Review: Don’t Stay Where You’re Not Wanted, Bliss Montage, by Ling Ma
Don’t stay where you’re not wanted. In Ling Ma’s short story collection Bliss Montage, her characters learn this the hard way. Or at least, some of them do. These eight […]
Interview: Feeling Beatific—Jerry Cimino of the Beat Museum/Beatmobile
Jerry and Estelle Cimino are on the road, spreading the Beat Gospel to the world. As founders of the Beat Museum in San Francisco, they’ve made a mission of keeping […]
Review: Lynn Sloan’s Midstream Carries Readers on a Cinematic Tour de Force
Unlike the turbulent 1970s she lives in, Polly Wainwright is determined to be calm, competent, and professional. She’s got a boyfriend making a name for himself as a war correspondent […]
Review: Making Friends With a Poet, The Poet’s House, by Jean Thompson
Carla Sawyer is a tall, smart-alecky 21-year-old who’s working for a landscaping company until she figures out what to do with her life. She’s on a job in one of […]
Review: Wildly Contorted and Reimagined: Don’t Make Me Do Something We’ll Both Regret, by Tim Jones-Yelvington
In his story collection Don’t Make Me Do Something We’ll Both Regret, Chicagoan Tim Jones-Yelvington zestfully recasts gay men and boys in the central roles of a surprisingly wide array […]
Review: The Billboard, by Natalie Y. Moore
In this pivotal moment in the struggle for reproductive rights, Natalie Y. Moore’s The Billboard comes at a time when its message couldn’t be more relevant to the world today. […]
Review: The Mean Streets of the Near North Side, The Fabulous Clipjoint by Fredric Brown
The Fabulous Clipjoint By Fredric Brown Penzler Fredric Brown’s murder mystery, The Fabulous Clipjoint, first published in 1947, and reissued last December by Penzler Publishers, was good enough to win an […]
Review: Just Add Water, The Fountain, by David Scott Hay
The Fountain By David Scott Hay Whiskey Tit Jasper P. Duckworth is a critic in an alternate universe Chicago for Chicago Shoulders, a New City-like (or, if you will, Third […]
Interview: Dystopia in Utopia: Brian Pinkerton, Author of The Nirvana Effect
Author Brian Pinkerton is a lifelong resident of the Chicago area, growing up on, as he puts it, “Bozo’s Circus and Ray Rayner…Creature Features and Cubs baseball.” With 12 […]
Review: An Untold Story from Ulysses, The Curious Odyssey of Rudolph Bloom, By Richard Reeder
The Curious Odyssey of Rudolph Bloom by Richard Reeder Propertius Press The Curious Odyssey of Rudolph Bloom by Chicago writer Richard Reeder is a curious book, and not just because […]
Interview: Not Afraid of the Dark: A Talk with Writer Richard Thomas
Numerically speaking, 2/22/22 (today), has a special resonance for Chicago area writer, editor, and teacher Richard Thomas. His latest book, Spontaneous Human Combustion (Keylight), a collection of short stories, was […]
Kids Can Learn Sign Language, Storytelling and Teamwork with Sweet Animated Video Calvin Can’t Fly
Jennifer Berne wrote the storybook Calvin Can’t Fly: The Story of a Bookworm Birdie in 2010, and her second cousin Sarah Michaelson directed and produced a video version last year. […]