Events

Back of the Yards

Saturday, February 23, 2019
10-11:30 a.m.

The Newberry Library
Ruggles Hall
60 West Walton Street
Chicago, IL 60610

Great Chicago Books Club: Rosellen Brown

Sunday, March 10, 2019
5-7:30 p.m.

Hyde Park

Chicago, IL
Private Home

Chicago By The Book: The Federal Writers Project’s Illinois Unit

Thursday, April 25, 2019
6-8 p.m.

City Lit Books
2523 N. Kedzie Blvd.
Chicago, IL 60647

Chicago’s Black Literary Renaissance Bus Tour

Saturday, May 4, 2019
10 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

Kenwood United Church of Christ
(across from Brooks Park and Gwendolyn Brooks statue)
4600-08 S. Greenwood Ave.
Chicago, IL 60653

Bus will load and unload here.

Great Chicago Books Club: Jane Hamilton

Sunday, May 5, 2019
5:30-7 p.m.

Oak Park, Il
Private Home

TBA

Oak Park Literary Walking Tour

Sunday, May 5, 2019
1:00 to 3:00 pm

Meet at the Oak Park-River Forest High School, 201 Scoville Avenue.

End: Hemingway's Birthplace, 339 North Oak Park Avenue.

Chicago’s Gold Coast Literary Walking Tour

Thursday, May 9, 2019
1:30-3:30 p.m.

Meet: Bughouse Square (across from Newberry Library)

End: Newberry Library, 60 West Walton Street

Fuller Award: Sara Paretsky

Thursday, May 9, 2019
5-7 p.m.

Newberry Library (Free Tickets Required)

60 W. Walton Street
Chicago, IL 60610

Downtown Chicago Literary Tour

Saturday, May 11, 2019
10 a.m. to Noon

Chicago Cultural Center
78 E. Washington St.
Chicago, IL 60602

Printers Row Lit Fest

Saturday, June 8 and Sunday, June 9, 2019
9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Printers Row
620 S. Dearborn
(between Congress and Polk)
Chicago, IL

Downtown Chicago Literary Tour II

Saturday, June 15, 2019
10 a.m.-Noon

Chicago Cultural Center

78 E. Washington Street

Chicago, IL 60602

Bughouse Square Debates

Saturday, July 27, 2019
12-4 p.m.

Washington Square Park
901 N. Clark Street
Chicago, IL

Great Chicago Books Club: Audrey Niffenegger

Sunday, July 28, 2019
5-7:30 p.m.

Chicago, IL
Private Home

TBA

Chicago Journalists Bus Tour

Saturday, August 10, 2019
10 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

Tribune Tower
435 N. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL 60611

Great Chicago Book Sale

Saturday, August 17, 2019
10 a.m.-3 p.m.

Euclid Avenue United Methodist Church

405 S. Euclid Ave.

Oak Park, IL 60302

Great Chicago Books Club: Nate Marshall

Saturday, August 24, 2019
6-8:30 p.m.

Private Home
Chicago
TBA

Fuller Award: Sterling Plumpp

Thursday, September 19, 2019
7-9 p.m.

Poetry Foundation
61 W. Superior Street
Chicago, IL

Detecting Chicago: Exhibit Opening

Saturday, September 28 through Saturday, November 23
6-9 p.m.

Centuries & Sleuths Bookstore
7419 Madison Street
Forest Park, IL 60130

Great Chicago Books Club: Rene Rosen

Sunday, September 29, 2019
5-7:30 p.m.

Private Home

TBA

2019 Chicago Literary Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony

Thursday, October 24, 2019
6-9 p.m.

Cliff Dwellers
200 S. Michigan Ave.
Penthouse (22nd Floor)
Chicago, IL 60604

Great Chicago Books Club: James McManus

Saturday, November 16, 2019
6:30-9 p.m.

