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 […]
Devoting one’s life to banning books undoubtedly cuts into one’s reading time. Those too busy to read the volumes they work so hard to keep others from perusing should consider […]
Near the end of Saturday at this year’s Printers Row Lit Fest, an 80-year-old Italian painter from the North Shore told me she’s going to have a huge party if […]
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 […]
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 […]
Toya Wolfe’s debut novel Last Summer on State Street is a harrowing, poignant, and visceral evocation of life and death in the Robert Taylor public housing development in its final […]
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 […]
Tonight, Quimby’s will host an off-site book party for Hit Girls: Women of Punk in the USA, 1975–1983, at GMan Tavern (3740 N. Clark St.), Thursday, April 27, at 7:30 […]
How do we know if the First Amendment is working? Karen Tumulty, deputy editorial page editor for the Washington Post answers, “If it makes us uncomfortable—and more importantly, if it […]
Music critic Dan Ozzi is well known for his sharp insight and even sharper wit in his writing. So I was excited about his decision to tackle a topic largely […]
Jerry and Estelle Cimino are on the road, spreading the Beat Gospel to the world. As founders of the Beat Museum in San Francisco, they’ve made a mission of keeping […]
When I visited the Newberry Library Book Fair on Friday, I knew I had to come up with a strategy. It’s a locally famous sale, featuring tens of thousands of […]