Edward Gorey fans abound in Chicago, the author's hometown, and yet Elegant Enigmas: The Art of Edward Gorey at the Loyola University Museum of Art (from February 15-June 15, 2014) is the first exhibition dedicated to his work. Over 170 of Gorey's collected works (on loan from the author's charitable trust) are on display, including "original pen-and-ink illustrations, preparatory sketches, unpublished drawings, sketchbooks, illustrated envelopes, book-cover ideas, theatrical costume designs, and ephemera."
Goreyesque, the online literary journal that features contemporary work inspired by Gorey, celebrates this "homecoming" with a reading at LUMA on April 29, 2014 at 6pm. Created by Kenneth Gerleve, Todd Summar, and Sam Weller, in collaboration with editors Howard Simmons, Jess Millman, and Corey Klinzing, and co-sponsored by Columbia College Chicago's Department of Creative Writing and Loyola University Chicago, the journal seeks to highlight the author's "cross-disciplinary influence." With two issues under their belts, they are putting together an event that will feature local authors, and Goreyesque alums, Joe Meno and Adam McOmber.
You can help round out this roster by submitting your Gorey-inspired writing and artwork to goreysubmissions@gmail.com. To be considered for participation in the reading event on April 29th, you must submit your work by April 4, as well as be in Chicago on the night of the event. Poems, essays, short stories, photographs, and illustrations will all be considered. Click here for more info. Please note that the literary journal accepts Gorey-inspired submissions on an ongoing basis for future publication, so feel free to mine your macabre side even as the seasons (attempt to) change.
— Danette Chavez
In The Bright Continent: Breaking Rules and Making Change in Modern Africa, Nigerian-American journalist Dayo Olopade trains her sights on "the gap between foreign perception and African reality." In the Western media, Africa often exists primarily as an "underdeveloped" destination for foreign aid, with little attention paid to the ways in which Africans are already shaping their countries. From a temporary home base of Nairobi, Olopade spent time observing everyone from modest urban farmers to Ushahidi, a Kenya-founded company that develops web tools for communities to map things like incidents of violence or election fraud. Indeed, The Bright Continent frames what she learned in terms of various "maps"--the different kinds of networks that give modern African ingenuity its character and context.
On Thursday, April 3, at 6pm, Olopade will visit the Harold Washington Library Center, 400 S. State, to discuss what the rest of the world might be able to learn from these novel methods of progress. Admission's free, and books will be available for signing afterward.
— Daphne Sidor
Tonight! Free Street Theatre presents an open mic for poetry, lit, music, anything! Doors open at 5 pm.
Tonight! Author Jenny Bowen discusses her new book, Wish You Happy Forever at The Book Cellar, 7 pm.
Saturday! the Nelson Algren Committee celebrates the author's birthday with readings, discussions, and multimedia homage. The event is $10 and starts at 8 pm at the Bloomingdale Arts Building. Merry Birthversary, Nelson!
Sunday! Peggy Shinner discusses her book, You Feel So Mortal: Essays on the Body at Women & Children First, 4:30 pm.
Sunday! Stop by Black Rock Pub for reading series "Sunday Salon," featuring seasoned writers Janice Deal, Gina Frangello, Alan Grostephan, and Kelly O'Connor McNees. 7 pm, free!
— Miden Wood
Author Fri Mar 28 2014
We may not be able to import West Coast temperatures, but we can certainly "borrow" some of their talent. LA writer Amelia Gray visits Cole's Bar, 2338 N. Milwaukee Ave., this Sunday and joins some great local authors for a night of readings. Gray is the author of the story collections AM/PM (featherproof) and The Museum of the Weird (FC2), which won the Ronald Sukenick/American Book Review Innovative Fiction Prize. Her first novel, Threats (FSG Originals), was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner award.
Lindsay Hunter (Don't Kiss Me) hosts the event and describes Gray as "brilliant and insane. She's mesmerizing. She's fashionable and a huge nerd. She's a bona fide literary celebrity who'll flick her eyes at a new zit you're cultivating in the same way your own mother would, then offer you the perfect salicylic-acid soaked organic face-moisturizing cloth. No one writes like she does. She knows the right word for everything you could imagine. I've selected local writers who I think have a prayer of keeping up with her--the surreal and crazy charming Beau Golwitzer and the hilarious, surprisingly-soulful-at-times, great-haired Mason Johnson. And me, the Midwestern-by-way-of-Florida mom-writer who can't wait for Sunday. It's going to be a very fun reading, Chicago."
