When: Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 at 7pm
Location: All readings take place at The Green Lantern, 1511 N. Milwaukee Ave, 2nd Floor
What: Terri Kapsalis at The Parlor

Kapsalis is a writer, performer, and cultural critic whose work appears in such publications as Short Fiction, Denver Quarterly, Parakeet, and The Baffler. She’s the author of The Hysterical Alphabet (about how “hysteria has an under-recognized (and under-appreciated!) four-thousand-year history that deeply inflects our contemporary ideas about women and illness”) and the co-editor of two books related to the musician Sun Ra.  As an improvising violinist, Kapsalis has a discography that includes work with Tony Conrad, David Grubbs, and Mats Gustafsson, and she is a founding member of Theater Oobleck.  She works as a health educator at Chicago Women’s Health Center and teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. As always, the event will be recorded and published on-line on iTunes and at www.theparlorreads.com.

**** For more information, please visit www.theparlorreads.com or contact theparlorreads@gmail.com. The Parlor is a monthly reading series, hosted by Chicago’s Green Lantern and sponsored by Bad At Sports Podcast.

How’d the conference on saving Chicago journalism go, you ask? Depends on who you ask. The Reader covered the event; the Illinois Review did a quick wrap up, and Time Out Chicago did a play-by-play that’s still getting solid comments. Check the audio coverage to decide for yourself if anything was solved or if the pot was simply stirred.

Date: Wed, March 4, 2009
Time:8pm
Location: Black Rock Bar, 3614 N Damen Ave, 60618

This ’80s-spoofing reading is titled “You Give Me Growing Pains, Theodore Huxtable.”  Come on out and see performances by Jac Jemc, Zach Plague, Lindsay Hunter, Mary Hamilton, Tobias Amadon  Bengelsdorf, Nicolette Bond, Meg Barboza, Allison Gruber, and Erin Teegarden.

Recroom takes place on the first Wednesday each month at the Black Rock Bar (3614 N Damen).  All shows are FREE (except for infrequent single-digit-dollar attempts at fundraising). For a calendar of upcoming shows and an archive of past shows, please visit www.recroomers.com

Via Funny or Die. Patton Oswalt — er, E. Hamish Plumbrick — for Poet Laureate! He’s coming for you, Kay Ryan. I’m scared right now because watching this reminds me a little too much of the time I met Clayton Eshleman:

Small bookstores always have to work harder, but in an era when even the big guys like Barnes & Noble are downsizing (the Lincoln Park/Lakeview store at Clark & Diversey closed in December), supporting independents is more crucial than ever.  Andersonville mainstays Women & Children First came off a 2007 upturn only to be pulled down again by the current financial crisis, and 2009 finds them going through the most difficult time in their nearly 30 year history.  It’s hard to think about spending money right now, but if you’re gonna buy books you can help keep W&CF in business by ordering from them (they can get anything that’s in print!), ordering textbooks if you’re a teacher/instructor (they offer bulk discounts and can meet most competitor’s prices!) and donate to W&CF’s Women’s Voices Fund, which enables the bookstore to keep up their current level of feminist programming (tax deductible if you give $50 or more!)

Over the past year, Women & Children First brought Isabelle Allende, Nikki Giovanni, Jhumpa Lahiri, Alison Bechdel and others to Chicago.  The store hosts a variety of book clubs, and a children’s story time on Wednesday mornings.  Plenty of reasons to stop by, but hey, you can search and order books from them online too.  Women & Children First turns 30 this fall, and as one of only a handful of feminist bookstores left in the country, they need to stick around.

Leading the charge for more experimental literary forms (like novellas and short story collections), Featherproof Books is starting a subscription-only series called Paper Egg Press. When you subscribe to Paper Egg, you’ll get two beautifully designed, limited-edition books (per year) by some of the best new and emerging authors working today. Too, each book is designed by award winning graphic novelist Paul Hornschemeier. You’ll get the first in October and the second in Apri and the first 250 people who subscribe will receive a free copy of Featherproof’s AM/PM, a flash-fiction collection by Amelia Gray; (the first Paper Egg book is The Awful Possibilities by Christian Tebordo). For more info on the subscription series, click here. For a nice Publishers Weekly write up, click here.

The stimulus bill (aka the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) that President Obama will sign today does include that $50 million initially allocated for the National Endowment for the Arts, but evidently it took a lot of haggling on the part of a few key supporters (and maybe a call from Robert Redford) to keep it in.  While $50 million out of the total $787 billion really doesn’t seem like a big deal, the idea that the arts are frivolous, not critical in this time of economic turmoil, or an elitist, left-wing luxury still resonates with a few (mostly Republican) lawmakers.