Evanston, IL
Private Home

TBA

The Chicago Literary Hall of Fame has been selected as a finalist for the Oak Park - River Forest Chamber of Commerce Spotlight Award in the Community Character category. The winners will be announced at the OPRF Chamber of Commerce's annual Spotlight Awards ceremony, October 9, 5:00pm at the historic Nineteenth Century Club on Forest Ave., just north of Lake Street in Oak Park. For more information about the event, click here.

The OPRF Chamber of Commerce describes the awards on their website:

“The 3rd Annual Business Spotlight Awards recognizes and celebrates businesses and community organizations across six categories of leadership. The program is open to all businesses in the Oak Park, River Forest and surrounding communities.

Community Character

This is a business or organization reflective of our community - unique, creative, smart, one-of-a-kind, supportive, fun, successful. The kind that epitomizes the spirit of who we are.”

Representatives of the CLHOF will attend the October 9 event.

“The Chicago Literary Hall of Fame is honored to be named a finalist for an Oak Park - River Forest Chamber of Commerce Spotlight Award,” said Donald G. Evans, Founding Executive Director of the CLHOF. “We work hard to celebrate and preserve Chicago's great literary heritage through our events, website, literary tours, and outreach programs such as sponsoring Margot McMahon's Gwendolyn Brooks sculpture in Brooks Park, and the “From the Porch” poetry workshops for children, inspired by that sculpture.”

Chicago, June 20, 2018 – The Chicago Literary Hall of Fame (CLHOF) has been awarded a Chicago Community Trust (CCT) Acting Up grant to help fund its proposed “From the Porch of Gwendolyn Brooks” program.…  read more

The Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, in partnership with sculptor Margot McMahon, Chicago Park District, the Poetry Foundation, and Brooks Permissions, celebrated the landmark installation in read more

The Illinois Arts Council Agency (IACA) has awarded the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame a grant of $1,000 from Federal funds for general operating support. The Illinois Arts Council Agency is a government…  read more

Fundraising Initiative to Sustain CLHOF's Work

The Chicago Literary Hall of Fame has very little money; it’s been this way for eight years. We’ve never received major support, in terms of grants or endowments or big donors. We scrimp and scheme and scrounge. Despite this, we’ve inducted (or are in the process of doing so) 42 CLHOF writers in beautiful, memorable ceremonies that included many living descendants of the inductees, as well as world class presenters that ranged from biographers to star authors to theatre groups to renown actors to gifted singers. We’ve presented four Fuller Awards for lifetime achievements. We’ve administered multiple youth literary contests. We’ve participated in major festivals, from Printer’s Row Lit Fest to AWP’s annual conference to the Carl Sandburg Festival to the Chicago Book Expo to the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature’s annual symposium. We’ve put on programming at bookstores and libraries and art galleries and bars and private clubs. We’ve run a monthly book club featuring Chicago’s greatest books. And so much more.

How we’ve done this all with so little money, I don’t know. But it sure cannot go on.

We need your help.

As the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame enters another full season of programming (see our events calendar), we need funding: to support these events, solidify our administrative capabilities, and build toward a bright future as the primary source of Chicago literature.

Here’s what we’re asking:

Give a minimum of $10—more would be better, sure, but participation is important and ten dollars is nothing to sneeze at. Some donors have set up repeat payments, either monthly or yearly, and that is ideal for us. You can do this by using the Donate button on our website, or sending a check to:

Chicago Literary Hall of Fame
641 W. Lake Street, Suite #200
Chicago, IL 60661

The second part is, SAY SOMETHING NICE ABOUT US. Write a very short blurb along with your donation—25 to 50 words. Send that to Founding Executive Director Donald G. Evans.

We will publish the blurbs and blurbers, though, in the name of discretion, not the dollar amounts. A thousand and one is a big number. Ben Hecht, who set out to write a column a day for 1001 days, only made it a little more than halfway to his goal. We want to get all the way to our goal, at which point we’ll be in great shape to keep doing what we’ve been doing, plus build toward an expanded database of Chicago literature and, eventually, our own home. 

Thanks in advance: we need and appreciate whatever you can offer.