Events

Fenton Johnson Induction Ceremony at Poetry Foundation, Sept. 14

Thursday, September 14, 2017
7 P.M.

The Poetry Foundation

61 W. Superior St.

Chicago, IL 60654

Margaret Ayer Barnes to Gain Induction to CLHOF

Thursday, October 5, 2017
7 to 8:15 p.m.

Volumes Bookcafé
1474 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Chicago, IL 60622

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.

Thanks to a generous grant from Illinois Humanities, the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame is in the process of building a new website, with an expansive literary map as its centerpiece.

The new…  read more

The Great Chicago Books Club relaunches and for our first novel of 2017 we’re going to read Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent, his debut novel about assistant prosecuting attorney Rusty Sabich’s murder defense. The New…  read more