellers recently. Nancy is the featured author at the February Cliff Dwellers book club on Saturday, February 26, discussing her debut novel, The Kindest Lie. The book club is still meeting via Zoom, so since Nancy had never been to the club, I invited her…

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by Kathleen Rooney

Back in August of 2020, I tweeted: “Why aren’t more people reading TRUMBULL PARK by Frank London Brown? About black families integrating a housing project in the 1950s? It should be taught in high school. Taught in college. Made into a movie. It’s maybe the best Chicago novel ever written.” I had been reading the book as part of my…

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by Donald G. Evans

Poems While You Wait is a small, quirky concern, a quiet presence at Chicago literary festivals, book fairs, theaters, flea markets, and other corridors in which small, intellecturally curious types cluster. At first, it strikes one as all concept: wow! clever!! do me!!! It's a bit like the boardwalk artists offering to draw your caricacture. Except this is literature. We…

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by Marc Zimmerman

1.

When I was a young guy living near New York, I played me a waiting game. Waiting for Love, waiting for myself, and Waiting for … Godot.

When I moved to San Diego, Mexico, Minnesota and Chicago, I found myself waiting, sometimes without knowing it. Waiting for Alurista, Carlos Monsivaís, Tomás Rivera, Carlos Fuentes and Sandra Cisneros.

And yes, in San Diego,…

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by Gerald R. Butters

In 2010, I had one of the luckiest breaks of my professional career. I was fortunate enough to win a Timuel D. Black Jr. Fellowship, which allowed me to complete a book at the Carter G. Woodson Library on the South Side of Chicago. I knew little about the man in whose name I received the fellowship, other than that…

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by Michael Burke

Reginald Gibbons received the Fuller Award for lifetime achievement on September 30, 2021. The fun, moving ceremony was hosted online by the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, the Newberry Library, and more than a dozen other partners. Named after the notable Chicago writer and Hall of Famer Henry Blake Fuller, the coveted award recognizes people who master…

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by Barbara Egel

“Poems are one of the ways we speak ourselves to life—our own poems and those of others”

—R.G., “Homage to Longshot O’Leary”

The words in the title of this essay are borrowed wares taken from the love poetry of one of Reginald Gibbons’ poetic forefathers, Osip Mandelstam. Not only are they from another poet, they’re in a language native to neither Mandelstam…

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The Chicago Literary Hall of Fame chats with PEN/Emerging Voices designee Jerakah Greene, who will instruct a free creative writing “Chicago Voices” workshop with local youth, offered by the Hall of Fame as of June 2021. (For more information and registration, click link TBD)

Q) In light of your own experiences studying creative writing as a young undergraduate in this setting, can you talk about Chicago…

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