Friday, March 30 at 7 p.m.
Together We Rise
Author Panel
Celebrate the culmination of Women's History Month on a powerful note! Co-founder and National Field Director Mrinalini Chakraborty will be discussing the behind-the-scenes ( her )story of the Women's March on Washington and read from the book Together We Rise. Compiled by the national team of Women's March organizers, and in collaboration with the creative team at Condé Nast, Together We Rise is the complete chronicle of the remarkable uprising on January 21st, 2017, when more than five million marchers took to the streets! Along with the reading and book signing, we'll also have a moderated panel with a few powerful women involved in activism and politics in Chicago. We'll be joined by Sameena Mustafa, Bushra Amiwala, and Kina Collins for a discussion of intersectional feminism and what it looks like in movement work.
Wednesday, April 4 at 7:30 p.m.
Kitty Curran and Larissa Zagerris
My Lady's Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel
Book Launch Party
Come celebrate the launch of the romance novel that lets you pick your path, follow your heart, and find happily ever after! You are a plucky but penniless heroine in eighteenth-century England, and courtship season has begun. Will you find love with the bantering baronet Sir Benedict Granville, take to the Continent as the "traveling companion" of the spirited and adventuresome Lady Evangeline, or yet some other intriguing fate? Make choices, turn pages, and discover all the daring delights of the multiple ( and intertwining ) storylines. Larissa Zageris and Kitty Curran are the creative team of the viral series Taylor Swift: Girl Detective, as well as countless other zines and comics. Larissa is a writer, educator, and photographer whose work has appeared in McSweeney's Internet Tendency, among many other internet places. Kitty is an illustrator and comics artist who is Actually British and knows all about courtship rituals, the peerage, and upper-crust accents.
Thursday, April 5 at 7:30 p.m.
Sandra Allen in conversation with Jessica Hopper
A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise
Conversation, Reading, and Book-signing
In 2009, Sandra Allen's uncle Bob, who she hardly knew, mailed her sixty single-spaced pages of all-capped, error-riddled sentences—a gripping story of being labeled a psychotic paranoid schizophrenic while coming of age—explaining that it was his life story, and he needed her help him get it out to the world. In A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise, Allen translates and transforms her uncle's story while sticking faithfully to the facts as he shared them. She also contextualizes her uncle's story by exploring her family history, the explosive time and place of her uncle's formative years, and the history mental healthcare in America. The result is a heartbreaking and sometimes hilarious portrait of a young man striving for stability in his life and his mind. Sandra Allen grew up in Muir Beach, California. She attended Brown University and received an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Iowa. A former BuzzFeed editor, she lives in New York. A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise: A True Story about Schizophrenia is her first book. Jessica Hopper is a Chicago-
based music journalist and author.
Friday, April 6 at 7:30 p.m.
Maya Dusenbery in conversation with Paula Kamen
Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick
Conversation and Book-signing
Maya Dusenbery, editorial director of Feministing,com, will be joined by Chicago-based feminist writer Paula Kamen for a conversation about chronic pain, gender bias in medicine, and the history of hysteria. In Doing Harm, Dusenbery brings together scientific and sociological research, interviews with doctors and researchers, and personal stories from women across the country to provide the first comprehensive, accessible look at how sexism in medicine harms women today. Maya Dusenbery has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has also appeared in Bitch and TheAtlantic.com, as well as in the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before becoming a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she is currently based in the Twin Cities. Paula Kamen is the author of four books, including All in My Head and Finding Iris Chang: Ambition, Friendship and the Loss of an Extraordinary Mind, explores postpartum depression and bipolar disorder in women. Her play Jane: Abortion and the Underground has been produced more than a dozen times. Her commentaries and book reviews have also appeared in the New York Times, McSweeney's, the Chicago Tribune, and more than a dozen anthologies.
Monday, April 9 at 7:30 p.m.
Doors open at 7 p.m.
Sappho's Salon Spring Open Mic Co-hosted by Liz Baudler & Eileen Tull
Sappho's Salon slides into our third anniversary with some fantastic faves. First up, we have Himabindu Poroori, former Salonathon host and multi-disciplinary artist, and then heavy-hitting storyteller extraordinaire Ada Cheng, who we love with the fire of a thousand suns. It's also your turn at the open mic as long as your're female identifying, trans or nonbinary! And finally, co-hosts Liz and Eileen will be especially...revealing. Gonna be one of our best anniversaries yet, so celebrate with us!
Wednesday, April 11 at 7:30 p.m.
