Posts Categorized: News

Chapbooks Now On Sale

Posted by & filed under News.

We’re pleased to announce the launch of our very first print product, Anthology of Chicago: The Collection. It’s a chapbook collecting some of the best neighborhood-centric poems, stories, and essays we’ve published. Chapbooks feature letterpressed covers and are hand-bound in a very limited edition of 54, so don’t sit on this one, folks!

chapbooks

Tracklisting:

Dmitry Samarov–You Can’t Get a Drink in Beverly But You Can Admire the Hell Out of Some Houses (Beverly)
Ben Tanzer–You Throw Your Life In My Face (Gold Coast)
Melanie LaForce–Common Brunch, Kedzie & Milwaukee, December 2012: Streamed (Logan Square)
Kimberly Dixon-Mays–Hyde Park Walking Tour (Hyde Park)
Shontay Luna–Blue Island Avenue (Pilsen)
Mark Dawson–Walking and Biking in Lincoln Square (Lincoln Square)
Oni Woods–It Waits: A Bronzeville Ode To Gentrification (Bronzeville)
Joel Mendez–Humboldt Park Vignette (Humboldt Park)
Susan Hogan–The Ballroom Artists’ Commune (Bridgeport)
Irene Marquette–Gratitude (Andersonville)

Buy it now.

Studs Terkel Festival: Anthology of Chicago & 1,001 Chicago Afternoons Unite!

Posted by & filed under Chi Lit, News.

Lets Get Working_title illustration_by Illustrated Press

I’m teaming up with the wonderful Paul Dailing of 1,001 Chicago Afternoons, in a reprise of last year’s Chi Lit event, to curate a reading of neighborhood poetry and stories for UChicago’s Studs Terkel Let’s Get Working festival. We’ll have Kush Thompson, Malcolm London, Jim Padar, Lily Be, and Kimberly Dixon-Mays reading pieces about Austin, the Near West Side, Humboldt Park, and Hyde Park. It’s going to slay, in the parlance. Mark it down: Saturday, May 10th at 2 pm, in UChicago’s Logan Center (915 E. 60th Street). And check out the other events of the festival: it’s packed full of 3 days awesomeness.

Below is a post I wrote for the festival blog explaining the origins and philosophy behind the Anthology of Chicago project. Enjoy.

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2014: All Neighborhoods Open for Submission!

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Happy new year! In 2013, Anthology of Chicago launched and held submissions for Hyde Park, Pilsen, Logan Square, Bronzeville, and Lincoln Square. We published fantastic poems, stories, and essays that evoked the spirit of these neighborhoods. We also co-hosted Chi Lit in August, an event that featured poets and storytellers reading pieces about the Chicago neighborhoods, packing Cole’s and raising $628 for youth literacy.

I’m pleased to announce that for 2014, we’re moving to a rolling submission model. That means that, instead of contained submission periods for a few neighborhoods at a time, you can now submit a poem or story for any neighborhood at any time. We’re looking forward to expanding the diversity of places that are represented on the site. It may be in the negative temperatures outside, but it’s the perfect time to sit down and pen a Humboldt Park poem, Bridgeport story, or whatever else strikes your fancy!

You can read the full submission guidelines here, and when you’re ready, send in your piece through Submittable. Questions? Email anthologyofchicago@gmail.com. Here’s to a great 2014 filled with the poems and stories of our neighborhoods!

Call for Submissions: Bronzeville & Lincoln Square

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Anthology of Chicago is currently accepting submissions of poems and stories inspired by Bronzeville and Lincoln Square. Anthology of Chicago is an online literary project collecting pieces that evoke the spirit of Chicago’s many neighborhoods, celebrating those neighborhoods and the writers that live, work, and play in them. Pieces for Hyde Park, Pilsen, and Logan Square can be read at the website.

Chicago’s neighborhoods are crucibles for history and culture and architecture and lovers and fighters and ghosts. Anthology of Chicago wants you to use your neighborhood as sandbox and springboard. Let us run our fingers over your mental map, whether it’s brand new or fraying at the edges. Show us your ghosts. Bring us around your Chicago. We want to point to your piece and proclaim with that Chicago confidence, “That’s Hyde Park! (or Pilsen, or Logan Square, or Andersonville). Couldn’t be anywhere else.”

Please view the detailed submission guidelines on our website, and submit through our submissions manager when you’re ready to go. Submissions are due by Monday, September 30th.

Keep up with Anthology of Chicago on Facebook and Twitter. Questions? Email us at anthologyofchicago@gmail.com.

Chi Lit Wrap-up

Posted by & filed under Chi Lit, News, Press.

On August 13th, we packed Cole’s for Chi Lit: Tales of the Neighborhoods. With a raffle that included a first edition of Nelson Algren’s “The Neon Wilderness” and a bottle of Jeppson’s Malort [that went to a first-time Malort drinker, no less], we raised $628 for youth literacy programs at Open Books!

1,001 Chicago Afternoons gave a characteristically wonderful summary of the event.

Rachel Hoffman took some great photos of the first half.

Sei Jin Lee generously recorded all of the performers [go to sidebar/search “Chi Lit” to find all the videos].

The Chicago Reader wrote a nice article before the event. We also received press coverage from Gapers Block and the Chicago Sun-Times.

Anthology of Chicago is accepting submissions until September 30th for Bronzeville and Logan Square. If you’d like to stay apprised of more events like Chi Lit, or be notified of new neighborhoods opening for submission, you can: follow us @AnthologyofChi, like us on Facebook, and get on our mailing list.

Chi Lit: Tales of the Neighborhoods reading

Posted by & filed under Chi Lit, News.

 

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Exciting news: Anthology of Chicago is co-hosting an 8/13 reading titled “Chi Lit: Tales of the Neighborhoods” with 1,001 Chicago Afternoons, another fantastic local lit project. Read on:

At 8 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 13, writers, poets, storytellers, historians, and journalists from across Chicago will gather at Cole’s Bar, 2338 N. Milwaukee Ave., in Logan Square for a reading themed around Chicago’s heart and soul: its neighborhoods.

From Hyde Park poems to wild-but-true stories of Rogers Park, Chi Lit will tell the story of the city through its component parts. The event will benefit Open Books’ youth literacy programs.

Scheduled readers include:

  • -Bill Savage, writer and Chicago literary scholar, on Rogers Park
  • -Dmitry Samarov, author of “Hack: Stories from a Chicago Cab,” on Beverly
  • -Shannon Cason, storyteller with The Moth and NPR’s Snap Judgment, on Bronzeville
  • -Kimberly Dixon-Mays, poet and audience strategist, on Hyde Park
  • -Paul Durica, founder of Pocket Guide to Hell tours and reenactments, on Pilsen
  • -Robert Loerzel, author of “Alchemy of Bones,” on Lakeview
  • -Sarah Gonzalez, co-founder of Brown and Proud Press, Xicana poet, and educator, on Pilsen
  • -Molly Meacham, Chicago Public Schools teacher, on Roscoe Village
  • -Melanie LaForce, sporadic writer of Internet essays, on Logan Square

Hosted by Rachel Hyman of Anthology of Chicago and Paul Dailing of 1,001 Chicago Afternoons.

The event is free, with a portion of the bar and a proceeds from a raffle going to Open Books. Visit tinyurl.com/ChiReading for more information.