A far cry from the days of the Great Depression, when the Works Progress Administration was formed with jobs for artists & writers in mind.  Recognizing that artists & writers were just as valuable to society and equally at risk during economic hard times, the government actually created jobs for them, including 6,600 positions for writers in the Federal Writers’ Project.  Writers were put to work compiling local histories, ethnographies, oral histories, and a successful series of state guides known as the American Guide Series. The Institute for Policy Studies called for a a much more WPA-like Arts Stimulus Plan back in December, but that hard-won $50 million will have to do.

It’s almost time for the yearly gathering of lit-folk, yes the Annual Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference (AWP). The schedule is lengthy so we’ve whittled things down for you: Below are our picks for Thurs–>Saturday. Sorry for the length of the post; we got carried away. Oh, and be sure to check out each day of the online schedule for the afterparties happening each night. Not sure why or if you should go? Check out this synopsis of “what to expect” following last year’s Conference in NYC.

THURSDAY:

R111A. Fictionalizing Family. (Eric Puchner, Don Waters, Hannah Tinti, Kaui Hemmings Hemmings, Robin Romm, Nora Caspers) Most writers draw from experience, enhancing the writing through research and craft. But what happens when the story or novel tends toward truth and reveals vulnerabilities within the family? This panel will explore how writers deal with the ethics of exposing their lives and the lives of those closest to them. At what point is creating art more important than sparing feelings? Writers will grapple with these questions and discuss when, if ever, they have crossed the line.

R147. What’s in the Magazines: A Conversation about the Work Being Published in Literary Journals. (Bram Hsieh, Marion Wrenn, Robert Stewart, Diane Goettel, Gina Frangello) The editors of New Letters, Painted Bride Quarterly, and The Adirondack Review, along with author Gina Frangello, bring their different perspectives to a discussion on the writing found in literary magazines today. The panelists will share tips about the work that excites them, as well as the kinds of stories that have become overdone. In addition, they will explore recent trends in magazine publishing, such as the role of online submissions and online journals.

R156. Building, Breaking, Rebuilding: Six Chicago Literary Landscapers. (Ellen Placey Wadey, Erin Teegarden, Krista Franklin, Joel Craig, Jennifer Karmin, Irasema Gonzalez) We are the bold sluggers who run Chicago’s independent reading series. Set vividly against the established grid, we build literary communities in neighborhoods from the ground up. How are we thriving in the face of our challenges? Less like a panel and more like a virtual show-and-tell, organizers from a diverse group of popular, D-I-Y reading serieses discuss building, breaking from, and rebuilding Chicago’s literary landscape.

R202. It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood!: Five Chicago Writers Mark Their Territory. (John McNally, Stephanie Kuehnert, Billy Lombardo, Elizabeth Crane, Donald Evans) We all know that writers value place in their fiction, but what about that place within a place—the neighborhood? And how do writers writing about the same place cordon off their own unique patch of land? Meet five Chicago fiction writers who, having planted flags on their own literary blocks, will discuss their specific neighborhoods, the role neighborhood plays in their work, the ways in which they stake claim to their local tavern or coffee shop, and the ways in which their use of neighborhood affects their readership.

R177. Writing Class / Writing Gender. (Teresa Carmody, Selah Saterstrom, Corrina Wycoff, Ali Liebegott, Veronica Gonzalez) The stories of poor women have been traditionally written realistically, in order to faithfully depict the grind and grit of poverty to readers often presumed to be not-poor. What happens to the reality of poor women when rendered in non-realist, non-naturalist writing? Is realism actually more artificial than the sometimes surreal state of being a have-not? This panel presents five women writers whose work addresses the realities of social class and gender in a not-strictly realist style.

R178. How to Make Money Writing Right Now. (Lisa Lieberman, Logan Perkes, Kristen Fitzpatrick, James Espinoza) This panel examines the untapped world of commercial and trade magazine writing. We are discussing where to find writing jobs, how much they pay, and how to get started. These jobs may not all be glamorous. They may not all be writing for Cosmopolitan, the New York Times, or Vogue magazine. Some jobs may be writing about tomato diseases or the best dairy cow milking practices, or behind-the-scenes profiles of Texas legislators. But these jobs pay, and some of them pay very well.

R217. Keynote Address by Art Spiegelman. (Art Spiegelman) AWP’s 2009 Keynote Address by Art Spiegelman, sponsored by Roosevelt University.

FRIDAY

F114. From Nature Writing to Place-based Nonfiction: Traversing Narrative Landscapes of the Midwest. (Laura Julier, Jonathan Ritz, Will Jennings, Susan Futrell) What used to be labeled “nature writing” by critics and publishers of creative nonfiction has morphed into “placed-based writing.” How has the shift from nature to place changed the way we approach narrative and self, nature and place? A call for essays exploring Midwestern places yields personal essays set in unnamed places. A writer struggles with an assignment to write “positive stories” for local magazines. Panelists—all writers whose work has been deeply rooted in Midwestern places—will discuss the significance of this shift, and the practical and ethical issues it raises.

