41
Moira Pujols
Executive Director, Contratiempo
As Executive Director of the city’s longest-running Spanish-language cultural and literary publication, Pujols has accomplished no mean feat—especially when you consider that Contratiempo runs on an almost entirely volunteer workforce. What began as a monthly magazine in 2003 grew into a multi-platform effort to navigate the Chicago Latin experience through literature. These days, the magazine is just a piece of the Contratiempo puzzle: the organization also runs Ediciones Vocesueltas, a Spanish-language press, sponsors an assortment of workshops and readings, and facilitates a discussion series. Together with DePaul and Northeastern Illinois, they also inaugurated Poesia en Abril, an annual Spanish poetry festival to celebrate National Poetry Month.
42
Jacob Knabb
Editor in Chief, Another Chicago Magazine
Under the direction of Jacob Knabb, Another Chicago Magazine (ACM) released its fiftieth issue this year, with a “Chicago” theme, in a response of sorts to the international Granta’s successful Chicago issue a year earlier. The longevity of this literary publication—thirty-three years—was celebrated with a release show curated in part by Knabb, who had recently formally assumed the editorship. Knabb has probably performed at every reading series in the city, even emceeing his own, “Nerves of Steel.” For those who have seen him, he is quite the character, especially when in his alter ego Harold Ray, who might just try to arm wrestle you. But hope it doesn’t get to that. This year ACM will begin using its imprint Left Field Press to publish books, with plans to issue two titles a year, one a pocket-sized book of fiction and the other a more artistic coffee-table companion.
Photo: Will Byington
43
Donald G. Evans
Executive Director, Chicago Literary Hall of Fame
Chicago’s got a National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame, a Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame—even a 16 Inch Softball Hall of Fame. Two years ago, however, the city had no organization dedicated exclusively to the city’s rich literary heritage. Enter Donald Evans, a well-known novelist and sportswriter. Inspired by the Irish—Dublin writers have their own museum, for god’s sake—Evans created the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame (CLHF) with the aim, in his words, of ensuring “eternal shelf life for the very best books.” Last November the inaugural class of ’10, including Gwendolyn Brooks, Richard Wright and Studs Terkel, was inducted in a ceremony organized by the Chicago Writers Association at Northeastern Illinois University. Since then, CLHF has found a permanent home at The Cliff Dwellers Club, and there are plans for a traveling exhibit. This year’s class of inductees includes Sherwood Anderson, Stanley Elkin and James T. Farrell.
44
Eric Miller
Publisher, Wicker Park Press
Since founding Wicker Park Press in 2002, Miller has overseen the expansion of the River Forest-based company from a local publisher to a national presence. Along the way, Wicker Park Press scored a number of hits like Becky Thacker’s 2003 “Amazon Girls Handbook” and Gene Logsdon’s 2007 “The Lords of Folly.” With the 2010 acquisition of Ashley Creek Books and 3iBooks, an amalgam of independent publishers from across the country, the publisher is set to branch out into non-fiction and self-improvement. Just released are famed Chicago author Harry Mark Petrakis’ “Cavafy’s Stone and Other Village Tales” and Joseph G. Peterson’s “Inside the Whale: A Novel in Verse.”
45
Arica Hilton
Board President, The Poetry Center
After a rocky couple of years—leadership changes, space constraints and something about a recession?—things are looking up for The Poetry Center. With a new space in the Chicago Cultural Center and climbing membership, the organization can focus on returning to its Ginsberg-era roots. According to Arica Hilton, that means striving “to promote poetry every way we possible can,” whether it’s bringing poets-in-residence into the public schools through “Hands on Stanzas” or managing a calendar of public readings. With the board managing what she calls “the curatorial side of things,” the art-dealer-cum-poetry crusader is determined to keep the center thriving, both artistically and fiscally. Partially supported by the sale of their trademark broadsides—top-tier paintings paired with topnotch poems—they’re taking full advantage of the new digs to host new workshops, adding programs like the upcoming “Write to Work” (designed to support the recently unemployed) to their standing roster of events and classes.
