Past Events

Fuller Award: Luis Alberto Urrea

Thursday, October 28, 2021
6-7:30 p.m.

National Museum of Mexican Art
1852 W. 19th Street
Chicago, IL 60608

Anyone can join us virtually by clicking here at the time of the event.

Luis Alberto Urrea became the 11th Chicago author to receive the prestigious Fuller Award for his lifetime achievements as an author, teacher, and activist. The event was free and open to the public, with live attendance at the National Museum of Mexican Art and livestreamed. Live audience was limited to 150 fully vaccinated, masked people; proof…

Fuller Award: Reginald Gibbons

Thursday, September 30, 2021
6-7:30 p.m.

Via Zoom

from

Newberry Library
60 W. Walton Street
Chicago, IL 60610

Reginald Gibbons’s prolific writing career has included publication of ten full-length poetry collections; a short story collection and a novel; numerous essays, reviews, columns, and translations; and as editor a myriad of anthologies. His work is widely anthologized and has earned Gibbons many prestigious literary honors, including the…

Induction Ceremony 2021

Sunday, September 19, 2021
7-8:30 p.m.

City Lit Theater
1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave.
Chicago, IL 60660

In this, our 11th season, and after a year-long posponement due to the health pandemic, the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame will induct a new class on Sunday, Sept. 19, 2021 at City Lit Theater. Frank London Brown, Jeannette Howard Foster, and Carlos Cortez represent the 2019 class, along with Gene Wolfe, who, as a former Fuller Award honoree, gained…

Printers Row Lit Fest 2021

Saturday, Sept. 11 and Sunday, Sept. 12, 2021
10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Tent J
Between Federal Street and Plymouth Court, just a little south of Harrison Street

Printers Row Lit Fest is back after a year’s hiatus due to the pandemic. This all-weekend festival draws authors, booksellers, and other literary people from across the country. CLHOF for the first time has a tent. Our partners under the tent are After Hours, Rhino, Chicago Poetry Center, Chicago Quarterly Review, Stories Matter…

Nighthawks

Sunday, August 1, 2021
6 p.m.

Oak Park Brewing Company
155 S. Oak Park Ave.
Oak Park, IL 60302

Edward Hopper’s painting Nighthawks, which hangs in the Art Institute, has been the subject of much literary exploration. Stuart Dybek and Joyce Carol Oates are among the authors who’ve used the painting in their own fictional explorations. Hopper himself was inspired, according to some reliable accounts, to create the masterpiece after…

Chicago Voices: Summer Fiction Workshop

Thursday, June 24 to Thursday, July 22
4-5 p.m. CST

Via Zoom
Registration Required

Jerakah Greene, recent recipient of the Pen America 2021 Emerging Voices Fellowships, will lead this summer's Chicago Literary Hall of Fame virtual creative writing workshop for high school students. "Chicago Voices" is free, but registration is required. Throughout this one-month workshop, high school-aged students from across…

“The Lookout”

Saturday, June 12, 2021
7 p.m. CDT

via Zoom

Cyrus Colter’s 1970 short story “The Lookout,” in which aspiring socialite Mildred stalks a Woodlawn street to witness the goings on at a party to which she was not invited, was dramatized in a special theatrical reading. Mardra Thomas directed and starred in a staged reading of Sandra Seaton’s adaptation. Eric May…

Summer (2021) Fit/Lit

Friday, June 4 through Saturday, September 4
Evenings and Weekends, Mostly

Discord Channel Link
Registration is free and open to the public; donations to help fund the program are welcome.

Chicago Literary Hall of Fame Fit/Lit returns for the summer, and the new session is open to all ages. 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…

Inside for Indies: Live on Independent Bookstore Day

Saturday, April 24, 2021
7 p.m.

via Zoom

Independent Bookstore Day, a national celebration that usually features scavenger hunts, giveaways, frosted goodies, and so forth and so on, will, like everything else, be subdued in 2021 because of the corona virus. Although many stores are open, there are severe limits on the number of people that can gather safely, and hours of operation.…

Chicago (Baseball) Classics

Thursday, April 1, 2021
7-8 p.m.

Zoom
Free and Open to the Public
Advanced Registration Required

Our themed series of Chicago Classics continues, with a proper celebration of the start (hopefully) of a new baseball season. Our beloved baseball teams have inspired a whole canon of great literature, from memoirs to short stories to detective novels to plays like Bleacher Bums. An all-star lineup of readers will share some of their favorite…