Past Events

Artist Mary Livoni's short film, The Apprentice, is based on Stuart Dybek's short story by the same name. The atmospheric, vibrantly shot film tells the story of a boy and his uncle. It is the final story in Dybek's 1979 collection, Childhood and Other Neighborhoods. According to a Kirkus Review critique published around the time of the collection's publication date, "all of Dybek's range and flair works together in the final story, 'The Apprentice,' in which a truant boy courses through the city in the constant company of his crazy, ex-taxidermist uncle; together they collect dead-on-the-road animals destined for an imaginary restaurant the uncle claims to supply and which caters to displaced-person gourmets--a metaphor the boy doesn't appreciate for a while (and neither do we, right off). The uncle is full, in fact, of metaphors, lovely and outsized ones; and the story's climax reaches a literal (bridge-climbing) height and arc, as well as a symbolic one, that's absolutely superb." Livoni captures the intensity and drama of that childhood time and through masterful cinematography takes us to the top of that bridge. Dybek, a Fuller Award honoree, and Livoni, a former CLHOF board member, will participate in a discussion after the screening. Open to the public. Registration to open soon. 

On September 24, Alex Kotlowitz became the 17th recipient of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame’s Fuller Award for his lifetime achievements. Ben Austen led a speaking lineup that included Stuart Dybek, Julie Justicz, Meribah Knight, Mary Rowland and Ricardo “Cobe” Williams. The Chopin Theatre ceremony highlighted Kotlowitz’s lasting importance as one of our greatest storytellers. At the end of the program, Dawn Turner led a conversation with Alex. Along with the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame and Chopin Theatre, co-presenters for the evening included American Writers Museum, Bookends & Beginnings, David Black Literary Agency, Frame Warehouse, MacArthur’s Restaurant, Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, and Write On, Door County.

As a Manhattan native, Alex Kotlowitz’s career in journalism sent him around the country. He took a reporting position for The Wall Street Journal, which sent him to Chicago, and it wasn’t long before Kotlowitz fell in love with the city. For forty years, Kotlowitz has been telling deeply intimate tales of struggle and perseverance. He is the author of four books, including his most recent, An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago (2019), which received the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize. His other books include the Chicago-based Never a City So Real (2004) and the national bestseller There Are No Children Here (1991), which the New York Public Library selected as one of the 150 most important books of the twentieth century. It was selected by The New York Times as a Notable Book of the Year along with his second book, The Other Side of the River (1998) which also received The Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize for Nonfiction. 

A former staff writer at The Wall Street Journal, Kotlowitz’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and This American Life. His stories have been featured in Granta, Rolling Stone, The Chicago Tribune, Slate, and The Washington Post, as well as on PBS and NPR’s All Things Considered and Morning Edition. His play, An Unobstructed View, written with Amy Drozdowska, premiered in Chicago in June 2005.

Kotlowitz has also produced a significant body of film and radio work. His documentary, The Interrupters (2011), a collaboration with Steve James, was cited as one of the best films of the year by The New Yorker, The Chicago Tribune, Entertainment Weekly, and The LA Times. He received an Emmy, a Cinema Eye Award, and an Independent Spirit Award for the film. 

Kotlowitz has been honored in all three mediums, including two Peabodys, two Columbia duPonts, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and the George Polk Award. He’s the recipient of eight honorary degrees, the John LaFarge Memorial Award for Interracial Justice given by New York’s Catholic Interracial Council, the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters, one of Chicago Magazine’s 2019 Chicagoans of the Year, and the 2019 Harold Washington Literary Award. 

Alex is currently a professor at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, where he’s been teaching since 1999. He’s been a writer-in-residence at the University of Chicago, a visiting professor for seven years at the University of Notre Dame, a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College, and a Distinguished Visitor at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. 

Printers Row Lit Fest returns for its 39th year. Chicago Literary Hall of Fame will once again host a tent with partners After Hours, Chicago Poetry Center, Chicago Quarterly Review, Contratiempo, Guild Literary Complex, Rhino, and Stories Matter Foundation. The Chicago Literary Hall of Fame will host an open mic for young writers at some point during the weekend. Details will be published here later in the spring. 