The event is free and starts at 6pm. 21+.
— Danette Chavez
Events Tue Mar 25 2014
Spring hasn't sprung so much as limped into action, which means we're all still dealing with cabin fever. Get out of the house and get inspired this Thursday at StoryStudio Chicago's Open House & Free Class from 6pm-8pm at the Chicago Studio at 4043 North Ravenswood, Suite #222.
Join StoryStudio Chicago staff and prospective students for refreshments and conversation, and then stay for True or False, a free class that will have you experimenting with fiction and nonfiction. You can check out the studio and classrooms and, most importantly, the spring course catalog.
Unsure of what class to take? There's a handy "questionnaire" to help you choose. Trying to find your muse? Sign up for the Art + Object = Poetry workshop. Prefer to keep it short and sweet? There's James Tadd Adcox's Quick Stories, which begins on April 16. Or, hone your comedy chops with Kelsie Huff at Techniques of Humor. The spring session also offers an intro to live lit and performance with Ian Belknap, a course on writing for change, and so much more.
Writers of all levels and genres are encouraged to attend. To RSVP, please email info@storystudiochicago.com.
— Danette Chavez
Author Tue Mar 25 2014
Women and Children First hosts former President Jimmy Carter for a signing of his new book, A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power, at the Swedish American Museum, 5211 N. Clark St. on Thursday, March 27 at 6pm.
Mr. Carter has spent much of the last thirty years on diplomatic missions and in humanitarian work. He is also the author of over twenty books on subjects such as his presidency, his faith, and his work in the Middle East. His latest book, A Call To Action, focuses on the subjugation of women, which he deemed the "worst and most pervasive and unaddressed human rights violation on Earth" in a recent interview with NBC News' Andrea Mitchell.
Please note that this is a book signing only; Mr. Carter will not be giving a talk. Pre-order the book online for admission to the event, or call 773-769-9299.
— Danette Chavez /
Events Tue Mar 25 2014
"I am afraid that I can never write the Great American Novel," she wrote. Her characters were "very simple and very vulgar and I don't think they will interest the American public."
She is Gertrude Stein, author of the Great American Novel Three Lives,and many others, many greater. She wrote "Three Lives" in Paris, inspired and nested amongst contemporaries and peers Pablo Picasso, Gustave Flaubert and Paul Cezanne. She was hostess to the Parisian salons of our bourgeois dreams; she was Ernest Hemingway's dear friend and first editor. She was of the cultural class that added the "ing" to vacation; promoting a new flavor of leisure that seemed to go on and on, continuously. Her life was large, but intimate.
Unable to find a dedicated publisher, Stein published 1,000 copies out-of-pocket, only 500 of them bound, in July 1909. By February 1910 only 75 had been sold, less than the number she had distributed on her own to reviewers, friends and idols. I would posit that, including postage, she made perhaps enough profit to buy Cezanne a new paintbrush.
Stein was entering into a genre, but only in its physical form — the loose-fitting genre of "books," rough pages bound together by clothette, stiches and glue. In all other ways, though, she was in a classification of her own — a niche-less niche, really, since she was the only one who occupied it. There was Gertrude Stein, and there were those who read Gertrude Stein. She did not confer with a movement; her most influential contemporary was Cezanne, a painter who's brush strokes she imitated in her clipped and repetitive prose and her desire to "use everything."
I was reminded of Ms. Stein last weekend at Chicago's own independently run Zine Fest.
Continue reading this entry »
— Alex Thompson
Author Mon Mar 24 2014
Poets & Writers recently helped organize the Barry Gifford reading for Story Week at Columbia College. After hearing Barry speak, I wanted to find out who it was on the East Coast who had made the event happen. Who was "Poets & Writers"?
In my search, I found Program Associate Cathy Linh Che. I read some of her poetry online; "Doc, there was a hand" and "Split" I realized quickly I wasn't tracking down an administrator, but a poet.
She was in the lunch line when I called.
