2nd place, Prose in the Randall Albers Young Writers Award: “Inviolable” by Charlotte Hensley

Thursday, May 9, 2024

Inviolable I brought out a silver platter loaded with poached eggs, toast, glistening cherries, and sugar-coated pastries—much more than she was ever able to eat. Still, I made it for her, as always, with precision and care. We were alone here, the two of us, except for the endless cycle of…

2nd place, Poetry in the Randall Albers Young Writers Award: “What They Won’t Tell You in the Dictionary” by Morgan Montoya

Thursday, May 9, 2024

This writer has chosen not to post their poem.

3rd place, Prose in the Randall Albers Young Writers Award: “On Innocence and Black Youth” by Rainey Reese

Thursday, May 9, 2024

On Innocence and Black Youth The door burst open, rattling as it slammed against the side of the brick house. The house’s owner stepped into the center of the doorway. His wife-beater was soaked with sweat stains, and his sunburnt shoulders stuck out from underneath it. The overwhelming smell…

3rd place, Poetry in the Randall Albers Young Writers Award: “Hauntings” by Fiona Jin

Thursday, May 9, 2024

This writer has chosen not to post their poem.

4th place, Prose in the Randall Albers Young Writers Award: “Dogeye” by Reghan Barnard

Thursday, May 9, 2024

Dogeye Cut tally: five. I push the tip of the pocket knife into the trampoline of my skin and pull it down, sharp and short. A thin stream of blood trickles down my arm, dying its hairs red. It bulges into a drop. The drop lets go, falls, plink! Caught by a bowl of water, its fragile structure split…

4th place, Poetry in the Randall Albers Young Writers Award: “Nantucket” by Gabe Cadichon

Thursday, May 9, 2024

Nantucket Smothered in January, all of the boats are leaving; by and large, they have better places to be. The whalers and fishermen are deserting the harbor, leaving their rods and harpoons up on the wharf as they voyage through the cold saltwater smog. The boathouses are empty, reeking with…

Chicago Literary Hall of Fame set to host “Immigrant Stories” panel at second American Writers Festival

Wednesday, May 1, 2024

By Kait Harland Book lovers in the Chicago area will want to mark their calendars for 12:45 p.m. on May 19 for a powerful panel titled “Worlds and Words of Chicago: Immigrant Stories.” Presented by the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame (CLHOF) as a part of the second ever American Writers…

E. Donald Two-Rivers and His Lasting Impact

Monday, April 8, 2024

by Carlos Cumpián Edmund Donald Two-Rivers Broeffle was born on June 29, 1945 to Nancy Johnson Broeffle. They lived with relatives on the 55,000-square-mile Anishinaabemowin-speaking Ojibway treaty lands of the Canadian Seine River Reserve in Sapawe, Ontario. He and his siblings grew up guided…

Hamlin Garland’s Chicago

Monday, April 8, 2024

by Christine Holbo For a bright moment, a decade or so around the turn of the twentieth century, the city of Chicago was the capital city of modernity, a place to which observers from around the world looked for a glimpse of the future. This had something to do with Chicago’s position at the…

The Great Michelle Moore: An Interview

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

by Donald G. Evans In the course of researching and writing Chicago and the Making of American Modernism: Cather, Hemingway, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald in Conflict, Michelle Moore closely read important Midwestern authors, including F. Scott Fitzgerald. She conducted a disciplined, granular…