Rachel Arndt
Beyond Measure
In conversation with Aviya Kushner
Book Launch Party
Beyond Measure is an exploration of the rituals, routines, metrics, and expectations through which we attempt to quantify and ascribe value to our lives. With humor and penetrating intellect, Arndt's essays delve into such topics as judo competitions measured in weigh-ins and wait times, the rote scripts of dating apps, and the stupefying sameness of the daily commute. Rachel Z. Arndt received MFAs in nonfiction and poetry from the University of Iowa, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow and nonfiction editor of the Iowa Review. Her writing has appeared in Popular Mechanics, Quartz, the Believer, and elsewhere. She lives in Chicago. Aviya Kushner is the author of The Grammar of God: A Journey into the Words and Worlds of the Bible, which was a National Jewish Book Award finalist, a Sami Rohr Prize finalist, and one of Publishers Weekly's Top 10 Religion Stories of 2015. She is the language columnist for the Forward, and her essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Wilson Quarterly, TriQuarterly and elsewhere. She is an associate professor of creative writing at Columbia College Chicago and was a Howard Foundation fellow in nonfiction for 2016-17 for her next book, Nomad.
Thursday, April 12 at 7 p.m.
Christine Lahti in conversation with Bernardine Dohrn
True Stories from an Unreliable Eyewitness
Reading, Conversation, and Book-signing
Please note: this ticketed event will be held at the Swedish American Museum ( 5211 N. Clark St. ) TICKETS HERE.
For this event, award-winning actress and director Christine Lahti will be joined by author and activist Bernardine Dohrn to discuss Christine's essay collection, True Stories from an Unreliable Eyewitness: A Feminist Coming of Age. For decades, Lahti has captivated audiences with her work in Chicago Hope, Running on Empty, Housekeeping, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, among others. In this poignant essay collection, Lahti reveals her struggle to maintain integrity, fight her need for perfection, and remain true to her feminist roots. Christine Lahti is an Academy-, Golden Globe-, and Emmy-Award winning acclaimed director and stage, television, and film actor with a career that spans more than forty years. She most recently starred in Fucking A by Pulitzer Prize-winner Susan Lori Parks. Bernardine Dohrn, activist, academic, and children's and women's rights advocate, is a retired associate clinical professor at Northwestern University School of Law, where she was the director of the Children and Family Justice Center for 23 years. Dohrn is an author and co-editor of numerous books, including In My Lifetime, Young People Have Changed the World: Children as Social Actors. Dohrn was also national leader of SDS and the Weather Underground. She lives in Chicago with her husband, Bill Ayers.
Friday, April 13 at 7:30 p.m.
Jenny Boully with special guests
Piper Daniels and Alexis Pope
Betwixt-and-Between: Essays
Book Launch Party
Join us as we celebrate the new essay collection from Jenny Boully. Boully's essays are ripe with romance and sensual pleasures, drawing connections between the experience of falling in love and the life of a writer. Literary theory, philosophy, and linguistics rub up against memory, dreamscapes, and fancy, making the practice of writing a metaphor for the illusory nature of experience. Jenny Boully is the author of The Body, The Book of Beginnings and Endings, not merely because of the unknown that was stalking toward them, and other books. Born in Thailand, she grew up in Texas and holds a PhD in English from the City University of New York. She teaches creative writing and literature at Columbia College Chicago. Piper J. Daniels is a Michigan native, queer intersectional feminist, and professional ghostwriter who holds a BA from Columbia College Chicago and an MFA from the University of Washington. She is the co-winner of the 2017 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize for her debut collection of essays, Ladies Lazarus. Her work appears in Hotel Amerika, the Rumpus, WomenArts Quarterly, and elsewhere. She lives in Washington state with her dog, Omar Little Daniels. Alexis Pope is the author of two poetry collections, most recently That Which Comes After, as well as several chapbooks, including Debt. Pope's work has appeared in Denver Quarterly, Hobart, and the Volta, among other publications. Pope lives in Chicago and works for the Poetry Foundation.
Saturday, April 14 at 4 p.m.
Cecile Richards in conversation with David Axelrod
Make Trouble: Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead
Please Note: Tickets for this event are on sale now only through Brown Paper Tickets. All tickets include a pre-signed copy of Make Trouble. This event will be held at Senn High School ( 5900 N. Glenwood ). TICKETS HERE.