As part of the Printers Row Lit Fest's action-packed schedule, the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame will host an open mic reading for young writers. Poets Billy Tuggle and Marty McConnell will emcee the open mic, which is open to all high school-aged students. Billy is a South Side Chicago native; a writer, vocalist, performance poet and event producer; a mentor, an activist and HipHop culturalist; recorded, published, a poetry slam champion. Marty is a seven-time National Poetry Slam Team member, the 2012 winner of the National Underground Poetry Individual Competition, and the author of two prize-winning poetry collections and a nonfiction book about community-based workshops. 

All interested readers need simply to email Don Evans to reserve a place in the lineup. The Randall Albers Young Writers Awards enters its third year, and will begin taking submissions in the late fall. 

On July 11, Patricia Smith received the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame's Fuller Award for her lifetime achievements. The ceremony, co-presented with our host the Poetry Foundation, as well as American Writers Museum, Shipman Agency, Inc., Chicago Poetry Center, Guild Literary Complex, Third World Press, and Lee & Low Books was free and open to the public. Chicago Poet Laureate avery r. young presided over a lineup that included Nora Brooks Blakely, Reginald Gibbons, Poetry Out Loud National Champion Niveah Glover, Adrian Matejka, Marc Smith, and Jamila Woods. Lynne Thompson led a conversation with Smith at the end of the program. We expect a full audience, so register now. 

Smith, a product of Chicago's West Side, has distinguished herself as a poet, spoken-word performer, author, and teacher. For more than three decades, Smith's prolific and varied output has placed her amongst the nation's finest poets. Between 1990 and 1993, Smith won three National Poetry Slam individual championships, with a second-place finish in 1992; she captured a fourth title in 1995. During that time, Smith published her first three poetry collections: Life According to Motown (1991), Big Towns, Big Talk (1992), and Close to Death (1993). Smith's writing stood up on the page; when merged with charismatic, powerful performance skills, it made her a legend in the nascent slam community. Her introduction and initiation to the scene were all in Chicago, especially The Green Mill, where the first two national championships were held. Nobel Prize winner Derek Walcott produced a selection of Smith's poetry as a one-woman play which was performed at Boston University and the Trinidad Theater Workshop.

To date, Smith has authored nine poetry books. her latest publications include, Unshuttered (Feb 2023); Incendiary Art (2017), winner of the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the 2017 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the 2018 NAACP Image Award, and finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize; Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah (2012), winner of the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets; Blood Dazzler (2008), a National Book Award finalist; and Gotta Go, Gotta Flow, a collaboration with award-winning Chicago photographer Michael Abramson. Much of her work draws inspiration from urban life, especially Gotta Go Gotta Flow: Life, Love, and Lust on Chicago's South Side (2015).

Her other books include Teahouse of the Almighty (2006), the children's book Janna and the Kings (2003), and the history of Africans in America (1998), a companion book to the award-winning PBS series. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, The Baffler, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Tin House and in Best American poetry, Best American Essays and Best American Mystery Stories. She co-edited The Golden Shovel Anthology–New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks (2017) and edited the crime fiction anthology Staten Island Noir (2012).

Smith is the 2021 recipient of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Poetry Foundation, and a 2022 inductee of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.  She is a professor of creative writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University; a former distinguished professor for the City University of New York; and a faculty member at the Vermont College of Fine Arts Post-Graduate Residency Program. Smith is a Guggenheim fellow, a Civitellian, a National Endowment for the Arts grant recipient, a finalist for the Neustadt Prize, a two-time winner of the Pushcart Prize, and a former fellow at both Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. 

At the second American Writers Festival on Sunday, May 19, Jane Hseu led a discussion with authors Ugochi Nwaogwugwu, Nestor Gomez, and Lani T. Montreal. These artists came to Chicago from Guatemala, Nigeria, and the Philippines. Each has explored the immigration experience in a variety of ways, including spoken work, memoir, poetry, and plays. The panel shared ideas about the importance of telling their stories, and the impact form has on their power.  

The second American Writers Festival, presented by the American Writers Museum and the Chicago Public Library, featured "a number of leading contemporary authors, poets, artists, and playwrights." This free literary festival ran all day on Sunday, May 19, and included panels, discussions, readings, and signings across multiple stages. 