Continue reading this entry »
— Alex Thompson
The tacitly-titled Two Cookie Minimum (Is it a band? An improv troupe? A deep-dish pizza? No, no, much better...) is back this month with a celebration of Polish Writers and (you guessed it) cookies. The zinesters-only reading series has been a staple of Chicago's self-publishing community since 2011, bringing together emerging writers and self publishers for a conversation that cannot be rivaled on a Tuesday night at 9pm.
Literally. New City rated Two Cookie Minimum 2013's "Best Reading Series at 9pm on a Tuesday".
This April, TCM is celebrating local Polish writers. No joke, the reading will be on April 1st at the Hungry Brain, 2319 W. Belmont Ave for those approaching by land by-way-of car, bus, bike, biped or skateboard.
Readers include Kate Sierzputowski, co-founder of InsideWithin; Daniella Oiszewska, author of poetry chapbook Citizen J; Adam Lizakowski, Director of the Polish Arts and Poetry Association in America; Joshua Piotrowski, zinester and musician; Columbia College creative writing students Alison Grabowski and Karolina Stepek; and JoAnne Gazarek Bloom, writer of Bridgeport on Arcadia Publishing.
The evening will be hosted by the indomitable Johnny Misfit aka John Wawrzaszek, one of Gaper's Block's own staff writers.
After last week's Story Week at Columbia and Zine Fest the weekend prior, surely some of you have caught the self-publishing bug. This is a showcase of one of Chicago's most interesting and independently minded publishing communities.
Not a night to miss - no fooling.
— Alex Thompson
Events Sun Mar 23 2014
Why not judge a book by its cover, just this once?
D.C.-based artist Tracie Ching's new exhibition, "Well Read" at Chicago's Galerie F, asks visitors to do just that.
Ching's work explores the different filters that the film industry imposes on literary classics in the process of adaptation and promotion. Undoubtably, for example, the advertising campaign for Baz Luhrman's "Great Gatsby" included broad strokes of 1920's-era pastiche; similarly Darren Aronofsky's "Noah" has been advertised with Old Testament associations. However, both campaigns operated with little fidelity to the source material; pains were made to produce material that read as "roaring twenties" and "biblical", in lowercase and with quotation marks.
Continue reading this entry »
— Alex Thompson
Reviews Sun Mar 23 2014
John F. Hogan establishes a couple of his credentials right at the outset of his new book: "I come from a police family and worked a summer break from college on the open-hearth furnaces at Republic Steel's South Chicago plant," he writes. Even given this background, though, he says it took years for him to first happen across the 1937 Republic strike's essential stats: 40 men wounded by police fire; 10 killed, most shot in retreat; dozens more beaten by clubs. In The 1937 Chicago Steel Strike: Blood on the Prairie, he reminds us of this deadly episode in labor history and opens a window into a time when any given strike was not just a bargaining tactic but potentially a life-and-death battle.
Metaphors of war are not even a little hyperbolic here. As steel companies and other manufacturers quaked before the tide of union organization rolling through the 1930s, they accumulated massive arsenals of clubs, live ammunition, and, especially, the then-recent innovation of tear-gas grenades. These armed not just the plants' guards, but often the local police forces as well, in line with a cooperative spirit that also occasionally found police enjoying free lunches and other perks at the expense of the companies they were protecting.
Continue reading this entry »
— Daphne Sidor
Tonight! Nudity and literacy collide in Lit show Naked Girls Reading at Everleigh Social Club, 7 pm.
Tonight! Elizabeth Earley reads form her book A Map of Everything at Women & Children First, 7:30 pm.
Saturday! Gregory Benton discusses his graphic novel, B + F at Quimby's Bookstore, 7 pm.
Saturday! Red Rover Series returns with more "readings that play with reading." Check out the amazing lineup of readers at Outer Space Studio (1474 N. Milwaukee Ave.) at 7 pm.
Saturday! You saw them at Zine Fest last weekend. Brain Frame is back to twist your neurons with another installment of comix readings at Constellation, open to all at 7:30 pm, and 21+ at 10 pm.
Sunday! 2nd Story brings you another night of powerful and provocative LiveLit, but there's more. Because the show is held at Revolution Brewing, the $40 ticket price includes two hours of unlimited Revolution Food and Brew samples. Start imbibing at 6 pm.
