Writers Heather Corinna and Kimberly Dark got together to discuss recent writing, menopause, body image, and more this summer while west coast resident Kimberly was in Chicago visiting her son and his family. The pandemic made it difficult for them to host a public event, so they decided to share their conversation with Reader readers. […]
Category: Lit Feature
Posted inArts & Culture
The crossroads that made Chicago
Conceptually, the words “Chicago, Wisconsin” are sure to baffle almost anyone reading them today. The idea that Illinois’s metropolis (and the nation’s third-largest city) could somehow be a part of the Dairy State seems laughable. Too bound to the long and sordid annals of Illinois politics, despite at times feeling a million miles away from […]
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From World’s Fair to living rooms
To cover Chicago theater is to carry a ghost map in one’s head of all the lost spaces. Some buildings are gone (or nearly gone) altogether, like the original Goodman Theatre at the Art Institute, or the Jane Addams Hull House Center on Broadway at Belmont, which at various points housed Steppenwolf, Bailiwick Repertory, Famous […]
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Race, fate, and sisterhood on the south side
“My earliest memory of myself is of my sister. My earliest understanding of my world comes from three women—my mother, grandmother, and aunt.” In her new memoir Three Girls From Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Story of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood, Dawn Turner turns her journalistic eye toward her own story, one she weaves as inextricable […]
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Lit this month
September brings us a bevy of book-related, word-inspired, and otherwise literary events. Here’s a few to pencil into your calendar. The Paper Machete has returned to its performance home in Uptown at the Green Mill, to the delight of fans. The organizers describe it as a “weekly live magazine,” and while comedians are regularly featured, […]
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PopCultivator wants to lead comic book creators in the right direction
The new crowdfunded business specializes in matching comic book creators with publishers.
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In this house, we live online
Mount Prospect’s Mallory Smart, who publishes the online journal Maudlin House, has a new book coming out from Trident Press this year.
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Keiler Roberts finds calm in the chaos with My Begging Chart
The artist’s new collection of autobiographical comics looks at the highs and lows of everyday life with humor and lightness.
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Nina Barrett vs. Amazon
The owner of Evanston’s Bookends & Beginnings is taking on the retail giant in an effort to save independent bookstores.
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What are human rights to the incarcerated?
Two books explore the creativity of people in prison while highlighting their lack of access to basic necessities.
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Casanova at the Corner Bar
An excerpt from Dmitry Samarov’s Old Style, an illustrated book set in Chicago bars
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Almost 100 years after her death, Nellie Bly is back
Chicago writer and theater artist David Blixt uncovers a trove of previously unpublished novels by the original Lois Lane.
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According to Dr. Devon Price, Laziness Does Not Exist
The Loyola psychology professor dismantles the “Laziness Lie.”
Posted inArts & Culture
The ten best Chicago books of 2020
Add these stories rooted in the city to your reading list.