Sunday Reading Series: Chicago Literary Hall of Fame Edition

The Chicago Literary Hall of Fame's been invited to help curate the May edition of Sunday Reading Series: Poetry, Prose, & Cocktails. Host Kenyatta Rogers will be there to lead the program, but Simone Muench has to miss this one. The program will be at the Hungry Brain on Sunday, May 17. Noa Micaela Fields, Tsehaye Geralyn Hébert, and Riva Lehrer will read--all three authors have used their disabilities as artistic explorations and also advocated for awareness and accessibility.  

Noa Micaela Fields is an echodeviant enjambment queen (translation: trans poet with hearing aids) in search of the hypervivid in her one and only captionless life. No worries, she'll write the captions herself. She is the author of E (Nightboat Books, 2026), an alterbook embracing the glitch of mishearing as a subversive technology of transformation. This spring, poems from the book are on view at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris. Born in California, she now lives in Chicago, where she curates public programs at the Poetry Foundation and edits poetry for Chrysalis, a literary magazine by and for trans youth.

Tsehaye Geralyn Hébert is a nationally acclaimed citizen playwright and cultural architect whose work nuances and centers the African American experience. Hébert’s civic engagement catalyzes the move towards and beyond ADA compliance, from idea to full inclusion and accessibility. As Community Lead, she worked with Illinois Institute of Technology (IT) students to develop innovations in accessible and inclusive theatre. Currently, her work with Artists Design the Future (ADtF) explores affordable accessible, and inclusive Work Live spaces owned and designed by artists, creatives, and entrepreneurs. With Disability Lead (ADA 25 Advancing Leadership), she sat on its Program Committee, and serves as an ambassador; as well as a current ambassador and recent member of The Cultural Collaborative (Chicago Cultural Accessibility Coalition) steering committee.  A former president of the African American Arts Alliance, she sits on the honorary board of Piven Theatre Workshop, and volunteers with local and national arts organizations. 

Riva Lehrer is an artist, writer and curator who focuses on the socially challenged body. She is best known for representations of people whose physical embodiment, sexuality, or gender identity have long been stigmatized. Riva's work has been seen in venues including the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian, Yale University, the United Nations, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC, the Arnot Museum, the DeCordova Museum, the Frye Museum, the Chicago Cultural Center, and the State of Illinois Museum. Awards include the 2017 3Arts MacDowell Fellowship for writing, 2015 3Arts Residency Fellowship at the University of Illinois; the 2014 Carnegie Mellon Fellowship at Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges; the 2009 Prairie Fellowship at the Ragdale Foundation. Her memoir, Golem Girl, was published in October 2020. Riva is on faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and instructor in the Medical Humanities Departments of Northwestern University.