— Miden Wood
Events Thu Mar 20 2014
Chicago is home to a thriving independent press scene, and StoryStudio Chicago wants to help you make the most of it with Editors Speak: Literary Magazine Panel. Join publishing insiders at the Chicago Studio this Saturday, March 22 for a free Q&A; you can ask for advice on getting your submissions accepted (or at least an upper-tier rejection letter), or just chat about the literary community.
Three local editors/writers will be on hand to answer all of your "why me?" and "why not me?" questions: Brian Solem of Graze, Sarah Dodson of MAKE Magazine, and Ben Tanzer of Curbside Splendor.
The panel discussion is from 12pm-1pm at 4043 North Ravenswood. Admission is free with a canned good donation (all collections will go to a local food pantry). Please RSVP by email to info@storystudiochicago.com. If you're unable to make the event, but have a burning question, you can tweet it to @storystudio, and the moderator will do his/her best to have it answered for you.
— Danette Chavez
Events Wed Mar 19 2014
It's Wednesday, and it's after 5pm, so we're already 60% done with the work week--congratulations! To celebrate, consider taking in one of tonight's Story Week events, or get a jump on your Thursday plans by checking out the schedule.
Story Week 2014 has already seen workshops and readings by Columbia College Chicago instructors Julia Borcherts and Patricia Ann McNair; conversations with authors Stuart Dybek and Roxane Gay, and publishing boot camps with Donna Seaman and Anitra Budd.
We'll close out the festival this Friday with two amazing events: first up, Jeff Toth hosts the "Come One, Come All" open mic at 11am at Columbia College Chicago, 623 South Wabash. And from 6pm-8pm, Rick Kogan presents "Chicago Classics," with special guests who will read works by their favorite Chicago authors. "Chicago Classics" will be held at the Chicago Cultural Center Preston Bradley Hall, 78 East Washington. Both events are free and open to the public.
— Danette Chavez
Author Wed Mar 19 2014
The reading room at the Poetry Foundation is filled a quarter-way with quiet reverent conversation.
It is March's Open Door Series, featuring Brett Foster and Srikanth Reddy and the room seems intentionally wanting. An open podium stands dramatically lit at its head; scattered lights give the illusion of luminescence but it's a dim, half-hearted brightness, and the blue dusk outside seems brighter.
Beyond the podium stands a courtyard of saplings that further indict anticipation itself as the prologue to the evening. Beyond that, an impossible wall of books.
Under their seats, the March issue of the Foundation's poetry magazine. A cleaner exits a distant doorway guiding a wheeled trashcan and disappears once again, marring and complicating the shelf of numerous journals and novels and anthologies and likely many editions of To the Lighthouse.
When Robert Polito, the Poetry Foundation president, took the stand to introduce Mr. Foster and Mr. Reddy, we were at attention.
The monthly Open Door series is a means of focusing the community and celebrating specific mentors and students from Chicago's many graduate and undergraduate programs. Tonight's event attracted a fair crowd -- the applause was loud and filled the space; the laughter was real and complete; the silences were heavy and concentrated. There seems no better mascot for events like these than the Pegasus of the Poetry Foundation's logo: muscle, winged and flying.
Continue reading this entry »
— Alex Thompson
Author Tue Mar 18 2014
I watched the man I thought was Barry Gifford talk to another, much quieter man, who really was Barry Gifford. The first Barry Gifford moved his hands eloquently and drew curtains in the air with his fingers. The real Barry Gifford said nothing and blinked politely.
A moment later, Barry looked me in the face.
I was a staff writer for Gaper's Block, I said. "A web publication," Joe Mino intoned with a smile.
"I'll only have a few minutes," Barry said, glancing with apology to Joe, then Kara, then me.
"That's alright," I said. "I won't need long."
His eyes are milk-white in places; not cataracts, I am sure. He gazes harder in spite of them; perhaps to spite them. As I shake his hand my wrist is limper, my voice more boyish, my smile less genuine than I'd like. I am struck by Barry Gifford. I struggle for words and thank him.
"Thank you, Mr. Gifford," I say, and age myself. I shuffle into the anonymous deck of the auditorium and hide with my iPhone set to record. I listen to Barry Gifford and I watch him, and this is what I see and hear:
Continue reading this entry »
— Alex Thompson
Events Mon Mar 17 2014
Yes, it's Saint Patrick's Day, but it's also the third Monday of the month, which means it's time to clean up your act and go to Essay Fiesta.