Women & Children First is honored to host the only Chicago event on Cecile Richards' Make Trouble book tour. As a young woman, Cecile Richards watched her mother, Ann, transform from a housewife into the straight-talking, truth-telling Democratic governor of Texas. But Richards also witnessed the pitfalls—from misogyny to the threat of violence—for women like her mother who challenged the status quo. Make Trouble shines a light on the people and lessons that have gotten Cecile through good times and bad and encourages readers to take risks, make mistakes, and make trouble along the way. Richards has dedicated her life to taking on injustice, and her memoir will inspire readers to hope and action. Cecile Richards began her career helping garment workers, hotel workers, and nursing home aides fight for better wages and working conditions. She also served as deputy chief of staff to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. In 2011 and 2012, she was named one of TIME magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World. Richards recently resigned from her position as president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. She and her husband, Kirk Adams, have three children and reside in New York City. David Axelrod is a veteran of politics and journalism and the former chief strategist and senior advisor to President Barack Obama. He currently serves as director of the University of Chicago's non-partisan Institute of Politics and as the host of the Axe Files, a podcast jointly produced by CNN and his institute. Axelrod, a former political writer for the Chicago Tribune and media strategist, is also the author of the New York Times-bestselling memoir, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics.
Wednesday, April 18 at 7:30 p.m.
Eloisa Amezcua with special guests Jose Olivarez and Xandria Phillips
From the Inside Quietly
Poetry Reading
Please join us for a poetry reading celebrating Eloisa Amezcua's debut book, From the Inside Quietly, inaugural winner of the Shelterbelt Press Poetry Prize, selected by Ada LimÃ"n. Amezcua will be joined by local poets José Olivarez and Xandria Phillips. Eloisa Amezcua is a MacDowell fellow, the author of three chapbooks, and founder and editor-in-chief of The Shallow Ends: A Journal of Poetry. Her poems and translations are published or forthcoming in Poetry magazine, Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, and others. José Olivarez is the co-author of the book of poems Home Court and the co-host of the poetry podcast The Poetry Gods. He is a graduate of Harvard University and the marketing manager at Young Chicago Authors. A winner of a 2016 Poets House Emerging Poets Fellowship and a 2015 Bronx Recognizes Its Own award, his work has been published in The BreakBeat Poets, poets.org, and Hyperallergic, among other places. He lives in Chicago. His first book, Citizen Illegal, is forthcoming from Haymarket Books. Xandria Phillips is a poet based in Chicago. She is the author of Hull ( forthcoming in 2019 ) and Reasons for Smoking, which won the 2016 Seattle Review Chapbook Contest, judged by Claudia Rankine. Her work is available online at the Offing, the Journal, Nashville Review, Ninth Letter, and the Shallow Ends.
Thursday, April 19 at 7:30 p.m.
Nicole Hollander
We Ate Wonder Bread
Book Launch Party
Join us for a presentation with Nicole Hollander in celebration of her graphic memoir, We Ate Wonder Bread, Hollander's first long-form work. This is a coming-of-age story, starring the gangsters, the glamorous, the bed bugs, the ( enviable ) Catholic girls, the police, the jukebox, the fortune teller, and the family's blue Hudson. Not only does this illustrated memoir give insight into how Hollander developed her style and wit, it's also a chronicle of a Chicago community that has since disappeared into an expressway. Nicole Hollander is best known for her syndicated comic strip, Sylvia. Her work has been archived in the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library at Ohio State University. She has published fifteen books and blogs at badgirlchats.com . She lives in Chicago.
Friday, April 20 at 7:30 p.m.
Nicole Garneau
Performing Revolutionary
Interactive Reading
For this event, Nicole Garneau will present a lively and interactive evening of performative engagement with her new book, Performing Revolutionary: Art, Action, Activism. All are welcome to come learn about how we can use performance to practice being more revolutionary people. Nicole Garneau is an interdisciplinary artist making site-specific performance and project art that is directly political, critically conscious, and community building. In 2010, Nicole collaborated with DJ Erik Roldan to curate and host Northern Lights, a queer performance and dance party in Chicago that ran monthly for 3 years. In 2012, she lived in Denmark as part of the Living Copenhagen artist residency and then continued to tour in Europe, creating participatory UPRISING performances in Russia, the UK, and Portugal. Nicole is on the executive committee of Alternate ROOTS, an organization of artists and activists who center their work in the American South. She holds a BA in Theater from the University of Illinois at Chicago and an MA in Interdisciplinary Art from Columbia College Chicago.
Saturday, April 21 at 11 a.m.
