Past Events

Chicago Literary Hall of Fame Fit/Lit returns for the fall and early winter, and the new session is open to all ages. After a successful inaugural session (and requests from the adults to be included) we decided to expand the program.

What It Is: A community of Chicago book lovers reading Chicago literature and plotting excursions based upon local writers and their books. The idea is to read about and see more of Chicago to deepen our appreciation of our city’s history (literary and otherwise) while reaping the health benefits of some good walks (or bike rides).

How it Works: Register for the session (it is one small fee for your entire family). Use our Discord Channel to post reactions (in writing, pictures, or video form) to what you’re reading and seeing. View and respond to the posts of others. In other words, engage with others in our community. Join us on our weekly socially distanced outings to places like the Eugene Field Memorial in the Lincoln Park Zoo or the Gwendolyn Brooks statue in Brooks Park. Let others know about your own outings and if you feel comfortable inviting group members to meet up. (We always wear masks). Then, once a week, on Sunday evening, join our Zoom session to talk about the week behind and ahead.

Where to Find Ideas: We will use the Discord Channel to post resources, like suggested reading lists, that will help you shape your self-guided reading and touring activities. The Chicago Literary Hall of Fame website is a primary source of materials on literary sites, authors, and books.

Why You Should Do It: This is a way to set goals and focus on activities that are both enrichening and entertaining. Just as some people record their steps as a way to monitor their fitness activity, we will (optionally) record our pages read and steps taken. For example, a daily goal might be 100 pages and 10,000 steps.

Signing Up: Use this Eventbrite page to register. Or else email Don Evans and he'll tell you where to send a check. Cost is $40 for the entire family. As always, the CLHOF does not want to exclude anybody because of cost: if the cost is prohibitive, or you just cannot rationalize the expense, especially during these difficult times, just send Don an email. Your fee will be waived and we will welcome you into our community. If you can afford the registration fee, know that it allows us to administer this and other similar programs.

In this Summer of Covid, we find ourselves struggling to maintain a healthy body and mind while also entertaining ourselves. Parents, especially, want to engage their children with activities outside the television screen. Our new online summer program, Chicago Fit/Lit combines physical fitness (walking or biking), reading (Chicago books) and writing (responses to literary experiences). Video narratives are also an option. The idea is, one week you read The Wizard of Oz, take a trip to Oz Park to see the statue of the Tin Man, and then tell (through writing or video) a little about what you experienced. Share what you learned. The next week you read Blue Balliett’s The Wright3, go check out The Robie House in Hyde Park (probably only from the outside), then tell us your thoughts. After that, maybe you read Marianne Malone’s The Sixty-Eight Rooms, stroll over to the Art Institute, and let us in on your experience. A library is a literary site, as is a bookstore, or even an educational institution like Englewood High School that produced writers Lorraine Hansberry, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sam Greenlee, Willard Motley, and Oscar Brown, Jr., among others.

Using our Discord channel, participants will log in and comment on activity throughout the week, leading to a Monday Zoom session in which participants share their achievements. Points will be awarded for visits to literary sites (list of options available on Discord), finished reading (book list also available on Discord), and responses (written or videotaped). The best responses will be published on the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame website, and prizes will be awarded to the most active participants. Registration for this program is $75, but scholarships are available for those in financial need. Email Founding Executive Director Don Evans; we don’t want price to inhibit young readers.

The program begins Monday, July 13 and runs five weeks until Monday, Aug. 17. The weekly check-in meetings are from 1-2 p.m. every Monday during the program. A registration fee of $75 is required; registration closes Sunday, July 12.

A staged reading of CLHOF founder Don Evans's story "Bah!" will be featured at the Nineteenth Century Club's regular Monday enrichment series. "Bah!" is one of 12 stories in his short story collection, An Off-Whte Christmas, which was just released as an audio and e-book. Kevin Theis, Savanna Rae, and Bryan Wakefield, all affilated with the Oak Park Festival Theatre, provided voice to the story on audio and will peform at the luncheon. Reservations are required for the lunch, which precedes the performance. Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, as a co-sponsoring nonprofit organization, is able to offer our audience the member rate of $20 (as compared to the non-member rate of $25) that includes social time (starting at 11:30 a.m.), lunch (noon), program (1 p.m.) and tea (2:15 p.m.). 