Tonight's event, dubbed "The Most Sober and Solemn of Essay Fiestas," is hosted by Willy Nast and Karen Shimmin, who will also be your guides to reining in the revelry. The teetotaling lineup is made up of Janna Sobel of Here's The Story; storytelling pro Erin Kahoa; the "knitting master," Maura Clement; Neo-Futurist Dina Marie Walters; and the one woman show that is Jen Bosworth.
Show starts at 7pm at The Book Cellar, 4736-38 N. Lincoln Ave. Get there early to snag a seat, a drink, and/or a book. Admission is free, but donations are accepted on behalf of 826Chi.
— Danette Chavez /
Events Mon Mar 17 2014
This Wednesday, March 19, monthly live extravaganza the Encyclopedia Show presents the theme Nightshades at 7:30pm at Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont Ave. The themes is loose, for it could reference Corey Hart's "Sunglasses at Night" or the common tomato. The only way to know for sure is to check out the show.
Host Robbie Q. Telfer welcomes this month's lineup: writer and performer Gwynn Fulcher, shadow puppet show by sister duo Jill Summers and Susie Kirkwood, poet Eric Gaston, author of Reasons to Leave the Slaughter (Write Bloody) Ben Clark, Providence, Rhode Island poet and fiction writer Laura Brown-Lavoie, and visual artist and photographer Brett Neiman.
The series ends its run this year with only three more performances left. General admission is $9; students with ID are $6.
— John Wawrzaszek
If you're still bummed about missing out on AWP last month, or you're still nursing a hangover from AWP last month, Story Week Festival of Writers has a cure for what ails you. Presented by the Columbia College Chicago Department of Creative Writing, Story Week brings together emerging and established authors to discuss their works in various venues, and neighborhoods. This year's theme is DiverCity: Urban Stories, and will focus on how words have built (and rebuilt) the city of Chicago. Randy Albers, founder of Story Week and chair emeritus of the fiction program at Columbia College says that this year's festival will share "stories that shape our understanding of the city and the wider social and historical context of which we are a part."
The festival is in its 18th year, and will include highlights such as a conversation and reading with screenwriter/novelist Barry Gifford (Lost Highway, Wild at Heart), a panel featuring Latino authors hosted by the Guild Literary Complex, and boot camps for aspiring and working publishing professionals. As always, events are free and open to the public (and most will include ASL interpretation).
Story Week kicks things off tonight at 6pm at Martyrs' with a special presentation of 2nd Story, featuring Darwyn Jones, Julia Borcherts, Nicole Chakalis, and Sahar Mustafah. 2nd Story is hosted by Megan Stielstra and Bobby Biedrzycki, with live music by the Harold Washington Trio.
Please see the Story Week website for a full list of events.
— Danette Chavez
Tonight and Tomorrow! Chicago Zine Fest returns for its fifth annual self-pubstravaganza to showcase even more magnificent independent publishers! Drop by to check out the awesome line-up of exhibitors, take a workshop, or just DANCE. Plan your weekend with the full Zine Fest schedule here.
Tonight! Celebrate the Freedom of Information Act at the FOIA Festival with lectures and workshops geared towards journalists, bloggers and writers. Sessions will run all morning and afternoon, from 8:30 am to 5 pm, at Loyola University (25 E. Pearson St.).
Tonight! Richard Hell reads from his autobiography and documentation of punk rock culture, I Thought I was a Very Clean Tramp at 57th Street Books, 6 pm. Word is he "is willing to sign anything people bring on the condition that they've bought a copy of TRAMP at the event," so don't forget to bring your most cherished book, 8-track, or pet.
Tonight! Learn a little more about the late author's life with Norman Mailer: A Double Life, read at DePaul Barnes & Noble (1 E. Jackson Blvd.) by author Mike Lennon.
Saturday! Author José Ángel reads from his book Illegal: Reflections of an Undocumented Immigrant at the Book Cellar (4736 N. Lincoln Ave.), 7 pm.
Starting on Sunday! Chicago Story Week Festival of Writers kicks off its amazing weeklong series of readings, workshops, and Writers Bootcamps, featuring the work of acclaimed and emerging writers. Check out the schedule here to plan your Story Week, starting off with Sunday's Story Workshop Mini-Classes from 3-5 at the Chicago Dance Center (3868 N. Lincoln Ave.), and then an installment of livelit series by 2nd Story at Martyr's (3855 N. Lincoln Ave.) at 6 pm.