Anatomy of a Tiny Native Garden:
Presentation in conjunction with
Andersonville Flower and Garden Show
Monica Buckley, owner of Andersonville-based Red Stem Native Landscapes, shares the step-by-step creation and development of the two-year-old native plants garden that graces the parkway along Farragut behind our store! What are all those crazy plants, and how do they thrive in the blazing sun and with so many people, dogs, and vehicles going by? Monica will tell all.
Tuesday, April 24 at 7 p.m.
Meg Wolitzer in conversation with Greta Johnsen
The Female Persuasion
Reading, Conversation, and Book-signing
Join us as we welcome back staff favorite Meg Wolitzer in celebration of her acclaimed new novel. For this event, Meg will be in conversation with WBEZ's Greta Johnsen. The Female Persuasion introduces Greer Kadetsky, a shy college freshman, as her life is transformed by Faith Frank, a dazzlingly persuasive pillar of the women's movement. Upon hearing Faith speak for the first time, Greer feels her inner world light up. An astonishing invitation from Faith leads Greer down the most exciting path of her life and away from the future she'd always imagined. Charming and wise, knowing and witty, Meg Wolitzer delivers a novel about power and influence, ego and loyalty, womanhood and ambition. Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times-bestselling author of The Interestings, The Uncoupling, The Ten-Year Nap, The Position, The Wife, and the young adult novel Belzhar. Wolitzer lives in New York City. Greta Johnsen is a reporter and host at WBEZ here in Chicago. Greta hosts WBEZ's Nerdette podcast with Tricia Bobeda, where they talk to everyone from authors to astronauts.
Wednesday, April 25 at 7:30 p.m.
Rebekah Frumkin
The Comedown
Book Launch Party
Join us as we celebrate the highly anticipated debut novel from local author Rebekah Frumkin! A blistering dark comedy, The Comedown is a romp across America, from the Kent State shootings to protest marches in Chicago to the Florida Everglades. Scrappy, street-smart drug dealer Reggie Marshall has never liked the simpering addict Leland Bloom-Mittwoch. But when a drug deal goes dramatically, tragically wrong and a suitcase ( which may or may not contain a quarter of a million dollars ) disappears, the two men and their families become hopelessly entangled. It's a mistake that sets in motion a series of events that are odd, captivating, and suspenseful. Rebekah Frumkin's fiction and essays have appeared in Granta, McSweeney's, and Best American Nonrequired Reading, among other places. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and was the 2014 recipient of the Richard E. Guthrie Memorial Grant. She is currently getting her MSJ from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
Thursday, April 26 at 7:30 p.m.
Marie Hicks with special guests
Julie Keck and Jessica King
Programmed Inequalities
Paperback Book Launch
In 1944, Britain led the world in electronic computing, but by 1974 its computing industry was all but extinct. Women had been a hidden engine of growth in high technology, but as computing became male-identified in the 1960s and 1970s, the government systematically neglected its largest trained technical workforce, leading to catastrophe. In Programmed Inequality, Chicago-based author Marie Hicks explains why, even today, having technical skill is not enough to ensure women will rise to the top in science and technology fields. Hicks also shows how the disappearance of women from computing had grave macroeconomic consequences for Britain and why the United States is now at risk of repeating those errors. For the paperback release of Programmed Inequality, author Marie Hicks will be joined by feminist filmmakers and writers Julie Keck and Jessica King for a lively conversation. Marie Hicks is a historian of technology who focuses on the hidden histories of computing. Currently they are working on a book that looks at the deep pre-history of trans algorithmic bias and explores how users resisted within early digital systems. Julie Keck and Jessica King are Chicago-based filmmakers and writers whose work includes: F*ck Yes, a modern sex ed series focused on improving communication ( and sex ) between consenting adults; Full Out, a queer dance series; and The Furies, a series of dance films exploring female rage. When not making films, Jessica teaches screenwriting and film studies in DePaul University's College of Computing and Digital Media while Julie is the education director at Seed&Spark. She speaks on topics related to filmmaking, social media, and crowdfunding at film festivals and universities around the world.
Friday, April 27 at 7:30 p.m.
