Interview: Madeline Blair and Sabr Tooth Tiger Magazine
Even before its release, Sabr Tooth Tiger Magazine is something of a success. Rarely does a new arts and literary journal receive more than 300 submissions for its first call. […]
Dialogs: Samin Nosrat Delivers a Call to Culinary Community Building in Chicago Humanities Event
When I opened chef Samin Nosrat‘s newest book, Good Things, it was clear that the cultural phenom born with her first project, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, was here to stay. […]
An Ode to Thanksgiving’s Most Treasured Dessert with Pie: A Global History
If you want to wow during the dessert course this Thanksgiving, don’t bother with the baking; all you’ll need is a stop at The University of Chicago Press for a […]
Interview: Robert Loerzel on The Uptown: Chicago’s Endangered Movie Palace
Sometimes the biggest things go unnoticed. The Uptown Theatre, for example. For a full century it’s stood at 4816 North Broadway, always there but overlooked by passersby since it closed […]
Essay: Dreaming My Dreaming—Thoughts on Seeing Patti Smith at the Chicago Theatre
Despite her fame as a rock and roll singer, Patti Smith is a poet at heart. Poetry has always been her passion. Even her prose sounds like poetry. At the […]
Review: Kings and Queen: Mia Zapata and the Gits, by Steve Moriarty
Some people are born with an inner light that fills every room they enter. By all accounts, Chicago-born Mia Zapata, singer/songwriter for the Gits, had talent, presence, and charisma to […]
Review: A Mythic and Intimate Tragedy, Billy Budd, Sailor (An Inside Narrative), by Herman Melville, Illustrated by Barry Moser
Herman Melville’s novella Billy Budd, Sailor (An Inside Narrative) is both mythic and intimate. So, too, are the woodcuts Barry Moser created for the centennial edition from the University of […]
Dialogs: Rushdie’s Return to Fiction—Bopping Until He Drops
He wore a black patch over his right eye while the other eye, the good eye, looked out towards the standing room only audience. Salman Rushdie wasted no time in […]
Review: A Unique, Grassroots Biography of Chicago, The Plan of Chicago: A City in Stories by Barry Pearce
One of the many fascinating things about a city like Chicago is how the lives of millions of strangers are unknowingly intertwined. Barry Pearce gets at this in a savvy […]
Dialogs: Jill Lepore’s Book We the People Tells Us Why Our Constitution Needs an Overhaul
I like to think of Jill Lepore sitting down at her desk to plan her new book on the US Constitution. We don’t need just another history, she thinks. There […]
Poetry: Coin of the Realm (1793–2025)
We hardly knew ye Or at the very least we took you for granted Even though your pedigree runs deep Alexander Hamilton gave you birth Despite your modesty You meant […]
Review: The Ghost of Yeats in a Wine Bar: Jessie McCarty’s Pretty Punks
Reviewed by Tori Rego To talk about Pretty Punks by Jessie McCarty, it is necessary to talk about W.B. Yeats. Like many, I’d venture to guess, I had not experienced […]