Reservations should be made before Dec. 10. Two options for making making reservations: 1. call the 19th Century Club directly (708.386.2729) and let them know you are taking advantage of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame's $20 membership rate, 2. email CLHOF or call (773.414.2603) and we'll add you to our list of attendees. For those who can't make the luncheon, there is a suggested program donation of $15. Books will be available for sale.

A party to show our gratitude for all the support we've received throughout the year, from volunteers, to partners, to board members, to authors and scholars. There will be food, drink, and a plenty of conversation. At the party, we'll recap our 2019 accomplishments and unveil our 2020 calendar.

Our Great Chicago Books Club on Sunday, Sept. 29, will feature Renée Rosen's Windy City Blues the author’s historical novel exploring Chicago’s legendary Chess Records.

The event will be held in a private Evanston home; we'll provide the location if you inquire or register. The first half of the evening is a cocktail party; the second half will be a discussion of Renée’s career, Windy City Blues, and her other titles, including her most recent, Park Avenue Summer.

Registration fee is $60. The money raised supports the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame's other programming, including free events like exhibits, lifetime achievement ceremonies, and youth workshops. Registration is limited to about 20 people.

Please contact Don Evans to make reservations, get the proper event address, and to arrange pickup/delivery of your book. We want to make sure you get it in time to read.

The Chicago Literary Hall of Fame will induct its newest class of three writers on Thursday, Oct. 24 at Cliff-Dwellers, this event will be held at Cliff Dwellers. Though this is a private club, the event is open to the public. Reservations are required. Cost of dinner is $35; to reserve a seat for the program only costs $10. There is a cash bar beginning at 4:30 p.m.; dinner is served at 6:15 p.m.; the ceremony starts promptly at 7:15 p.m. Reservations can also be made by phone at 312-922-8080.

The new class inclues three of our finest historical authors: Frank Marshall Davis, Sam Greenlee, and Salima Rivera. Program presenters will be announced shortly.

After seven classes of six writers, CLHOF reduced its class size to three last year, partly in order to ensure the highest standards for selection and in part to allow more detailed commentary on each writer at the ceremony. All 45 CLHOF inductees were selected after a rigorous process that relied on the expertise and passion of the finest minds in our literary community. Nominators and selectors include a range of scholars, authors, artists, and others known for their close and relentless interest in Chicago literature. This year's class will bring the total number of inductees to 48.

Sterling Plumpp will receive the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame’s Fuller Award for lifetime achievement at a ceremony on Thursday, Sept. 19 at the Poetry Foundation. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is highly recommended.

On hand to pay tribute will be a distinguished lineup of speakers and performers, including Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tyehimba Jess, Ronne Hartfield, Duriel E. Harris, Abdul Alkalimat, Reginald Gibbons, Ginger Mance, and Billy Branch. During Sterling’s long and distinguished poetry career, he has written about African American ancestry, racism, economic oppression, the blues, and a myriad of other subjects reflecting an aesthetic steeped in a dignified advocacy for social justice. Though born in Mississippi, Sterling came to Chicago in 1962, and his experiences as a student, postal worker, and draftee have informed his art. Among his many awards, Sterling has won several Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards, the American Book Award, and the Carl Sandburg Literary Award for Poetry from the Friends of the Chicago Public Library.

Publisher’s Weekly, in reviewing Johannesburg & Other Poems, said that Sterling was “a poet who looks with his ears.” Indeed, Sterling has infused jazz and blues rhythms throughout his work, and has said, “I’m directly influenced by blues performers and not record performance. You know, I spent fifty years of my life witnessing blues singers, and that’s what I’m trying to capture.”