Daniel Borutzy
Lake Michigan
Nate Marshall
Wild Hundreds
Poetry Reading
Winner of the 2016 National Book Award for Poetry for his collection The Performance of Becoming Human, Daniel Borzutzky is a Chilean-American writer and translator living in Chicago. His other poetry books include In the Murmurs of the Rotten Carcass Economy, The Book of Interfering Bodies, The Ecstasy of Capitulation, and Lake Michigan among others. His books of translation include Song for his Disappeared Love by Raul Zurita and Port Trakl by Jaime Luis Huenun. Nate Marshall is from the South Side of Chicago. He is the author of Wild Hundreds and an editor of The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop. Wild Hundreds has been honored with the Black Caucus of the American Library Association's award for Poetry Book of the Year and The Great Lakes College Association's New Writer Award. Nate is a member of The Dark Noise Collective and co-directs Crescendo Literary with Eve Ewing. He completed his BA at Vanderbilt University and an MF. at the University of Michigan's Helen Zell Writers' Program. Nate has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the Poetry Foundation, and the University of Michigan. He is the director of National Programs for Louder Than a Bomb Youth Poetry Festival/Young Chicago Authors and has taught at the University of Michigan, Wabash College, and Northwestern University.
Saturday, April 28
ALL DAY
Independent Bookstore Day!
Independent Bookstore Day is a one-day national party that takes place at indie bookstores across the country on the last Saturday in April. Every store is unique and independent, and every party is different. Celebrate all of Chicago's amazing indie bookstores by visiting as many as possible in one day! There will be giveaways and complimentary refreshments galore! Plus, there are exclusive books and literary merch that you can only get on that day. More details coming soon.
Sunday, April 29 at 6 p.m.
Franny Choi, Death by Sex Machine sam sax Madness
Poetry Reading
We're thrilled to be a stop on the Madness Machine Tour featuring poets Franny Choi and sam sax. Franny Choi is a writer, performer, and teaching artist. She is the author of Floating, Brilliant, Gone, the chapbook Death by Sex Machine, and the forthcoming Soft Science. She has been a finalist for multiple national poetry slams and has received fellowships from Kundiman and the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. Her work has been featured by the Huffington Post and PBS NewsHour, and her poems have appeared in Poetry magazine, the Poetry Review, the Indiana Review, and elsewhere. She is a member of the Dark Noise Collective and the senior news editor at Hyphen Magazine. sam sax is a queer jewish writer, performer, educator, and organizer. He's the author of Madness, winner of the National Poetry Series, selected by Terrance Hayes. He's received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Lambda Literary, Bread Loaf, and the MacDowell Colony. He's the two-time Bay Area Grand Slam Champion, author of four chapbooks, and winner of the 2016 Iowa Review Award, the American Literary Award, and the Gulf Coast Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in the American Poetry Review, BuzzFeed, Tin House, and other journals. He's the poetry editor at BOAAT Press.
Wednesday, May 2 at 7:30 p.m.
Patricia Skalka
Death Rides the Ferry
Book Launch Party
After a forty-year absence, the Viola da Gamba Music Festival has returned to the picturesque isle on the tip of Wisconsin's Door County peninsula. Sheriff Dave Cubiak enjoys a rare day off as tourists and a documentary film crew hover around the musicians. The jubilant mood sours when an unidentified passenger is found dead on a ferry. Longtime residents recall with dismay the disastrous festival decades earlier, when another woman died, and a valuable sixteenth-century instrument—the fabled yellow viol—vanished, never to be found.
Cubiak follows a trail of murder, kidnapping, and false identity that leads back to the calamitous night of the twin tragedies. With the lives of those he holds most dear in peril, the sheriff pursues a ruthless killer into the stormy northern reaches of Lake Michigan. Patricia Skalka is the author of Death Stalks Door County, Death at Gills Rock, and Death in Cold Water, winner of the Edna Ferber Fiction Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers. A former staff writer at Reader's Digest, she presents writing workshops throughout the United States and divides her time between Chicago and Door County, Wisconsin.
Thursday, May 3 at 7 p.m.
Samantha Irby, Meaty ( the re-issue! )
Please note: this ticketed event will be held at Wilson Abbey ( 935 W. Wilson ). TICKETS HERE.
We're thrilled to host the Chicago launch celebration for the reissue of Irby's first essay collection, Meaty. This new edition is fully updated, includes new content, and has a killer new cover. Smart, edgy, hilarious, and unabashedly raunchy New York Times-bestselling author Samantha Irby laughs her way through tragicomic mishaps, neuroses, and taboos as she struggles through adulthood: chin hairs, depression, bad sex, failed relationships, masturbation, taco feasts, inflammatory bowel disease, and more. Updated with her favorite Instagramable, couch-friendly recipes, this much-beloved romp is a treat for anyone in dire need of Irby's infamous, scathing wit and poignant candor. Samantha Irby is the author of the We Are Never Meeting in Real Life and writes a blog called bitches gotta eat.
