Out of the Basement: From Cheap Trick to DIY Punk in Rockford, Illinois, 1973-2005 is an autobiographical look at how the punk music scene started in David Ensminger’s hometown of Rockford, […]
James Tadd Adcox’s new novella is available in paperback and ebook on Cobalt Press. He will be reading at the Sunday Salon at the Riverview Tavern (1958 W Roscoe) on Sunday January […]
As soon as we enter Donika Kelly’s Bestiary through its first poem, “Out West”, we undergo a transformation. Under Kelly’s invitation to “rely… on the thrumming wilderness of self,” we expand […]
Najeeb’s childhood dream was to become a goatherd. His dream comes true, but in the form a nightmare. Benyamin’s Goat Days follows the twisted turns of Najeeb’s life. First published in […]
“I was about to speak to her/ but hesitated when I realized/ she was browsing through/ the Self-Help section,” writes Barry Gifford in his poem “In a Used Bookstore.” Appearing […]
Standing onstage, Laura Jane Grace is the embodiment of a punk rocker. Part Joan Jett, part Debbie Harry, Grace commands her pop-punk band Against Me! with ease and a crooked smile. […]
Illusions of Magic: Love and Intrigue in 1933 Chicago resurrects three little-known aspects of history: the 1933 assassination attempt on Franklin D. Roosevelt that killed Chicago mayor Anton Cermak, the […]
Ron Faiola is no stranger to supper clubs, especially those scattered throughout our neighbor state to the north. Wisconsin Supper Clubs: Another Round is his second glossy coffee-table book focusing on […]
Movies are a global business. This is something close to an axiom given how Hollywood iconography has swaddled the globe. Audiences from Berlin to (formerly) Bombay became acquainted with silver […]
Ted McClelland will be doing a reading and signing for the launch of How to Speak Midwestern at the Book Cellar (4736 N. Lincoln) at 7pm tonight, Thursday, December 1. A […]
Nelson Algren was a star in Chicago’s bright literary firmament, but his light dimmed in the years after he won the 1950 National Book Award for The Man With the […]
The results of last week’s presidential election stirred different feelings in many people: confusion, despair, melancholy, detachment, anger. I’ve seen more people on my social media feeds posting politically related […]