Travelers in the Mist: A Celebration of Poet Elise Paschen

Elise Paschen, one of Chicago's most important writers, releases her sixth poetry collection, Blood Wolf Moon, on April 10, 2025. The following night, the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame will help celebrate her new release on the occasion of the Cliff Dwellers making her an honorary member. Rachel DeWoskin, Thea Goodman and Lisa Yun Lee will be part of a reading lineup that will help illuminate Elise's contributions to our Chicago literary culture. Registration for the program only is $20; for the buffet meal plus program it is $65. Cliff Dwellers will take registration through email or phone (312-922-8080).

Elise is the author of six poetry collections, most recently, Blood Wolf Moon (2025). Her poems have been published widely, including Poetry Magazine, The New Yorker, A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, and The Best American Poetry. She has edited or co-edited numerous anthologies, such as The Eloquent Poem and The New York Times bestseller, Poetry Speaks. Dr. Paschen teaches in the MFA Writing Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.. 

Rachel is the award-winning author of five novels, Someday We Will Fly; Banshee; Blind; Big Girl Small; Repeat After Me; two poetry collections, absolute animal and Two Menus; and the memoir Foreign Babes in Beijing. Her awards include a National Jewish Book Award, a Sydney Taylor Book Award, an American Library Association Alex Award, and an Academy of American Poets Award. Foreign Babes in Beijing, Someday We Will Fly, and Banshee are being developed for film or TV, and DeWoskin’s poems and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Ploughshares, The Baffler, and New Voices from the Academy of American Poets. DeWoskin serves on the national steering committee of Writers for Democratic Action (WDA).

Thea is the author of a novel, The Sunshine When She's Gone, and a book of poems, The Invented Mother, finalist in The New Women's Voices Competition 2022. New poems are appearing soon in Allium. She has taught writing at The University of Chicago among other colleges and serves on The National Council of Graywolf Press.

Lisa Yun Lee (BA, Bryn Mawr College, PhD, Duke University) is the Executive Director of the National Public Housing Museum, a cultural activist, an Associate Professor of Public Culture and Museum Studies in the UIC School of Art & Art History, and teaching faculty with the Prison and Neighborhood Arts/Education Project at Stateville Prison.  Previously, she was Director of the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. As Director of the UIC School of Art & Art History from 2010-2017, she helped to found the Museum and Exhibition Studies Program that is committed to social justice Lisa served on both Mayor Brandon Johnson and Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Arts & Culture Transition Teams, and on Mayor Lightfoot’s Commission for Monuments, Memorials, and Historical Reckoning. She was recently reappointed by Governor Pritzker to the Board of the Illinois State Museum, and serves on the Boards of 3Arts, and the Field Foundation.