Banned Books Week: Writers Recall the “Forbidden” Books of Their Youth
It’s Banned Books Week, and while it’s not a week to celebrate, per se, it’s one to faithfully observe. Those who would ban books offer different reasons for their desire […]
Words of Survival: Chicago Bookstores Respond to COVID and Book Bans
This is the third in our series of articles on The Art of Survival, in which we explore how small Chicago arts organizations are surviving post-COVID and weathering the anti-humanist and anti-diversity […]
Interview: Chapter and Multiverse: Christopher Hawkins’ I Contain Multitudes
When I last spoke with author Christopher Hawkins, he was writing about monsters and a deadly rain that threatened to tear a house and family apart. More recently, Hawkins wrote […]
Review: Crumbs from the Master’s Table, Crumb: A Cartoonist’s Life, by Dan Nadel
Cartoonist Robert Crumb is, inarguably, a master of his craft. For 60 years he’s created a distinctive style and memorable characters, while inspiring generations of artists. He’s also a polarizing […]
Interview: Poet Temperance Aghamohammadi and Her Debut Collection, Battalion Shaped Girl
Last fall, I had the pleasure of organizing a poetry reading with local poets on celebrating transformation, the unknown, and the changing of the seasons. It was then when I […]
Review: The Fabric Closest to Our Skin, The Virtues of Underwear, by Nina Edwards
In Jane Russell’s first movie role in 1943, her bra was the star, even though it barely seemed to be there. The publicity posters for The Outlaw, directed by Howard […]
Review: Dissenters on a Sacred Mission, Making No Compromise, by Holly A. Baggett
Early in Making No Compromise, Holly A. Baggett asks how it was that two young Midwestern women from the late 19th-century American Midwest—uncloseted lesbians and lovers, at that—became the international […]
Review: Seeing Older Adults through a Literary Lens, Winter Dreams, by Barbara H. Rosenwein
Barbara H. Rosenwein’s Winter Dreams: A Historical Guide to Old Age is a deep dive into the feelings humanity has held towards older adults over the last two millennia—as seen through […]
The Journey Isn’t About the Destination for Lindsay Welbers’ Chicago Transit Hikes
I own a car (don’t tell anyone). I live a very car-free life and promote a car-free existence to the point that my children at the age of two were […]
Review: Fear Like a River, The Perils of Girlhood, by Melissa Fraterrigo
Growing up and living female in America is a perilous endeavor. There is the gropey swimming coach, the miscarriages, the catcalls as you ride your bike, the malicious male colleague, […]
Review: Comedy and Tragedy in Chicago’s Storefront Theater World—The Very Last Production of King Lear by Richard Engling
Richard Engling is a Chicago theater guy—actor, director, artistic director. He’s taken his years of experience as the raw material for a trilogy of novels about life in Chicago storefront […]
Review: Overblown and Overly Clever, Patchwork, by Tom Comitta
General readers, beware! Tom Comitta’s new book Patchwork isn’t for you. Patchwork isn’t for someone who wants a novel that tells a story and has characters and settings and scenes. […]