Sunday! Author Katey Schultz will read from her short story collection, Flashes of War at Women & Children First (5233 N. Clark St.), 4:30 pm.
— Miden Wood
Events Thu Mar 13 2014
Next week marks the return of one of Chicago's most beloved literary events, Columbia College Chicago's Story Week Festival of Writers. Beginning on March 16 through the 21, Story Week aims to build "a city of words" says Randy Albers, founding producer of the festival and writing faculty at Columbia College, in the Story Week welcome message. This year's theme is DiverCity, the connection between diversity and the urban landscape and how they come together to celebrate the power of urban stories.
Chicago has a great many writers who exemplify this festival's theme. One of Chicago's notable writers Stuart Dybek, will be featured at the festival. He is author of the fiction Childhood and Other Neighborhoods, The Coast of Chicago, I Sailed with Magellan, and the poetry collections Brass Knuckles and Streets in their Own Ink. He has two upcoming story collections, Ecstatic Cahoots and Paper Lantern, which will be released in June. In his writing, the city acts as a back drop, a kinetic character. Dybek will help Albers vision this year in building a 'city of words'.
I got to ask Dybek a few questions about his new books, his events at Story Week and about the short story in general.
You will be on the Story Week panel, "Why the Short Story". You're definitely an authority on the subject with your previous fiction collections and your upcoming releases. What draws you to writing in that format?
Let me preface my answer by saying that some of the aspects that draw me to the short story are certainly not exclusive to the short story. There's a considerable overlap between literary genres and its far more accurate to see genres as arranged along a continuum rather than to treat them as if they inhabit separate gated communities. For me the short story is a good form in which to work with a kind of literary version of chamber music. Because of the scale of the story one can crank up and try to sustain intensity without fatiguing the reader. One might, of course, say the same about poetry, and an often heard observation about the short story form is that the compression it demands gives it a closer kinship to the poem than to the novel. I've long been fascinated by story collections that have some kind of unity--unity of place like Dubliners or Winesberg, Ohio , for instance, or unity of characters and action such as The Things They Carried. Sometimes such collections are given the paradoxical name, the novel in stories, which is misleading. The so called unity of such books actually emphasizes the fragmentary nature of personal life and of community. That sense of finding order, or at least patterns, within fragmentation is central to modernism.
Continue reading this entry »
— John Wawrzaszek
Events Wed Mar 12 2014
Don't let green sprouting up around the city fool you; there's much more going on this weekend than St. Patty's Day. Friday, March 14th marks the beginning of fifth annual self-pubstravaganza Chicago Zine Fest, a weekend-long showcase dedicated to celebrating the work of small presses and independent publishers.
There are few instances in which so many creatives occupy a single space, and the effect at Zine Fest is awe-inspiring, as one might guess just taking a look at the Fest's impressive exhibitor line-up; bursting with stories, illustrations, and the powerful perspectives unique to zine work. Absorb their work through readings and exhibitions throughout the weekend, and jump into the process yourself with any of the many workshops and discussions scheduled for Saturday, March 15!
The festival kicks off this Friday at 1 pm at Columbia College's Conway Center (1104 S. Wabash Ave.) with an opening panel entitled In it for the Long Haul: A Discussion on Longevity in Zines with Cindy Crabb (Doris), Tomas Moniz (Rad Dad), and Alex Wrekk (Brainscan). The panel will be moderated by Quimby's Bookstore's own Liz Mason (Caboose)
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— Miden Wood
Poetry Wed Mar 12 2014
There's something magical about a live reading. This one will not disappoint. The Open Door series, produced by Chicago's own Poetry Foundation, is a unique showcase of both students and mentors, nicely highlighting Chicago's diverse avenues of recognition, publication and growth. This Tuesday, March 18th, Open Door showcases Brett Foster, his recent student Dayna Clemons and Srikanth Reddy and his current student Clara Mitchell.
Foster is the author of two poetry volumes, The Garbage Eater (Triquarterly Books/Northwestern University Press, 2011) and Fall Run Road (recipient of Finish Line Press' 2011 Open Chapbook Prize); he is a professor of Renaissance literature and creative writing at Wheaton College, where Clemons studies.
