Best of 2024: The Third Coast Review Lit Section
The Third Coast Review Lit section has continued to grow in its coverage of the city and region’s ongoing literary scene. Below, several of TCR’s Lit writers share their favorite […]
Chicago Is Lit: July Author Events & Book Releases
Chicago’s literary scene is, in a word, “lit”: from the Midwest’s largest free outdoor literary festival to pop-up typewritten poetry encounters to the nation’s only museum devoted to American writers, […]
Return of the Revenge of the Featured Creatures Massacre IV: Chicago Area Horror Writers Share Horror Recommendations
Once again, it’s time for me to slip out of my TCR Lit Editor role and into my Crypt-Keeper robe. In celebration of Samhain, I contacted several Chicago-area horror writers […]
2022 in Review: A Lit Retrospective
What was 2022 like in the world of Chicago, Illinois, and Midwest letters? I’ve asked the Lit section writers to share their favorite reviews and stories of the past year. […]
Son of Featured Creatures: Chicago Horror Writers and Artists Share Their Favorite Chicago Horror Creators
Unless you’re an easily frightened tourist, Chicago is rarely considered a hotbed of horror. But as Third Coast Review has pointed out before, our town has a distinguished pedigree in […]
Featured Creatures: Chicago Horror Writers and Artists Share Their Favorite (or Un-favorite) Scary Stories
Chicago and horror may not seem synonymous, but the city and surrounding area have produced a bevy of creators of chilling art and hair-raising tales. Author Ray Bradbury hailed from […]
Long Reads Are Lonnnnnnnnnnnnng—Extra-Long Books for the Serious Social Isolationist
Third Coast Review writer Patrick T. Reardon recently published a fine piece in praise of tackling extra-long reads during the social isolation era. For those who’ve completed all the popular […]
Bored in Quarantine?: Eight Great Comics and the Local Comic Stores That Sell Them
As people across Chicago quarantine themselves to curb the spread of COVID-19, they realize there are only so many episodes of Tiger King to binge on. For those seeking other […]
The 10 Best Books about Chicago—and One Clunker
Many very good and even great books have been written about Chicago, and, based on my half century of writing about the city, here are the 10 that, at the […]
An Ongoing Graveyard Shift: Selling Books in Chicago in a Plague Year
Even in the best of times, bookstores have it rough. Just last year the American Booksellers Association reported American bookstore sales were down by 7.6 percent from 2018, sales sliding […]
Reading in the Face of Death—Book Suggestions for Self-Isolation
Too many books, not enough time—it’s the eternal struggle of the book lover. Unfortunately, nature and society have conspired to ensure we all shelter in place, self-quarantine, isolate, and otherwise […]
Long Books for the Long Hours Ahead
It’s pretty clear now that my wife Cathy and I—both over that red-alarm age of 60—are going to be spending basically all our time in our home for what could […]