Posted inArts & Culture

StoryStudio turns 20

From a few folding chairs and four students at its very first class to today’s 1,600-square-foot space in Ravenswood—plus online everywhere—and more than 1,400 students, StoryStudio Chicago aims to be a positive, encouraging, and craft-centered storytelling community in the city. That’s the motivation behind founder Jill Pollack creating the local literary nonprofit, which is celebrating […]

Posted inLit Feature

Scary stuff is academic

The monsters under your bed are subject to peer review. Since 2018, the University of Wales Press has published the Horror Studies series, a collection of academic writings on the horror genre.  Distributed by the University of Chicago Press, the series presents such scholarly titles as Theorising the Contemporary Zombie: Contextual Pasts, Presents, and Futures; […]

Posted inArts & Culture

Festival “Lit & Luz” ofrece una visión para la revisión

Centrado en el lenguaje, la literatura y el arte, el festival Lit & Luz, reúne a escritores, artistas visuales y músicos de México y Estados Unidos en un claro esfuerzo por fomentar el intercambio cultural. Los resultados artísticos de estas experiencias interculturales—desde la poesía hasta la fotografía y demás—se presentan luego a través de una […]

Posted inLit Feature

Living on luck

Westley Heine never dreamed of singing for change on the streets of Chicago but life sometimes offers only stark choices. Getting by as a musician, artist, or writer is uphill barefoot through snowdrifts on a good day. Add a recession, a relationship going sour, some substance abuse, and a generous helping of self-doubt and few […]

Posted inArts & Culture

Fast times at North Shore Magnet High

Journalist, playwright, screenwriter, theater critic, arts editor, and novelist Adam Langer was born in Chicago, grew up in West Rogers Park, went to school in Evanston, and spent the early part of his career here writing and editing for various Chicago publications, including the Reader, Inside Chicago, Book Magazine, and the alternative music magazine Subnation. […]

Posted inArts & Culture

They Call Us and we answer back

Twenty-three-year-old Morgan Kail-Ackerman was catcalled three separate times near Fullerton in Lincoln Park. “Fuck you lady,” “Bitch,” and a familiar, cringeworthy wolf whistle accompanied her walk near DePaul University. As she held the door open for a man at Lou Malnati’s, she was objectified. “He thought that because I opened the door for him, he […]

Posted inLit Feature

Let’s get lit

Here are some book-related, word-inspired, and otherwise literary Chicago events to help kick off 2022. Each event is open to the public, but registration or tickets might be required (and you’ll want to support the writers by buying their books!).  Wed 1/19, 6:30 PM: City Lit Books co-presents its regular Poetry Salon in an online […]

Posted inArts & Culture

The best Chicago books of 2021

Every year, I wonder if Chicago’s literary renaissance will ever start to ebb. No city can keep this up forever, right? But just like last year and the year before, dozens of new fiction, nonfiction, and poetry books by Chicagoans garnered national acclaim in 2021. In no particular order, here are my favorite Chicago books […]

Posted inArts & Culture

The scene report from space

Elaborate hologram displays. A satellite planet. A mysterious deity. On the surface, Lane Milburn’s rollicking sci-fi graphic novel Lure doesn’t have much to do with Chicago. But Milburn drew inspiration from his old neighborhood, his punk band, his friends, and his near-decade living in the city. Lure takes place on an alternate earth, orbited by […]