CENSORED! We Read Banned Books, an ACLU benefit, will be an evening of readings by Chicago authors from their favorite banned books, sponsored by Third Coast Review and Kill Your Darlings Live Lit.
Censored will be at 7pm Monday, October 2, at the
Public House Theatre.
Local authors will read from famously banned books. Censored music will also be featured, and local booksellers, including 826CHI, Haymarket, Belt Magazine and Publishing, will host tables in the lobby. The Public House Theatre has generously donated the venue space.
Here are some of the books we'll be reading from:
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
Persepolis, a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi
The Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Our stage at Public House Theatre. See you October 2.
Our readers are:
- Ignatius Valentine Aloysius teaches writing at Northwestern University and in the graduate Writing Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, while pursuing a binary life as designer, songwriter, and lead guitarist for Reverend Ruin, a hard rock/metal band.
- Ada Cheng is a professor-turned-storyteller and performing artist.
- Paul Dailing of 1,001 Chicago Afternoons is a journalist and creator of the Chicago Corruption Walking Tour.
- Andrew Huff is the former editor and publisher of Gapers Block, and is the host of live lit series Tuesday Funk and 20x2 Chicago.
- Ruth Margraff is a New Dramatist, a Chicago Dramatist and a School of the Art Institute of Chicago writing professor, who has published Red Frogs & other plays, Previously Blue/Dah Teatar Sourcebook, SEVEN, Deadly She-Wolf..., Cafe Antarsia, Night Vision, Elektra Fugues and other writings (com).
- Juan Martinez, an assistant professor at Northwestern University, is the author of Best Worst American.
- Mary Anne Mohanraj wrote Bodies in Motion, The Stars Change, and eleven other titles, and she's an English professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
- Bill Savage, a card-carrying ACLU member, teaches American literature at Northwestern, and it all begins with a banned book, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
- Edwin C. Yohnka has been the Director of Communications and Public Policy for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois since 1999.
- Nancy S. Bishop is a theater critic and editor and publisher of Third Coast Review. She has been a card-carrying member of the ACLU since 1964.
- Emma Terhaar is editor of Third Coast Review’s Lit page and a dedicated cook and foodie.
- Julian Ramirez is calendar editor for Third Coast Review, as well as a music writer and photographer.
- Karin McKie, the evening’s curator and emcee, writes about theater and other arts for Third Coast Review.
Tickets will be pay-what-you-can at the door, with a $10 minimum suggested. You can buy tickets in advance
online or by calling 773-230-4770. You can also make a donation of $10, $35 or $50.
The Public House Theatre, 3914 N. Clark St., has a full-service bar. Parking nearby on Clark Street and side streets (no Cubs game that night!). Several CTA bus lines and the Sheridan Red Line station are nearby.
Censored will raise money for the
ACLU of Illinois and is timed to conclude the American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom’s
Banned Books Week, an annual celebration to support “the freedom to seek and express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.”