46
Jerry Cleaver
Founder, The Writers’ Loft
A literary sage for legions of Chicago authors, Jerry Cleaver has taught courses on the art of writing out of his Wrigleyville home for twenty years. His workshop, known as The Writers’ Loft, is probably the best-known writing lab in the city, enrolling 150 students annually and claims the likes of Michael Harvey and bestselling author Linda Lael Miller among its alums. With his “Write What You Know” online courses, Cleaver now brings his methods to an international audience, and his best-known book, “Immediate Fiction,” is a classic in the field of creative writing.
47
Robbie Q. Telfer
Co-founder and co-curator, The Encyclopedia Show
Robbie Q. Telfer seems to have a hand in almost everything the city has to offer when it comes to slam poetry. A regular at slam staples like Mental Graffiti and the Green Mill’s Uptown Poetry Slam, Telfer is also Director of Performances for Young Chicago Authors and head organizer of the Louder Than A Bomb teen poetry festival. Unlike many slam poets who come to verse by way of hip-hop, Telfer’s roots are in stand-up comedy. His humorous stylings lend themselves perfectly to the reading series/sketch comedy revue The Encyclopedia Show, a monthly riff written by local writers on a subject randomly selected from the encyclopedia. Since Telfer created the show in 2008, it has become the most talked about reading series in the city, picking up an Orgie Theatre Award last year.
48
Sarah Dodson
Director, Make Literary Productions and Managing Director, Story Week
If there’s ever been a good time to launch a literary magazine, you might argue that now isn’t it. But with the release of its eleventh issue just around the corner, MAKE is more than surviving—it’s thriving. At the center of it all is Sarah Dodson, one of the troika of MAKE co-founders, managing editor of the magazine, and the current executive director of Make Literary Productions, the nonprofit umbrella that’s grown up around the biannual print journal. Six years ago, she explains, Dodson and her compatriots set out to create “a literary art object in pursuit of a thematic vision,” and since then, the venture has only gathered steam. In addition to overseeing the publication of magazine, (the newly revamped website is set to officially debut this summer), Dodson is at work plotting “Make Due,” a new city-wide event series—and if her recent success as Managing Director of Columbia College’s writerpalooza Story Week is any indication, it’ll be an event series to remember.
49
Kevin Whiteley
Editor in Chief/CEO, Criminal Class Press
Criminal Class Press is as punk rock as literature gets. Wayne White, aka Kevin Whiteley, is one of the founders of the press, which since 2008 has released seven issues of the Criminal Class Review. The publication, which gives a voice to what he dubs “literary outlaws,” was originally pitched as a record label. Makes sense, since he runs it like one, embarking on the road to tour with the mag and including musician writers. Their upcoming July edition, the “Prison” issue, will feature inmate writers from San Quentin’s H-unit and will be guest-edited by Kent and Keith Zimmerman, bestselling authors who teach creative writing at the penitentiary.
50
Nell Taylor
Founder and executive director of the Chicago Underground Library
It’s one thing to create a cool literary organization, but it’s quite another to virtually hoist the thing on your back and rescue it from the literal and metaphorical flood waters, as Nell Taylor has done with her baby, the Chicago Underground Library. And though the organization has faced more than its fair share of obstacles related to its itinerant state, it’s also managed to build a national reputation for innovation and a local one for creative deployment of its resources. And when she’s not performing her duties here or at her day job, Taylor finds time to be a major player with the Printers Ball and the Dil Pickle Club.
Click here to visit Lit 50 2010, which focused on the authors and artists
June 2nd, 2011 at 1:27 pm
Dear Chicago Poetry Scene,
Once again (days before the Printers Row Lit Fest) it is that one time of the year that anyone I know cares about what that little free magazine that you line your bird cages with, New City, has to say. I’m sure everyone on the “Lit 50: Who Really Books in Chicago 2011″ list is fully deserving in their own way, and I’m not trying to take anything away from them, but my criticism will upset some of them regardless and they will continue to treat my work as being trivial. Who cares; what else is new?