F116B. $$ CLMP Workshop—Individual Fundraising for Literary Publishers. (Jay Baron Nicorvo) Learn how to identify funding sources, set attainable targets, and establish an infrastructure for individual giving. (Note: CLMP Workshops cost $30 for CLMP members and $60 for nonmembers. To register, please stop by the CLMP booth at the Bookfair.)

F124. In Celebration of David Markson. (Martha Cooley, Brian Evenson, M.J. Fitzgerald, Joseph Tabbi, Francoise Palleau-Papin) This group of writers will celebrate the life and work of David Markson, whose latest work, The Last Novel, completes a groundbreaking series of five novels that began with the critically acclaimed Wittgenstein’s Mistress and includes Reader’s Block, This Is Not a Novel, and Vanishing Point. The panelists will discuss the deep pleasures and challenges of Markson’s work, and will explore his strong influence—formally and conceptually—on a new generation of writers and readers.

F126. Making Scenes: Chicago Poetry Communities from 1939-2009. (Catherine Wagner, Evie Shockley, Margo Crawford, CJ Laity, Joel Craig, Chuck Stebelton) Of central importance to the Black Arts movement and the spoken word movement, Chicago has also been home to a number of experimental poetry communities. Bringing together widely differing aesthetics and contextualizing the communities that produced them, the panel offers an opportunity for both panelists and audience to break down the usual aesthetic fences.

F127. Shameless Promotion: Get the Book to the Readers. (Marisha Chamberlain, Margaret Hasse, Todd Boss, Jon Spayde) Your book is out—now you’ve got to promote it. Yes, you. At many small presses, the publicity budget is minute. At big publishers too, authors must take an active role. Two poets, a novelist, and a nonfiction writer with books out in 2008 from Norton, Nodin, Soho, and Random House describe strategies they’ve used to garner readers: book tours, book clubs, personal publicists, and the Web—virtual tours, using a site to build buzz, getting a good Google position, networking with blogs, and more.

F156. Poetry of Resilience. (Alison Granucci, Kwame Dawes, Katja Esson, Valzhyna Mort, Brian Turner) From prison life to the war in Iraq to global acts of violence and suppression against human beings, poetry has been used to speak out and to help transform traumatic events. Through their poems and narratives these extraordinary poets take us to the hearts of these events—a young Belarusian challenges a forbidden language, the ghosts of American soldiers in Balad still speak, and we are allowed a glimpse of the inner lives of inmates. With their verse they unveil the sublimation in poetry. With their unflinching accounts they remind us how frail the human spirit is, and how astounding.

F169. $$ CLMP Workshop—Budgeting Essentials for the Book or Lit Mag. (Jay Baron Nicorvo, Allan Kornblum, Melanie Moore) Two of America’s leading literary publishers, Coffee House Press and American Short Fiction, will discuss how to project cash flow, set up P&L statements, budget effectively, and more! (Note: CLMP Workshops cost $30 for CLMP members and $60 for nonmembers. To register, please stop by the CLMP booth at the Bookfair.)

F190. Amerika in Chicago. (David Lazar, Kelly Cherry, Ray Gonzalez, Cynthia Hogue, Ander Monson, Diane Wakoski) Come hear a selection of work as Hotel Amerika celebrates its move to a new venue: Columbia College Chicago. Created in 2002 at Ohio University, Hotel Amerika continues to offer its provocative, eclectic mix of work in known and unknown genres by acclaimed and emerging writers.

F199. The Country They Come From: Polish-American Writers Read about the Midwest and Poland. (John Guzlowski, Anthony Bukoski, Linda Foster, John Minczeski, Leslie Pietrzyk) Polish-American writers have been writing in and about the Midwest for a 150 years. They have written novels, travel narratives, poems, songs and memoirs that commemorate the Midwest while memorializing the country these writers or their ancestors came from. Five recent Polish-American writers will demonstrate that this tradition is very much alive and vital.

F204. Chicago’s Global Voices: Other Voices Magazine Celebrates the “New” City. (Gina Frangello, Elizabeth Crane, Bayo Ojikutu, Achy Obejas) Other Voices, an award-winning fiction-focused literary magazine, was founded in Chicago in 1984. In 2007, the magazine released its first-ever “all Chicago writers” issue, celebrating the many styles and heritages of fiction writers who now call Chicago home. This issue of Other Voices received seven nominations from Pushcart Prize editors and included such luminaries as Elizabeth Crane, Aleksander Hemon, Bayo Ojikutu, and Audrey Niffenegger, alongside new writers like Sheba White and Ivan Faute. All twenty-two contributors live in the Chicago area, and a selection will read short excerpts from their work featured in Other Voices and take questions about literary life in the city!