Saturday, May 5 at 6 p.m.
Chelsey Clammer with special guest Deborah Siegel
Circadian, Reading and Book-signing
Winner of the 2015 Red Hen Press Nonfiction Award, Circadian is a collection of essays that weaves together personal account with cultural narrative using poetic language and lyric structures. Whether it's turning to mathematics to try to solve the problem of an alcoholic father, the history of naming to look at sexism, weather to reconsider trauma, or grammar as a way to question identity, Clammer discovers new ways to narrate cyclical ways of being. Chelsey Clammer is the author of BodyHome. Her work has appeared in the Normal School, Black Warrior Review, the Rumpus, and McSweeney's, among others. She is the essays editor for the Nervous Breakdown, a reader for Creative Nonfiction magazine, and an online creative writing instructor and columnist for WOW! Women On Writing. Chelsey received her MFA in Creative Writing from Rainier Writing Workshop. She is currently working on a collection of essays and a craft book about lyric essays called Sound It Out. Deborah Siegel is the author of Sisterhood, Interrupted, co-editor of the literary anthology Only Child, and founder of the website She Writes—the largest online community for women who write. She is a guest instructor at StoryStudio Chicago and at Ragdale, and a visiting scholar at Northwestern University. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, and Ms., as well as other publications. She has been featured on The Today Show and TEDx. She is currently engaged in a multimedia experiment examining the gendering of earliest childhood. She lives in Chicagoland with her husband and their twins.
Tuesday, May 8 at 7 p.m.
Melissa Broder in conversation with Megan Stielstra
The Pisces
Conversation and Book-signing
Please note: this ticketed event will be held at Uptown Underground ( 4707 N. Broadway ). TICKETS HERE.
In celebration of her new novel, The Pisces, Melissa Broder ( @sosadtoday ) will be in conversation with local author Megan Stielstra. Melissa Broder is the author of the essay collection So Sad Today and four poetry collections, including Last Sext. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry magazine, the Iowa Review, Tin House, and Guernica and has been awarded the Pushcart prize. She writes the "So Sad Today" column at Vice, the astrology column for Lenny Letter, and the "Beauty and Death" column on Elle.com . She lives in Los Angeles. Megan Stielstra is the author of three collections: The Wrong Way To Save Your Life, Once I Was Cool, and Everyone Remain Calm. Her work appears in the Best American Essays, the New York Times, Catapult, PANK, and elsewhere. A longtime company member with 2nd Story, she has told stories for National Public Radio, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, and The Paper Machete live news magazine at The Green Mill, among others. She is currently an artist in residence at Northwestern University.
Save the Date
Wednesday, May 9 at 7:30 p.m.
Judith Valente
How To Live
Book Launch Party
Friday, May 11 at 7:30 p.m.
Faisal Mohyuddin
The Displaced Children of Displaced Children
Book Launch Party
Wednesday, May 16 at 7:30 p.m.
Elizabeth Rosenthal
American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back
Paperback tour
Thursday, May 17 at 7:30 p.m.
Sofia Samatar
Monster Portraits
Reading and Conversation
Friday, May 18 at 7:30 p.m.
Rita Bullwinkel with special guests Jac Jemc and Anne Yoder
Belly Up: Stories
Wednesday, May 30 at 7 p.m.
Franchesca Ramsey in conversation with Luvvie Ajayi
Well, That Escalated Quickly
Reading, Conversation, and Book-signing
Please note: this ticketed event will be held at Wilson Abbey ( 935 W. Wilson )
Book Groups
Women Aging with Wisdom & Grace Discussion & Potluck
Sunday, April 8
11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Suggested Reading: Letter To My Daughter by Maya Angelou
Family of Women Book Group
Sunday, April 8 at 2 p.m.
A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea
by Melissa Fleming
Teens First Book Group
Sunday, April 8 at 5 p.m.
The Wanderers by Kate Ormand
Feminist Book Group
Sunday, April 8 at 6:30 p.m.
Color of Violence by Incite!
Classics of Women's Literature Book Group
Monday, April 10 at 7:15 p.m.
Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls
( please note new date )
Social Justice Book Group
Sunday, April 15 at 4 p.m.
When They Call You a Terrorist
by Patrice Khan-Cullors
Women's Book Group
Tuesday, April 17 at 7:30 p.m.
Electric Arches by Eve Ewing
