Reformer on Reformer: Leigh Buchanan Bienen Documents the Legacy of Crusader...
By Amy Friedman “After a few months in Chicago, Florence Kelley’s soft-voiced but electric style of public speaking, as well as her magnetic personality and her demonstrated commitment, made her...
View ArticleNonfiction Review: “My Florence: A 70-Year Love Story” by Art Shay
RECOMMENDED Chicago photographer Art Shay—the same man who photographed royalty, presidents, sports figures and historical moments like the 1968 Democratic Convention—now presents us with a collection...
View ArticleSeven Minutes and Semi-Drunk: Write Club Brings Bare-Knuckled Lit Brawls to...
By Adrienne Gunn Write Club, Chicago’s pre-eminent storytelling brawl that pits two writers with opposing themes against one another in front of a live audience, has collected its funniest and most...
View ArticleThe War At Home: Emily Gray Tedrowe’s “Blue Stars” Explores the Lives of...
“Blue Stars,” the new novel by Chicagoan Emily Gray Tedrowe, presents us with an original prism through which to view the complexities of military life. As the sister of a military man herself, Tedrowe...
View ArticleUnderstanding Human Performance: Sian Beilock Investigates “How the Body...
By Toni Nealie I struggle to write when I sit at my desk for too long. My students freeze when stressed. Chicagoans pine for sun in winter. “How the Body Knows Its Mind” resonated with me because it...
View ArticleTales out of School: Relevancy and Change in Columbia College’s Annual Story...
By Kim Steele For a literary festival like Columbia College’s Story Week to remain relevant for nineteen years is quite an accomplishment. This year, it succeeded once again by emphasizing the...
View ArticleFiction Review: “I Will Love You for the Rest of My Life: Breakup Stories” by...
RECOMMENDED Breakup stories, as a genre, have become as clichéd and overdone as their inverse, love stories. Dear John/Jane letters, lipstick-smudged collars, and clothes piled up and doused with...
View ArticleNonfiction Review: Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter...
RECOMMENDED The reason I know a smidgen about comics: I hang out with a lot of geeks. Feminist, sex-positive, queer-friendly geeks. They told me the backstory of Wonder Woman’s creator, William...
View ArticleFiction Review: “Jillian” by Halle Butler
RECOMMENDED Halle Butler’s debut novel “Jillian” is the story of two ordinary, unhappy women stuck in lives they did not anticipate. Megan is a twenty-four-year-old working in a gastroenterology office...
View ArticleLarger Than Life: Scott Blackwood Discusses His Novel “See How Small”
By Christine Sneed Evanston-based fiction writer Scott Blackwood’s new novel, “See How Small,” has been garnering the kind of reviews that writers dream of, along with notices from esteemed writers...
View ArticleFiction Review: “Visions of Anna” by Richard Engling and “She Plays in...
RECOMMENDED Each artistic endeavor, to one degree or another, symbolizes a quest for immortality. The tragic irony, of course, is that most art does not survive. For every Shakespeare play taught in...
View ArticleClowes Encounter: Talking Comics and Chicago with Cartoonist Daniel Clowes
By Ray Pride An early spring afternoon a few days ago along Milwaukee Avenue, south of North, east of Damen, so far removed from the Wicker Park of the 1990s: I pause in front of Myopic Books, still...
View ArticlePleasure, Art, Ambition: Christine Sneed Discusses Her New Novel, “Paris, He...
By Toni Nealie Making art is tough, whether you are a writer, a musician or a visual artist. It’s hard to keep going when there are bills to pay if you are not gaining traction in your career. How do...
View ArticleFiction Review: “Principles of Navigation” by Lynn Sloan
RECOMMENDED Chicago photographer Lynn Sloan’s debut novel, “Principles of Navigation,” opens with a photograph, a crystallized moment at Rolly and Alice Becotte’s wedding: “We are perfect here, aren’t...
View ArticleComedy, Tragedy and Combatting the Ultimate Void: Aleksandar Hemon Discusses...
By Amy Danzer Aleksandar Hemon brings the funny in his new novel, “The Making of Zombie Wars.” After giving us “The Question of Bruno,” “Nowhere Man,” “The Lazarus Project,” “Love and Obstacles,” and...
View ArticleNonfiction Review: “Drawn From Water—An American Poet, An Ethiopian Family,...
RECOMMENDED The search for identity is always fraught, involving questions that the seeker does not even know to ask at the start of the journey. Dina Elenbogen finds this out firsthand in her new book...
View ArticleFiction Review: “The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins” By Irvine Welsh
RECOMMENDED When we can’t stop stuffing our faces with junk, drinking more than we should, wasting hours on end in front of the TV or computer screen, staying in that dead-end job, or continuing to...
View ArticleNonfiction Review: “A City Called Heaven, Chicago and the Birth of Gospel...
RECOMMENDED “A City Called Heaven, Chicago and the Birth of Gospel Music,” is a thoroughly researched, dynamic account of gospel music’s history in Chicago over five decades, from the 1920s through the...
View ArticleFiction Review: “On the Way” by Cyn Vargas
Cyn Vargas’ debut short-story collection, “On the Way,” insistently taps familiar themes: abandonment, loneliness, secrets, blossoming womanhood. The fathers are always gone, the secrets are never...
View ArticleWhat We Talk About When We Talk About The Humanities: Twenty-Four Hours of...
DePaul University is hosting a twenty-four-hour marathon reading of every book George Saunders has published to precede his lecture titled, “Why the Humanities? Why Art?” The event, organized by H....
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