Nestor "the Boss" Gomez traveled from Guatemala to Chicago with his family in the mid 80's. He was 15 years old, stutter, didn't know the English language and was undocumented. he didn't have a voice. Today, he is an American citizen, speaks English with a sexy latinx accent and has become a storyteller. He has won the Moth slam more than 80 times. He is also the creator of 80 Minutes Around the World, a storytelling show that features the stories of immigrants, refugees, their descendants and allies, 

Jane Hsue is Professor of English at Dominican University. She specializes in teaching/ researching Asian American and Latinx literatures and writing creative nonfiction. In addition to academic essays, she has published personal essays on funky Chinese American names, growing up in her mother’s Shiseido cosmetics store, and mental health, literature, and community. Jane enjoys being in creative community, especially being an organizer for Banyan: Asian American Writers Collective and telling stories in Ada Cheng’s storytelling productions. She is currently working on a memoir about how her journey with mental health necessitates coming to terms with a family history of mental illness.  

Lani T. Montreal writes to create her home in the diaspora. She is a queer feminist Filipina writer/educator/performer/activist based in Chicago. Her poems and essays have been anthologized in journals and books, and her plays, produced in the Philippines, Canada, and the U.S. She is CIRCA Pintig's resident playwright and a Chicago Dramatist Network Playwright. She is a two-time recipient of 3Arts Residency Awards, a 2017 VONA Writers of Color Workshop alumni, a 2017 Free Street Theatre Resident Artist, and a 2024 Links Hall Co-MISSION Fellow. She teaches writing at Malcolm X College.

Ugochi Nwaogwugwu is a multidisciplinary creative. Her poems have been published in “Storm Between Two Fingers” & "Too Young, Too Loud, Too Different," both international anthologies released in the UK. “Golden Shovel Anthology,” honoring Gwendolyn Brooks, “The Eternal Year of African People,” and “Wherever I’m At” released nationwide. “Not My President” published by Third World Press in 2017. Her first book of poetry & prose entitled “Seasons of Separation,” in 2023. Ugochi also created an original pan African poetry form called, “Ike,” (pronounced EE-kay) #Ikepoem, paying homage to her Igbo heritage of Nigeria and fostering black appreciation worldwide.  

The Randall Albers Young Writers Award was back for its second year. On Saturday, May 11, we presented awards to young writers of both prose and poetry and listened as they read aloud from their work. We were joined by families, friends, teachers, and a host of notable Chicago writers. It was a touching and entertaining way to welcome our new generation of great Chicago writers. In addition to the awards ceremony, we showcased other young voices, many who’d won honorable mention certificates, in a post-ceremony open mic.

Poetry, 1^st through 4^th Place:

• 1^st Place: Liam Benham, “The Herring Net – Winslow Homer”
• 2^nd Place: Morgan Montoya, “What They Won’t Tell You in the Dictionary”
• 3^rd Place: Fiona Jin, “Hauntings”
• 4^th Place: Gabe Cadichon, “Nantucket”

Poetry, Honorable Mentions (in no particular order):

• Mila Ponce, “Waning Infancy”
• Hannah Smith, “Love, Hannah”
• Lillian O’Callaghan, “Mississippi River Leeches”
• Ananya Ramji, “Kindergarten”
• Maia Pereyra, “A Different Grape”
• Ashish Prince, “Echoes of Change”

Prose, 1^st through 4^th Place:

• 1^st Place: Hazel Brown, “Harboring”
• 2^nd Place: Charlotte Hensley, “Inviolable”
• 3^rd Place: Rainey Reese, “On Innocence and Black Youth”
• 4^th Place: Reghan Barnard, “Dogeye”

Prose, Honorable Mentions (in no particular order):

• Mateo Burgos, “Halo Rich”
• Dylan McGee, “What Blooms/Flurryheads”
• Izzy Thurman, “The Art of Insanity”
• Luke Montzka, “Concert Hall”
• Eva Rodriguez, “Nothing Ever Lasts Forever: The Mean Lady Who Called Me A Dog”
• Estelle Wong, “The Face Thief”

To Support the Randall Albers Young Writers Award

Please consider supporting Chicago’s young writers by making a tax-deductible donation here, or by sending a check to: Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, 4043 N. Ravenswood Ave., #222, Chicago, IL 60613. (Please note your preference to designate your donation to the Randall Albers Young Writers Award.)

2024 Randall Albers Young Writers Award Ceremony