Events, Interviews, Lit, Nonfiction

Interview: Columnist Georgia Garvey on Her Greek Heritage and New Book, Everything Is Going to Be Okay (Until It’s Not)

Cover of Everything Is Going to Be Okay (Until It's Not) by Georgia Garvey

The phrase “it’s all Greek to me” is often used to refer to complicated things people cannot understand. Yet for award-winning columnist and former Chicago Tribune editor Georgia Garvey, her […]

Elizabeth Niarchos Neukirch /
Dialogs, Essays, Events, Interviews, Lit, Live Lit, Stages, Talk show

Dialogs: The Fire This Time with Roxane Gay at the Chicago Humanities Festival

The Chicago Humanities Festival hosted writer Roxane Gay, in conversation with writer Lindsay Hunter, at the University of Chicago’s Lab School. Like recent CHF speaker and fellow Black female author […]

Karin McKie /
Dialogs, Events, Interviews, Lit, Live lit events, Nonfiction, Stages, Talk show

Dialogs: Considering Contagion with Maddow and Schama at Chicago Humanities Festival Events

This autumn’s Chicago Humanities Festival is chock-a-block with notable writers. That focus is normal for one of the Windy City’s most diverse and comprehensive cultural institutions, but especially true this […]

Karin McKie /
Events, Fiction, Interviews, Lit, Live lit events

Interview: Sinister Twisters—Author James Kennedy Talks Horror and His New Book, Bride of the Tornado

James Kennedy will appear at the HORRORPALOOZA! event at After-Words Bookstore (23 E. Illinois Street), Sunday, October 29, at 5pm, with fellow horror authors Cynthia Pelayo and Julia Fine and […]

Dan Kelly /
Comics and Graphic Novels, Events, Interviews, Lit, Live lit events, Music, Nonfiction

Review: Something Out of Nothing—New Book Shares the History and Images of Garage Rock Label Estrus Records

Chris Coyle and designer Scott Sugiuchi will attend a book release party at Quimby’s Bookstore (1854 W North Ave) on Saturday, October 21, beginning at 1 p.m. Another party takes […]

Dan Kelly /
Essays, Events, Fiction, Lit, Nonfiction, Poetry

Shortlist Announced for 2023 Chicago Review of Books Awards

The 2023 Chicago Review of Books Awards shortlist includes literary works ranging in subject matter from queer motherhood to belonging and migration, Chicago’s Black cowboy culture, and women’s overlooked heroism during World War II.

Elizabeth Niarchos Neukirch /
Chicago history, Events, Fiction, Interviews, Lit, Live lit events

The Haunting of Hemingway House: Four Women Writers Make Hemingway’s Childhood Home a Clean, Well-Frighted Place

Note: The event is sold out, but Ernest Hemingway’s Birthplace Museum continues to present tours and weekly events all year round. As the quintessential literary man’s man, it’s easy to […]

Dan Kelly /
Chicago history, Events, Food, Lit, Live lit events, Nonfiction, Recipes

Review: Consuming My Religion: Holy Food, by Christina Ward

No matter how busy they were creating the universe, some gods always found time to lay down the law on what their worshippers should eat. Diets and deities have a […]

Dan Kelly /
Dialogs, Events, Fiction, Lit, Live lit events

Dialogs: Zadie Smith’s New Historical Fiction The Fraud Plumbed at Chicago Humanities Festival Event

Fiction is a “medium that must always allow itself…the possibility of expressing intimate and inconvenient truths,” acclaimed London-born author Zadie Smith once said. She recently stopped by Lincoln Park’s Francis […]

Karin McKie /
Events, Fiction, Interviews, Lit, Live lit events

Dialogs: Kathleen Rooney and Ignatius Aloysius Discuss Creation of Her New Novel at Writers Museum

Chicago author Kathleen Rooney writes in many genres—fiction, non-fiction, essays, poetry—even Poems While You Wait. She has written several historical fiction novels in her own distinctive style. Heavily researched, novelized, written in […]

Nancy S Bishop /
Events, Fiction, Interviews, Lit, Live lit events

Toya Wolfe’s Last Summer on State Street Wins $25,000 Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award

Most readers are familiar with the more prestigious annual book prizes out there, among them the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the PEN America Literary Awards. A new […]

Elizabeth Niarchos Neukirch /
Events, Fiction, Lit, Live lit events, Nonfiction, Poetry

Preview: Inspiration for Burned-Out Writers at Northwestern’s Summer Writers’ Conference, July 21–22

When the world is literally on fire, who can think about writing? The present writer was reminded of Chicago author Rebecca Makkai’s 2018 Electric Literature essay on the topic (“The […]

Elizabeth Niarchos Neukirch /