In addition to his poetry work, Sterling has edited several anthologies, and served as editor for the Third World Press and the Institute for Positive Education. He has also served as an associate professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle since the 1970s. 

A reception will follow the ceremony. To ensure your place at the ceremony and reception, please register soon. Chicago Literary Hall of Fame only inducts historical writers into the Hall of Fame, and so the Fuller was created as a way to acknowledge our greatest living Chicago writers. Gene Wolfe (2012), Harry Mark Petrakis (2014), Haki Madhubuti (2015), Rosellen Brown (2016), Angela Jackson (2018), Stuart Dybek (2018) and Sara Paretsky (spring, 2019) have all previously been honored.

Ernest Hemingway, native of Oak Park and inaugural inductee into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, recounted in A Moveable Feast his legendary travels and acquaintances as a struggling young author in 1920s Paris. June Sawers adapted the memoir, along with excerpts from his letters, to capture the essence of Hemingway’s experience in Paris while also including elements from his Oak Park upbringing. Now I Lay Me Down: Hemingway in Paris features a colorful, historic cast of characters that our performers will wonderfully interpret in the joyous Hamburger Mary's Oak Park Show Lounge, just down the block from Hemingway's birthplace. Live period music will underscore the reading, and special drinks and appetizers suitable to the theme will be available. Registration is required; the $12 fee pays for the actors and musicians. The event is sponsored by the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, the Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park, The Phantom Collective, and Hamburger Mary's. June Sawyers is the founder of Phantom Collective, an arts group that presents staged readings and music programs in the Chicago area. Register soon to ensure your spot.

This fundraiser will feature a large assortment of used books, including a large number of collectible copies. Among the Chicago authors who've signed books for this sale: Peter Anderson, Carol Anshaw, Elizabeth Berg, Rosellen Brown, Michael Burke, Daniel Burns, Susanna Calkins, Elizabeth Crane, Albert DeGenova, Rita Dragonette, Stuart Dybek, Jonathan Eig, Donald G. Evans, Charles Finch, James Finn Garner, Robert Goldsborough, Kevin Guilfoile, Jane Hamilton, Michael Harvey, Libby Fischer Hellmann, Charles Johnson, Rick Kogan, Alex Kotlowitz, Billy Lombardo, Susan Bass Marcus, Patricia McNair, Joe Meno, Audrey Niffenegger, Achy Obejas, Sara Paretsky, Randy Richardson, Donna Seaman, Christine Sneed, Floyd Sullivan, Studs Terkel, Scott Turow   

In addition, several publishers have donated books, including Lake Claremont Press and Eckhartz Press.

All proceeds from the auction will go to fund Chicago Literary Hall of Fame programming throughout the rest of the year, including our Fuller Award for lifetime acheivement honoring Sterling Plumpp at the Poetry Foundation on Sept. 19. If you have any questions or want to donate, contact Don Evans to arrange a pickup or dropoff.

Our Great Chicago Books Club on Sunday, July 28, will feature Audrey Niffeneggers’s The Time Traveler’s Wife, the author’s debut novel and a long-standing bestseller.  The Newberry Library, which is the start of our Gold Coast Literary Tour, features prominently in the story.

The evening begins with cocktails at five p.m., followed by a sit-down dinner from 5:30-6:30 p.m. Dessert will be served during the book discussion, which begins at 6:30 p.m.  

Registration is limited to twelve for the whole program, and an additional five for discussion/dessert only. The cost for the full program is $200, which will include a paperback copy of the book. Cost for the discussion/dessert only is $50, including the book, or $40 without the book. 

All money raised at this and other Great Chicago Books Club events helps fund our (mostly free) programming throughout the year, including our annual induction ceremony and lifetime achievement ceremonies for Sara Paretsky and Sterling Plumpp.

Please contact Don Evans to make reservations, get the proper event address, and to arrange pickup/delivery of your book. We want to make sure you get it in time to read.