I didn’t know who Camille Bordas was until last summer, when her novel How To Behave in a Crowd was published. I learned she was a Chicago resident, and friends […]

Whatever happened to melodrama? A hero, a villain, a damsel in distress—a histrionic trinity entangled over late rent payments, potentially besmirched honor, and the inevitable train track bondage scene. Well, […]

In her debut novel The Window, Amelia Brunskill tells the story of Jess Cutter, a Montanan girl whose twin sister Anna is found dead below her bedroom window. Jess—as thoughtful, […]

  I wish I could describe Edward McClelland in legendary terms—it would be so damned apropos. I’d tell you he’s as tall as a redwood, as strong as a herd […]

Volume three of the Paper Girls graphic novel continues the story of four young newspaper delivery girls from Stony Stream, Cleveland, circa 1988, and their adventure across the past, future, […]

Joan Wilking’s prose is breezy even though the material is heavy. Her first book Mycology is the winner of the 2016 Wild Onion Novella Prize bestowed by Chicago publisher Curbside Splendor. […]

“I think about that a lot.  How if you are a bird, your nest is home.  Absolutely everything else is the world.  You stick out a wing, and there you […]

I’ve liked George Saunders’ since I read his short story collection Pastoralia as a freshman in college. I’d never read anything like it. There was a historical re-enactment theme park, […]

Mookie and J.C., two black boys from the South Side of Chicago, find the body of a notorious gangster in an alley. It’s the 1960s, and while heroin hasn’t yet […]

Najeeb’s childhood dream was to become a goatherd. His dream comes true, but in the form a nightmare. Benyamin’s Goat Days follows the twisted turns of Najeeb’s life. First published in […]

Illusions of Magic: Love and Intrigue in 1933 Chicago resurrects three little-known aspects of history: the 1933 assassination attempt on Franklin D. Roosevelt that killed Chicago mayor Anton Cermak, the […]

At exactly 5 p.m. on October 18th I hustled out of my office so I could get across town in time to attend a reading. Most of the readings I […]