Reddy's poems have appeared in the anthologies Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation and Isn't It Romantic: 100 Love Poems by Younger american Poets. He has received awards from the Whiting Foundation, the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing and the Mellon Foundation. He is the literacy director for the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Trust and teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Chicago, where Mitchell studies.
Readings will begin at 7pm, and are held at The Poetry Foundation (61 W. Superior St.). Admission is free to these hour-long readings.
— Alex Thompson
Events Mon Mar 10 2014
Want to get filthy rich in rising Asia? Step One: Read the book.
Wrapped in the guise of a self-help book, New York Times best-selling author Mohsin Hamid's latest novel How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia follows the rise of one man from utter poverty to vast fortune. The only twist is, that one man -- the nameless protagonist -- is you.
One of the rare novels to tackle second person narration, Hamid's text harnesses the latest life-hacking trend to turn how-to on its head. "Don't Fall in Love," one chapter begins; "Be Prepared to Use Violence." These guidelines build an arresting tension between format and content. Hamid cleverly injects a precarious and tumultuous life with certainty and determinism: you are, after all, only following the rules. Hamid's writing operates on the same plane of crisp certainty, to a point so factual you feel as though you could crack the sentences in half. He writes with the vise-tight confidence necessary to pin down the accusing, assuming "you."
"Look," the novel begins, "unless you're writing one, a self-help book is an oxymoron. You read a self-help book so someone who isn't yourself can help you, that someone being the author." If you're seeking the guidance of a self-help author, you may want to drop into First United Methodist Church (77 W. Washington St.) this Tuesday, March 11, where the Chicago Humanities Festival will be hosting Hamid in a discussion with WBEZ's Alison Cuddy. Tickets for the 6 pm talk are $15 for the general public, $10 for CHF members, and $5 for students; copies of Filthy Rich will also be available at a 10% discount, thanks to a partnership with Unabridged Bookstore. Sit in on the talk, or pick up a copy and try out the author's Get-Rich-Slow scheme for yourself!
— Miden Wood
Author Mon Mar 10 2014
For the last five years March has brought the Chicago Zine Fest, a celebration of independent self-published work. Being the fest's fifth anniversary, the programming commemorates other zinesters who have been publishing zines for a even longer. The festival begins with a Friday afternoon panel entitled, In it for the Long Haul: A Discussion on Longevity in Zines. Among the panelists is Tomas Moniz, writing faculty at Berkeley City College and publisher of the zine Rad Dad. He has been putting out that title for 10 years. In it, he deals with the ideal of radical parenting from various perspectives outside of the societal norms of parenting. And he should know what he's talking about, Moniz is a father of three. He has a new novella Bellies and Buffalos, a tender though chaotic story about friendship, family and Flammin Hot Cheetos.
I got to talk with Moniz and ask him a few questions about his writing and his upcoming visit to Chicago.
What was the initial motivation that prompted you to write Rad Dad?
I was going through a difficult time with my then teenage son, and reaching out for information that didn't repeat the same conversation around punishment and discipline all the books were talking about. Then I discovered The Future Generation by China Martens, a zine about parenting and anarchism. It changed everything. I wrote a letter, she answered, and then I just started a zine for fathers to talk about fathering in meaningful, feminist, anarchist ways. I started the zine I longed to read.
Recently you've decided to re-launched Rad Dad. What did was that process?
Rad Dad is relaunching as a full-color, large-format magazine to push past the patriarchy with even more stories from the frontier of radical parenting. There is so much more than the mainstream representations of fathering, which are mostly white and middle class. I've learned so much from queer fathers, from trans fathers, fathers of color. Through Rad Dad, I am trying to represent fathering as a holistic, vulnerable thing. Fathers need to change--not just diapers.
Continue reading this entry »
— John Wawrzaszek
Events Sun Mar 09 2014
One of my earliest memories of consuming media is watching barely-understood but scary news reports about AIDS in the late 1980s; today, it's conceivable that many young people might not learn about the disease until they have to take sex ed. The lower profile of AIDS today is, of course, due largely to vastly improved treatment options, but it's also dangerous, says activist Sean Strub in his new book, Body Counts: A Memoir of Politics, Sex, AIDS, and Survival. He contracted HIV right around the time the epidemic hit America, and spent the next years simultaneously battling the disease and, through activist organizations such as ACT UP (where, as he puts it, "high camp and high seriousness [were] uniquely compatible"), the indifference or hostility of the institutions that might have been able to help. As he sees it, allowing this history to fade from view interferes with effectively treating a disease that is still far from cured.
