By John Wawrzaszek

Chicago proclaims print is not dead. Annual events like the Chicago Zine Fest (March 8-9) and the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo, or “CAKE,” (June 15-16) are evidence of the growing local support for Chicago’s self-publishing community. The latest to join the cause is the University of Chicago Library, as they present “My Life is an Open Book: DIY Autobiography,” an exhibition focusing on woman self-publishers from Chicago.

The university’s library has been actively collecting zines and self-published materials for their catalog. “We were very excited by their diversity and how alive they feel,” says Sarah Wenzel, bibliographer for Literatures of Europe & the Americas at the university. “We thought other people would like to see the artistry, writing and variety of the collection.” And that is exactly what you can expect from the exhibit. Local self-publishers and artists are featured on display, ranging from personal zines to mini-comics. Read the rest of this entry »

Top 5 Fiction Titles of 2012
“Telegraph Avenue” by Michael Chabon
“NW” by Zadie Smith
“This Is How You Lose Her” by Junot Diaz
“Beautiful Ruins” by Jess Walter
“Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn
—Naomi Huffman

Top 5 Books of 2012
“NW” by Zadie Smith
“A Hologram for the King” by Dave Eggers
“The Age of Miracles” by Karen Thompson Walker
“HHhH” by Laurent Binet
“Treasure Island!!!” by Sara Levine
—Kelly Roark

Top 5 Fiction Releases of 2012
“This Is How You Lose Her” by Junot Diaz
“A Hologram for the King” by Dave Eggers
“The Age of Miracles” by Karen Thompson Walker
“Hope: A Tragedy” by Shalom Auslander
“NW” by Zadie Smith
—Eric Lutz Read the rest of this entry »

Francesco Levato

By Alli Carlisle

We’ve all said it: a poetry degree just isn’t what it used to be. That’s why Chicago poet Francesco Levato started his own poetry school.

Levato is himself an avant-garde poet whose work draws on cinematic and documentary techniques—in his own words, “engages subject matter through disruption of content and form, fragmentation of narrative and radical juxtaposition of visual and textual elements.” His poems, truly products of postmodern culture, sample: they collect, cut and redistribute pieces of other poems into new configurations. One long work, “Aura,” makes a fragmented, haunting dialogue of pieces of Robert Browning’s and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poems. A significant part of Levato’s work is something called cinépoetry, a kind of collaged videographic poetry that does with footage what his other work does with language. Levato also translates, a kind of work vitally connected to his poetic work, which involves so much transformation of extant materials into new forms. Read the rest of this entry »

Mare Swallow

After writing a business book in 2010, local consultant and speaker Mare Swallow searched for a writing conference in Chicago to meet publishing professionals, and gain some advice on the business side of writing. But she discovered that, despite being an active literary city, Chicago offered no such conference.

“I looked and looked and looked, but there was nothing like that,” Swallow says. “So I created it.”

Funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign (for which Chicago’s own OK Go gave the rights to use their music), the first annual Chicago Writers Conference (CWC) will be held September 14-16 at the Tribune Tower. While local festivals like Printers Row Lit Fest (a CWC partner) and Columbia College’s Story Week tend to focus on visiting authors and the writing process, the CWC seeks to fill a gap by shining the spotlight on networking, querying, publishing and promotion for writers of all genres. Read the rest of this entry »

By Greg Baldino

On July 24, a party was held in the lobby of the Inland Steel Building to celebrate the launch of “Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury” on Chicago soil. The book, edited by Bradbury biographer Sam Weller and polymath Mort Castle, had officially debuted at the San Diego Comic Con with contributors Margaret Atwood and Joe Hill, but on that Tuesday the book’s Midwestern roots were trumpeted. On hand were the editors themselves, proud as parents, as well as a roster of Chicago and Midwest literary talent: Joe Meno, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Audrey Niffenegger, Jay Bonansinga and Bayo Ojikutu—all of whom had penned original stories for the volume.

Nursing one of several beers enjoyed that night (less for the alcoholic buzz than for something cold to wipe across my brow in the summer heat), I was surprised to see an artist friend in the audience. They’d walked in off the street, believing the party to be a reception for the collection of local club posters that decorated the space. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Faith Choi

Women are 5.3 times more likely to appear naked in a book than be paid to work on one, according to research by comics scholar and author Anne Elizabeth Moore.