SATURDAY:

S123. Nelson Algren at 100. (Dan Simon, Bill Savage, Brooke Horvath, Carla Capetti) On the occasion of Chicago author Nelson Algren’s centennial, a round table discussion of young scholars on the subject of Algren’s public reception. In the 1940s, Algren’s second novel, Never Come Morning, was attacked for its depiction of Polish-Americans, and copies were removed from library shelves. In the early 1950s, after he had won the first National Book Award for fiction, he was considered to be a public enemy by J. Edgar Hoover and denied a passport. In the sixties and seventies, he was a celebrated figure more revered than read. Since his death in 1983, other writers still champion his writing, his books continue to be taught, and everything he wrote is still in print. But will he continue to be discovered by new generations of younger readers? And what will determine whether he will be or won’t be?

S164. Avoiding Sick Mothers, Absent Fathers, and Losing Your Virginity: The Tropes and Traps of Nonfiction. (Susan Finch, Steve Almond, BJ Hollars, Samantha Levy, Marcia Aldrich, Jessica Pitchford) Join The Southeast Review, Black Warrior Review, Fourth Genre, and Steve Almond as they discuss the current nonfiction market and the kind of nonfiction that readers, journals, and publishers want. Editors talk about the types of nonfiction submissions they are receiving and the ones they wish they were, while critically acclaimed author, Steve Almond, offers advice on how to stand out from the slush and reads from his new book.

S166. Writing in the Windy City: Local Writers Reflect on Making it in Chicago. (Erin O’Neill, Anne Calcagno, Jonathan Messinger, Janet Desaulniers, Jill Pollack) For writers hoping to make a name for themselves in the literary world, but unable–or unwilling—to relocate to New York City to do so, finding lucrative options can pose a serious hurdle. But in the words of Nelson Algren, “once you’ve come to be a part of this particular patch, you’ll never love another.” This panel brings together five successful local writers, each of who has managed to both make their way in the literary world and make their home in Chicago.

S176. Reading by Stuart Dybek. A reading by Stuart Dybek, sponsored by the University of North Carolina Wilmington MFA Program. Followed by a conversation with Donna Seaman.

S178. A Celebration of Elizabeth Bishop. (Lloyd Schwartz, Frank Bidart, Joyce Peseroff, David Trinidad, Anne Winters, Suki Kwock Kin) No one wrote more luminous poems than Elizabeth Bishop. Once described by John Ashbery as a writer’s writer’s writer, Bishop has, since her death, become almost universally regarded as one of the 20th-century’s major masters. Six distinguished poets, three of whom were close to Bishop, celebrate her work by reading her poems, lesser-known but remarkable prose, and hilarious, heartbreaking letters from the Library of America’s landmark new publication of her collected works.

S189. Running with the Bulls.. (M. M. M. Hayes, Sharon May, Michael Perry, Tony D’Souza, Robert Olen Butler, Jay Lavender) What influence of Hemingway and “running with the bulls” continues in contemporary literature? We hear from writers who ‘go to witness’ as part of their creative process discuss their sources of inspiration.

S205. 2nd Story. (Amanda Delheimer, Megan Stielstra, J. Adams Oaks, Kimberlee Soo, Bobby Biedrzycki) 2nd Story is a personal narrative storytelling series emphasizing the collaboration between writing, performance and music. Storytellers craft their work as if speaking to their best friend, except in this case that friend is an audience of a hundred plus. Typically staged in wine bars, four storytellers tell stories over the course of an evening, leaving ample time for the audience to enjoy good music, find good company, and consider their own stories.

S207. Chicago Poetry Slam. (Mark Eleveld, Marc Smith, Kevin Coval, Idris Goodwin) Chicago is the birthplace of the Poetry Slam. Poetry Slams are very much a part of Chicago’s culture and its contribution to the world of art. Join a panel of poets returning to poetry’s roots as they celebrate a revolution. Panelists participate in a Poetry Slam showcasing their individual styles and expression.

S211. The Poetry Foundation Presents: A reading by Heather McHugh and August Kleinzahler. (John Barr, Heather McHugh, August Kleinzahler) Rough contemporaries, Heather McHugh and August Kleinzahler have both developed highly witty, linguistically playful, yet real voices as both poets and critics. Together they affirm the varied vitality and energy of contemporary American poetry. Both have important new books out that have been widely covered by mainstream and literary media. The unexpected pairing should draw a strong audience from conference-goers and the general public.