Comic Relief: A Review of Samantha Irby’s wow, no thank you.
Samantha Irby's third essay collection offers comic relief for all her readers, not just middle aged women who assert their awkward hipness.
View ArticleWhat Kind of Dark: An Interview with Krista Franklin
As a visual artist, poet and teaching artist, Ohio native Krista Franklin has made her mark on the city of Chicago and beyond.
View ArticleWells Rings Resonant Over One Hundred Years Later: A Review of the New...
With the recent naming of Ida B. Wells Street in Chicago, it is a welcome time to see a second edition of Wells' autobiography.
View ArticleA Gothic Debut: A Review of Sam Weller’s Dark Black
Debut is a weird word. It feels wrong to use the word on the work of a winner of numerous awards and is most famous for his work related to Ray Bradbury.
View ArticleOn the Streets of Chicago: A Conversation with Tracy Clark about her...
"Cass thinks like a cop, walks like a cop… She is legitimate."
View ArticleThe Conversation: Novelist Joe Meno Discusses his Nonfiction Debut Between...
Meno's new book offers a journalistic rendering of the story of two Ghanaian refugees through their impossible paths to asylum.
View ArticleA Place of Safety: A Review of Rita Woods’ Remembrance
Remembrance is a story of the remarkable strength, determination and magic involved in the survival of black women under the conditions of slavery.
View ArticleWithout Pretense or Throne: A Review of Peter Kahn’s Little Kings
Kahn has carved out his place as a beloved educator in the Chicago area by mentoring and teaching young poets.
View ArticleSix Feet Tall: Sara Paretsky Talks Love and Other Crimes
Writing in a time when women mystery writers were not common, Paretsky created Sisters in Crime, a worldwide organization to support women crime writers.
View ArticleWitnessing a LatiNEXT Moment: A Review of The BreakBeat Poets Volume. 4:...
This volume comes at a time when we are all searching for new words, grappling with the realization that English doesn’t feel good enough to express or even explain.
View ArticleWriter of the Moment 2020: Maya Schenwar
Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law's "Prison By Any Other Name" questions the inefficacies of the scant alternatives of prisons.
View ArticleLit 50: Who Really Books In Chicago 2020
This year, we focus on writers who contribute to the growing body of American letters and critical thought across genres.
View ArticleOne Recommendation: August 2020
In lieu of the regularly scheduled events we are sharing six books due for August 2020 release.
View ArticleA Jolt in the Gut: An Interview with Xandria Phillips
Xandria Phillips is a poet, educator, visual artist and an extremely generous mentor.
View ArticleLosing a Mother: A Review of Natasha Trethewey’s Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s...
After Natasha Trethewey's widely celebrated poetry collections and her first nonfiction book "Beyond Katrina," "Memorial Drive" documents that difficult terrain of losing her mother, who was brutally...
View ArticleAn Abiding Seriousness: A Review of American Gun: A Poem by 100 Chicagoans
This collection is as much an experiment in communal response as it is a poem.
View ArticleOpening Into The World: An Interview with Rachel Swearingen
Rachel Swearingen's debut short story collection "How to Walk on Water" is a slim collection of nine stories that approaches its characters with a matter of fact sensibility. Swearingen, a professor at...
View ArticleA Chicago Detective Story : A Review of Danny Gardner’s Ace Boon Coon
"Ace Boon Coon," Danny Gardner’s second book in "The Tales of Elliot Caprice" series, is a detective novel is set in 1950s Chicagoland, containing all the elements of a satisfying noir.
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