Moore wants to improve the depiction of women in comics, and to create more opportunities for women in comics. For the two weeks leading up to the first Chicago Alternative Comics Convention (CAKE), she put on the second year of the Adventure School for Ladies comics intensive, a small collaborative program open to applicants of all genders that hosted eight individuals this year. Read the rest of this entry »

Laura Park

The shape of things to come in the burgeoning Chicago independent comics scene will come into focus when the first-ever Chicago Alternative Comics Expo, C.A.K.E., hits town this month. The organizing committee has planned a two-day festival to host discussions, foster community and, of course, showcase independent comics. Read the rest of this entry »

Finishing the Lit 50 is always such a bittersweet ending for me. What starts out as such a pleasure of discovery—Chicago’s literary world now has more than 200 published writers!—ends in the sorrow of having to leave so many worthy names off the list. We do our best to reflect the sum of our knowledge and reporting, to add in diversity of style, medium and genre, and to constantly introduce new players to the mix. But we know that, in the end, many choices might appear capricious, that for every worthy individual honored, two have been overlooked. A day later, after the lingering effects of sleep, sunlight and exercise deprivation and an overdose of junk food and energy drinks abates, I know we’ll return to where we started: overjoyed at the growing literary abundance of our city.

Careful readers will remember that we alternate lists each year, between the behind-the-scenes influencers and the on-the-page creators; this year belongs to the latter. Which is why you won’t see represented the two most talked-about new endeavors in literary Chicago: J.C. Gabel’s magnificent revival of The Chicagoan, and Elizabeth Taylor’s noble undertaking, Printers Row. We are confidently hopeful, or perhaps hopefully confident, that they’ll still be around to have their day a year from now. (Brian Hieggelke)

Lit 50 was written by Greg Baldino, Ella Christoph, Brian Hieggelke, Naomi Huffman and Micah McCrary. See previous years here.
Read the rest of this entry »

Baby, It's Cold Outside

By Nikki Dolson

I asked some of my favorite authors for their favorite summer song. Though all the choices were surprising, Lawrence Block’s made me laugh out loud.

Megan Abbott (author of “Queenpin,” “The End of Everything,” “Dare Me”)
“Abducted” by The Cults

Josh Bazell (author of “Beat the Reaper” and “Wild Thing”)
“Summer in the City” by the Lovin’ Spoonful

Stacy Bierlein (author of “A Vacation on the Island of Ex-Boyfriends”)
“You Oughta Know” by Alanis Morissette
1995. I had planned to spend the first week of summer driving from Chicago to San Francisco to help my best friend move in with her boyfriend, but days before the trip the call came—they had broken up. Another friend offered his vacant apartment in New York as the cry-it-out hideaway so we set off east instead of west but too fed up to cry as we listed all the reasons she broke up with her jerk and I should break up with mine. We hit the Midtown tunnel at 3pm on a Friday and I told her, This gridlocked tunnel is no place for the brokenhearted. She hated the word brokenhearted so she gave me a look and blasted the radio and there it was, Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know,” the first time we heard it yet somehow we knew all the words. Read the rest of this entry »

By Naomi Huffman

“Poetry is an important thing,” says local slam poet, story-teller and writer J.W. Basilo. “People are often not aware that poetry—and performance poetry specifically—is an absolutely viable and entertaining art form.” Basilo is the artistic director for Chicago Slam Works’ 2012 season, which kicks off on April 3rd with its show, “Two Sides.” Basilo has represented Chicago at four National Poetry Slam Championships and was a finalist in both the 2007 Individual World Poetry Slam and the 2009 National Underground Poetry Individual Championship. He has also published his own chapbook and released four full-length spoken word albums.

Basilo has worked with Chicago Slam Works, which has held three National Poetry Slam Championships and celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary last year, since its inception. And according to Basilo, this is a season like none before it. “What we’re doing with this season specifically is combining performance poetry with other art forms, whether that be dance or story-telling or drama. We’re working poetry in as a way to show people poetry is an absolutely engaging thing to see. This is really heightening the game.” Read the rest of this entry »