Body Counts is more given to lively narrative than to polemic, but Strub's seriousness of mission is clear even in his choice of reading venues: on Wednesday, March 12, he'll discuss the book at Center on Halsted (3656 N. Halsted, at 2pm) and then at the Test Positive Aware Network (5050 N. Broadway, at 6:30pm). Attendees can expect to hear not only about the battle against AIDS, but about the contours of an energetic life that's included working the elevators at the U.S. Capitol, running as the first HIV-positive candidate for the U.S. Senate, and crossing paths with figures as diverse as Keith Haring and Jesse Helms. Both events are free.
— Daphne Sidor
Saturday! Check out the semifinal round of Louder Than a Bomb, the world's largest youth slam poetry festival. Head on over to verse venue Metro to hear out slams any time between 10 am and 9 pm!
Saturday! Continue the Slam Spree with a Spoken Word workshop at Stage 773. The workshop, taught by spoken word veteran Gregory Geffrard, runs from 1 pm to 4 pm and costs $30.
Saturday! Weekly free lecture series, The Playground for People Who Think, hosts Dr. Lora Chamberlain in a discussion of fracturing legislation at the Hilltop Restaurant, 6 pm.
Saturday! The Book Cellar hosts novelists Gina Frangello (A Life in Men) and Peter Mountford (The Dismal Science), 7pm.
Sunday! Livelit series 2nd Story engages in a study human endurance with Once More Unto the Breech: Stories of Beautiful Struggle. These stories of resilience in the face of unforeseen trials, "From a friend trying to save another friend from a cult, to a woman trying to learn to be a mother to another mother's children" sound like some you won't want to miss. Head over to Webster's Wine Bar, $20, 7:30 pm.
— Miden Wood
Author Thu Mar 06 2014
Last year marked the release of author Chris L. Terry's debut novel Zero Fade with Curbside Splendor publishing. Though Terry has since left Chicago for sunny California, this Saturday March 8th, the city welcomes him back for a leg of his Midwest book tour. (Touring is nothing new to Terry, he writes in his guest post for Gapers Block).
Terry will be part of a Curbside Splendor sponsored Meet the Authors panel at 826CHI, 1331 N Milwaukee Ave. at 5:30pm. The panel is geared towards students grades 7-12, giving young writers the opportunity to hear from established authors about the publishing process. Students will then work on their own writing, with time for feedback from the panelists. Joining Terry on the panel will be fellow Curbside authors Ben Tanzer (Lost in Space) and Bill Hillmann (The Old Neighborhood). Registration is required.
The tour doesn't end there. Terry and Tanzer follow up 826 CHI with a reading at Uncharted Books, 2630 N Milwaukee Ave. at 8pm. Stick around to buy a book, or chat with the authors and get them to sign a copy.
— John Wawrzaszek
Poetry Wed Mar 05 2014
All the people came to see James Franco. But the James Franco who showed up wasn't who anyone had come to see. Some people were happy and some people were sad, and some people didn't know what to do.
Upon arriving at the poetry reading, brought to Chicago by the joint efforts of the Chicago Humanities Festival and The Poetry Foundation, I could feel the excitement in Northwestern Law School's Thorne Auditorium; one of those stiletto-shaped rooms that scoops down into a proscenium stage. It was filled with chatter like a shook box of cicadas. Making my way towards a seat near the front I stepped through three languages, many perfumes, many levels of sincere excitement and faux disdain, disinterest and ambivalence.
In front of me, folding chairs were filled by people who, I posited, had waited a long time, out in the cold, maybe, to get in before anyone else. They were a mix of twentysomethings and teenage girls, but the mean age ran on the younger side. They were James Franco Fans, with a capitol F. They'd brought glossy photographs with them and I recognized the need to clarify in the program that Franco would only be signing copies of his book of poetry, Directing Herbert White.
A door opened and Poetry Foundation president Robert Polito stepped on stage. We screamed and cheered because we knew who was coming next; and in he walked, just after Robert and just before Frank Bidart, James Franco.
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— Alex Thompson /
