Interview: “His Darkest Shadow Self”—A Talk with Horror/Romance Author Rick R. Reed
Tell us a bit about yourself and your writing career. It’s hard for me to believe my writing “career” has been going on now for more than three decades. My […]
Dialogs: 2020 CHF Panel—A Scholarly Conversation on Author Elena Ferrante’s Transnational Appeal
The Chicago Humanities Festival recently hosted a conversation among Katherine Hill, Merve Emre, and translator Ann Goldstein, all scholars of elusive Italian novelist Elena Ferrante. The discussion is available to […]
Interview: Pigeon English: A Talk with Author Kathleen Rooney
Chicago writer Kathleen Rooney recently released her latest novel, Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey. A fictional retelling of the true story of World War I’s “Lost Battalion” (though mostly regarding […]
Review: Re-Animaniac: Dr. Herbert West & Astounding Tales of Medical Malpractice
Dr. Herbert West & Astounding Tales of Medical Malpractice By Bruce Brown and Thomas Boatwright Arcana Comics Howard Phillips Lovecraft was once a rare beast. Following a personal literary philosophy […]
Review: Byronic Heroines, Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know, by Samira Ahmed
Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know by Samira Ahmed Penguin Random House Reviewed by C.E. Archer-Helke I don’t often find a book that simultaneously transports me to the best parts […]
Book Review: Relentless, Raw Outrage, Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore
Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore Harper, 306 pages, $26.99 Elizabeth Wetmore’s Valentine, set in 1976 rural West Texas, is a novel of relentless and brutally raw outrage. A fury-filled howl of […]
Interview: “Wait for the Empire to Come Home.” We Talk With Michael Zapata on His Debut Novel
Michael Zapata is a founding editor of the award-winning MAKE Literary Magazine. He is the recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Award for Fiction; the City of Chicago DCASE Individual Artist Program […]
Book Review: Peace Talks, the Latest Installment of Dresden Files Holds Up, Even for Latecomers
Peace Talks By Jim Butcher Ace In the 16th installment of Chicago-based urban fantasy series The Dresden Files, wizard-for-hire Harry Dresden is tapped to work security for a treaty negotiation […]
Book Review: Keep It Clean—Cleanness by Garth Greenwell
Gospodine they call our narrator. “Master” or “sir” in Bulgarian, it’s a designation of authority from the students he teaches literature to at a high school in Sofia. What it […]
Book Review: The Problem of Being Female—Rodham: A Novel
Rodham: A Novel By Curtis Sittenfield Random House We think we should all know her by now. After decades in the limelight, Hillary Rodham Clinton remains, for many, an enigma. […]
Book Review: Gritty, Oppressive, but Not Ugly Enough, “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair Gets the Graphic Novel Treatment
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, adapted and illustrated by Kristina Gehrmann, translated by Ivanka Hahnenberger Ten Speed Press, 384 pages, $24.99 Kristina Gehrmann’s graphic novel version of Upton Sinclair’s 1906 […]
Beauty, Horror, and Waraq Dawali: Sahar Mustafah Reinvents the American Dream, Chicago-style, in Debut The Beauty of Your Face
After Afaf’s older sister disappears one night, their family is never the same. As her mother succumbs to mental illness and her father to alcoholism, Afaf struggles to come of […]