Shards of Me and My…Monologues and Poems
January 21–January 25, 2026
Kimball Arts Center
1757 Kimball Avenue
Chicago, IL 60647
Lengendary poet and poetry ambassador, Marc Kelly Smith, will workshop a production of his one-man show in late January at the Kimball Arts Center. Marc wrote and will perform the poems and monologues that comprise the show; Kevin Coval directs and Mark Eleveld produces. Tickets for the five shows are a suggested donation of $20 each. For… read more
Great Chicago Books Club: Tony Fitzpatrick’s The Sun at the End of the Road: Dispatches from an American Life
Friday, February 6, 2026
7 p.m.
Zoom
Tony Fitzpatrick published his essay collection, The Sun at the End of the Road, just weeks before his death. Tony was celebrated as a visual artist, radio personality, boxer, and actor, but too often his accomplishments as a writer were overlooked. He was a fantastic writer--this last book is proof of that. It's a kind of memoir told in a… read more
Winesburg, Ohio (New Edition) Release
Saturday, February 14, 2026
7 p.m.
Tangible Books, 3326 S Halsted Street, Chicago, IL 60608
Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, originally published in 1919, is widely considered one of the quintessential story collections of the past century-plus. Now that it is in the public domain, Maudlin House is putting out a new edition, with a Kevin Maloney introduction and Dmitry Samarov illustrations (including the cover). Dmitry is a… read more
The Song of the Lush: CLHOF’s Annual Cocktail Party Fundraiser
Saturday, February 28, 2026
7 p.m.
Colvin House
5940 N. Sheridan Road
Chicago, IL 60660
The theme of this year's cocktail fundraiser is a play on Willa Cather's great 1915 novel, The Song of the Lark, a title which is taken from Jules Breton's 1884 painting. In the novel, Thea Kronberg, a voice artist prodigy, has moved to Chicago to further her training as an opera singer; once there, she finds inspiration in the Art… read more
Great Chicago Books Club: Grady Chambers’s Great Disasters
Friday, March 27, 2026
7 p.m.
Private Residence
Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, IL (Streeterville)
Grady Chambers's debut novel, Great Disasters, is a deeply introspective novel in which the narrator reflects back on his adolescence as a way to figure out how his life evolved. The story centers around a tight-knit group of private high school friends, living in the Chicago Gold Coast neighborhood. "What happened to make us all what we are?"… read more
Randall Albers Young Writers Awards: 2026 Recognition Ceremony
Saturday, April 18, 2026
1:30 p.m.
Harold Washington Library Center
Reception Hall
400 S. State Street
Chicago, IL 60605
The fourth annual RAYWA recogntion ceremony will bring together this year's prize winners. Each of the eight prize-placing authors (four in prose and four in poetry) will read their winning entries before receiving their plaques, certificates, and checks. Final judges Timothy David Rey and Megan Stielstra will be on hand to present the honors.… read more
Sunday Salon: Chicago Literary Hall of Fame Edition
Sunday, May 17, 2026
7 p.m.
Hungry Brain
2319 W. Belmont Avenue
Chicago, IL 60618
The Chicago Literary Hall of Fame's been invited to help curate the May edition of Sunday Reading Series: Poetry, Prose, & Cocktails. Host Kenyattta Rogers will be there to lead the program, but Simone Muench has to miss this one. The program will be at the Hungry Brain on Sunday, May 17. Details about readers will be posted… read more
Downtown Chicago Literary Walking Tour
Wednesday, May 20, 2026
2-5 p.m.
Palmer House
17 E. Monroe Street
Chicago, IL 60603
This literary walking tour of Chicago's downtown neighborhood begins and ends at the historic Palmer House, where many important writers, including Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, and L. Frank Baum, have stayed. We'll stop at public institutions which have factored into the lives and work of important local authors: the Chicago Cultural… read more
Fuller Award: Ed Roberson
Thursday, June 18, 2026
6 p.m.
The Poetry Foundation
61 W. Superior Street
Chicago, IL 60654
Poet Ed Roberson will receive the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame's Fuller Award for his lifetime achievements as a writer. He will be the 19th Chicago author given the CLHOF's highest honor, at a ceremony at and in partnership with the Poetry Foundation. Speakers, including Chicago Poet Laureate avery r. young, will give context to… read more
Far South Side Literary Bus Tour
Saturday, July 11, 2026
10 a.m.-3 p.m.
Chicago goes south all the way to 138th Street, where the Riverdale and Hegewisch neighborhoods bump up against suburban Dolton and Calumet City. Keep going past Hyde Park and you'll find a lot of literary history, and life. In the Pullman neighborood, Philip Randolph wrote influential essays on labor and social justice. The steel mills and dump sites, along with the immigrant experience, are reflected in East Sider Hugo Martinez-Serros's short stories. Tony Fitzpatrick's Bum Town starts on the East Side and covers other far South Side neighborhoods. Frank London Brown's masterpiece Trumbull Park dramatizes the racial redlining in the South Deering neighborhood. John Powers used his upbringing in the Mt. Greenwood neighborhood as the raw material for his Catholic trilogy, which included Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up? Gwendolyn Brooks wrote about the far South Side, in "Beverly Hills, Chicago" and other poems. Eric Charles May uses his childhood neighborhood of Morgan Park as the basis for the fictional Parkland neighborhood in his acclaimed novel, Bedrock Faith. The poet Nate Marshall's seminar Chicago poetry collection, Wild Hundreds, uses the Roseland neighborhood he knows so well. South Shore authors included Carlo Rotella, Garbriel Bump, and James T. Farrell. Nelson Algren's first Chicago home was in the Park Manor neighborhood.
We'll begin and end the tour at Third World Press, Chicago's longest-running Black publisher, which resides in the Grand Crossing neighborhood.
The registration fee of $75 includes beverages and snacks on the bus. We'll stop somewhere for lunch. Bus capacity is 55, and we expect the seats to be sold out quickly. Registration is now open.
Induction Ceremony 2026
Saturday, August 1, 2026
2 p.m.
Woodson Regional Library
9525 S. Halsted Street
Chicago, IL 60628
The new Chicago Literary Hall of Fame class of Eleanor Taylor Bland, Stanley Elkin, and Ronald L. Fair will gain induction on Saturday, August 1 at Woodson Regional Library. Bland [Dec. 31, 1944-June 2, 2010] wrote 16 police procedural novels featuring suburban detective Marti MacAlistor. The series began with 1992’s Dead Time and concluded… read more
Great Chicago Books Club: Elizabeth Marino’s Asylum
Thursday, August 27, 2026
6:30 p.m.
18th Street Casa de Cultura
2057 W. 18th Street
Chicago, IL 60608
Elizabeth Marino is a Chicago poet, performer. and educator. Her book Asylum (Vagabond, 2020) is a hybrid poetry/memoir collection. The Pushcart Prize nominee's previous work includes chapbooks Debris (Puddin'head Press) and Ceremonies (dancing girl press), as well as more than 20 print anthology contributions. Chuck… read more
Great Chicago Books Club: Caroline Macon Fleischer’s A Play About a Curse
Saturday, October 3, 2026
7 p.m.
Private Residence
St. Michael's Lofts Building
Chicago, IL (Old Town Neighborhood)
Author and theatre artist Caro Macon Fleischer's genre-bending novel, A Play About a Curse, is, at heart, a literary horror novel. The heroine, after all, propels us into action with a curse on her drama-school mentor. But the story is framed like a three-act play, complete with blocking and stage directions, all performed in the midst of… read more
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