This year’s Lit 50 is simply a generic list of just about every editor, publisher, bookstore owner, academic chair and organizational head that the folks at New City could think of. It is a list of 47 Caucasians, two African Americans (and if you guessed the obvious, Haki Madhubuti and Quraysh Ali Lansana, you’re right), and one single Latino / Hispanic (Moira Pujols of Contratiempo). I find it especially shocking that Erika Hilton of Poetry Center of Chicago–an organization that has barely hosted a half dozen events in the last three years–is included on this list, but Kimberly Dixon of Guild Complex–an organization that for decades has consistently sponsored lit programming, including a monthly bilingual poetry series–is not included on the list. It couldn’t be that a few years back, the previous chair of the Guild criticized the very same list for not being inclusive, could it? Of course it could! And the fact that I’ve never been included on the list couldn’t date back some eighteen years to when the publication I worked for, Letter eX criticized New City, could it? Well, let me stop there unless Ray Bianchi accuses me of being nothing but a self promoting hack again. Instead, let’s look at what is on the list.
The New City list is a clear representation of how Chicago’s lit scene has been gentrified and whitewashed. It is truly a racist list that concentrates entirely on an “industry” and ignores Chicago’s neighborhoods and grassroots scene. It’s not surprising that, in the opening statement, The Poetry Foundation is hailed in a paragraph that begins with the word “power.” “Not only can we claim Poetry magazine, the premier publication of its kind anywhere, but its wealthy sibling the Poetry Foundation will open a whole building dedicated to the form later this month,” New City says. As an afterthought, it continues, “Plus, this is the town that created the Poetry Slam as well as Louder Than a Bomb, the largest teen slam anywhere.”
The new “power players” in today’s lit scene love to throw the poetry slam a bone once in a while, because they recognize the “power” that the slam has, but if you want to know what the “powers that be” truly think of the slam, just look at their list. Out of 50 people who “really book” in Chicago, two of them might be looked at as representing the slam (if you guessed the obvious, Kevin Coval and Robbie Q. Telfter, you’re right). In the year that the Poetry Slam is celebrating its 25th anniversary, even Marc Smith himself is not worthy of being on that list. The opening paragraph to this list can be translated as follows: we have a two hundred million dollar foundation now that supports the academic, downtown Chicago scene, so we don’t need the rest of you jerks and we won’t even pretend to be diverse or inclusive anymore. In case you didn’t get it the first time, to shove that message home, who is number one on the list of people who really book in Chicago? An author of a bestselling title? Someone who has worked diligently and selflessly as a volunteer for decades? Why, no, of course not, it’s John Barr, ex-Wall Street mogul who once did work for Enron, who was hired to manage the Poetry Foundation not because he “books” (in fact one of his books of poetry was even criticized as being racist) but because he knows how to manage large sums of money (and probably spends quite a bit of it buying advertising from publications like New City). And if two nods to the Poetry Foundation weren’t enough, Christian Wiman (Barr’s editor) and Fred Sazaki (Barr’s Printer’s Ball man) are both on the list as well!
Look. I tried to warn the poetry community about how the Poetry Foundation as well as the recent City’s “Chicago Publishes” (presently planning to showcase the “new Chicago style” of poetry at the Cultural Center) were threatening to whitewash the poetry scene. And instead of working together to keep the grassroots poetry scene alive, a lot of poets were simply played and were convinced to attack me for speaking my mind. And look at what we have now. Do you see the Guild Complex on the list? Do you see the Neighborhood Writers’ Alliance on the list? Proyecta Latina? How about you big shots from Waiting 4 The Bus or the Poets Club of Chicago or even Puddin’head Press–are any of you guys on the list? Where’s the gay/lesbian presses on the list for that matter? Where is anyone that represents the world of online publishing (other than Dan Sinker’s fictional twitter handle @MayorEmanuel). But, gee, Donald G. Evans, who last year compared the Chicago Poetry Fest to “a backyard barbecue” when I told him I couldn’t afford to pay $45 to attend the Lit Hall of Fame–he made it on the list. And Dominique Raccah, who runs a publishing house located in Naperville, she’s even on Chicago’s list.
