Author Archives: Zoe Zolbrod

Genesis 19, the story of the salvation of Lot from the fire and brimstone rained down by the Lord upon Sodom and Gomorrah, has long been a cornerstone of conservative arguments against homosexuality. God despised the sexual immorality of the wicked citizenry, runs the refrain, and thus destroyed them all, sparing only the righteous. But […]

In January 2000, when Susan Aurinko resolved to open a gallery, she expected to spend the next year preparing a business plan and lining up artists. But when the right West Loop space presented itself a month later she grabbed it and hit the ground running, hosting Flatfile Photography Gallery’s first opening that April. “I […]

Tammy Cresswell entered Columbia College in 1996, but she forwent the typical four-year march through required classes to a degree. Pursuing her interest in ethnology, she traveled to Kenya for the summer of 1998 to work with women farmers. She extended her stay in Africa by six weeks, and then in the fall went to […]

Gwenan Wilbur was working at the literary journal TriQuarterly when she began volunteering at Chicago Women’s Health Center. The 20-year-old nonprofit collective in Lakeview had been founded in 1975 by members of the pre-Roe v. Wade underground abortion service known as Jane; it offered gynecological and obstetric care as well as counseling, education, and outreach […]

Six years ago writer Stacey Levine was living in Seattle and temping to make ends meet. One afternoon she came home from her first day at a data-entry assignment to find a message from the temp agency on the answering machine. “This woman was saying, ‘Stacey, do not go back to Northern Life Insurance. Repeat: […]

Paula Kamen turned in the final manuscript for her book Her Way last November, but signs of the project still dominate her small apartment. Research alone on the forthcoming book, which documents young women’s attitudes about sex, took two years, and Kamen’s mantel is stacked with cardboard boxes full of notebooks and tapes from interviews […]

Writer Alex Shakar ran into a picket line while on his way to give a reading in New Haven last month. People were protesting against the Atticus bookstore’s recent firing of a woman for wearing nose rings. “Every leather-clad, dreadlocked bohemian in New Haven was there,” says Shakar. “They were carrying signs that said ‘Atticus […]

When Cris Mazza’s second collection of short fiction, Is It Sexual Harassment Yet?, was reviewed in the Wall Street Journal, she received a call from a radio station wanting to interview her. Once someone at the station finally read the book, however, they canceled the interview. They were looking for actual victims of sexual harassment, […]

“Welcome, welcome!” says Truong Anh-Tuan as customers enter New Saigon, the Vietnamese restaurant he owns at Argyle and Broadway. “Please!” Anh-Tuan gestures for them to sit down. Then he moves from table to table, making sure everyone is happy. Today he’s even more animated than usual, as his thoughts are focused on the upcoming celebration […]