Tell us a bit about yourself and your writing career. It’s hard for me to believe my writing “career” has been going on now for more than three decades. My first two […]
Chicagoans may think of Nick Hornby as one of our own because of the 2000 film, High Fidelity. It’s set in a grungy record shop in Wicker Park and features many Chicago […]
Reported by Carr Harkrader “Whoever heard of a revolution that came out singing, and not swinging,” Malcolm X asked about the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolent civil rights strategy. In a […]
Sidekicks, comic foils, and other stock and background characters: cinephile and essayist David Lazar loves watching old movie character actors more than the leads. In his latest book, Celeste Holm Syndrome: On […]
The Chicago Humanities Festival recently hosted a conversation among Katherine Hill, Merve Emre, and translator Ann Goldstein, all scholars of elusive Italian novelist Elena Ferrante. The discussion is available to view. Hill […]
Art in the Moment Reported by C.E. Archer-Helke Speaking from separate corners of Chicago, Chicago artists Bob Faust, Edra Soto, and Sadie Woods and art historian Greg Foster-Rice brought warmth, passion, and […]
Good Time Party Girl: The Notorious Life of Dirty Helen Cromwell, 1886–1969 Helen Cromwell & Robert Dougherty Originally published in 1966, Good Time Party Girl is the life story of infamous Milwaukee […]
Chicago’s Great Fire: The Destruction and Resurrection of an Iconic American City by Carl Smith Atlantic Monthly Press Devastation is devastation, whether brought about by fire or pandemic. The Great Chicago Fire […]
Chicago writer Kathleen Rooney recently released her latest novel, Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey. A fictional retelling of the true story of World War I’s “Lost Battalion” (though mostly regarding its physical […]
Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt have a new book. It’s a beautiful city field guide with almost 400 pages of stories, history and illustrations on the “hidden world of everyday design.” You […]
Reported by C.E. Archer-Helke In a Chicago Humanities Festival panel moderated by Chicago journalist Natalie Moore, economist William Darity, legal scholar Matthew L.M. Fletcher, and historian Rebecca K. Marchiel brought vision in […]
In 1842, Edgar Allan Poe published one of his most famous stories, which turns out to be a parable for 2020. The Masque of the Red Death concerns a prince who gathers […]