So, I hate to say I told you so, but I TOLD YOU SO!
Never silent,
CJ Laity
June 2nd, 2011 at 2:24 pm
Don’t be such a whiny bitch, CJ.
June 2nd, 2011 at 3:49 pm
Hey CJ, remember when you got pissed at a mostly black college performance poetry organization for not being inclusive enough of white people poets in 2010? Congrats on being consistently the most butthurt and hypocritical writer in Chicago. No wonder you don’t get on these lists — you do a fantastic job at isolating everybody, from “grassroots” communities to “white people” poets.
June 2nd, 2011 at 5:57 pm
CJ Laity,
On one hand…?”Planning kills literature too – the formation of cliques, the guild system, in-house criticism which writes ‘a few warm lines’ about the in-house sacred cow.” Kornél Esti by Kosztolányi Dezs?
On the other…Of course, it is clear that you were trying to address the issue that business often determines the arch of publishing and that minority writers, organizers, and publishers are often underrepresented. As a latino, but not a “latino” educator or writer, I think it’s a valid and necessary point; however, instead of truly addressing the issue in a meaningful way, you spent quite some word space falling for old-school identity politics and handing out personalized disses to people on a non-authoritative and non-canonical list – people who are generally working hard to entertain and/or promote literature in Chicago, something the city needs since the publishing industry here went flat decades ago and since Chicago is a model that many, many cities look to.
A lesson could be learned here by the great Latin American writers Ernesto Sabato and Roberto Bolaño, writers who for the majority of their lives were never silent but still stood outside of any lists or mentions (in societies, by the way, that promoted literature through fascists organizations and through a fascist statehood, literally). They continually assaulted the status quo and literary organizations, but they did so thoughtfully and with near perfect aim. There is no need to point fingers at specific people when you have the entire world of literature at your disposal.
I
June 2nd, 2011 at 8:27 pm
I have no idea what ‘black college performance’ anonymous is talking about and suggest that anonymous person should stop making shit up that isn’t true. Here’s a link to a slightly rewritten version of the editorial, every word of which I stand by whole-heartedly.
http://chicagopoetry.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1470
June 3rd, 2011 at 12:50 am
In days when the world at large doesn’t seem to care about poetry, I’m happy that Newcity took the time to put this story together. I’m also glad that there’s so much going on in Chicago that it is impossible to capture the richness and diversity of publishers, editors and organizational leaders, and poets here in a Lit 50 list.
I also think that if there are others you believe should be on this list but aren’t, then it is your responsibility to do everything within your power to promote or otherwise help them make a loud enough roar that leaving them off a list like this would be insane.
This is a poetry city. It should always be about the poetry.
June 3rd, 2011 at 4:47 am
When you care about writing, you care about getting quotes right. Please check you copy of Carl Sandburg’s poems. It is “City of THE Big Shoulders,” not “City of Big Shoulders.”
June 3rd, 2011 at 4:34 pm
hey, where’s Becky Anderson?
June 3rd, 2011 at 8:05 pm
How could you include Reginald Gibbons on your list? Everyone knows that he was largely responsible for the destruction of Northwestern’s TriQuarterly literary magazine – one of the premier literary magazines in the country – and replacing it with a student run website under his control, to the DETRIMENT of the literary community.
June 4th, 2011 at 2:16 pm
I´m very proud of your work and results. Keep it coming Moira Pujols!
June 7th, 2011 at 6:53 pm
[...] to those who made the list, but to all who make Chicago a great place for literature. See the full Lit50 List at New City‘s website. Posted on June 7, 2011 by MAKE | Leave a comment ← [...]
September 26th, 2011 at 3:14 pm
Oh, it’s another CJ Laity crybaby action. keep doing what you’re doing, New City and ignore Laity, who believes he is king of all poetry.