Born June 7, 1917 in Topeka, Kansas, Gwendolyn Brooks came to Chicago at six weeks old, her family bringing her to the city as part of the Great Migration. For the rest of her life, her identity and her work would be greatly influenced by Chicago. Brooks attended Forestville Elementary School, going on to Hyde... Continue Reading →
Margaret Anderson's apartment - 837 W. Ainslie, Uptown A little while back we profiled Margaret Anderson's influential literary magazine, The Little Review. What I didn't realize was just how close the apartment she started it in is to where we live, so we headed over the other day to check it out. The apartment building... Continue Reading →
Carl Sandburg's home - 4646 N. Hermitage, Ravenswood Other than neighborhood walks and short drives we haven't left the house for weeks. What better time to visit some Chicago literary landmarks? Yesterday we took a drive to Carl Sandburg's charming home in Ravenswood. Originally from Galesburg, Illinois, Sandburg moved to the second story apartment in... Continue Reading →
Growing up a fairly privileged kid in the Western Suburbs, it wasn't until my sophomore year of high school that it became very clear my experience was not the norm. In grade school my teachers were always talking about how bad off people had it in other countries (the common refrain was, "Eat your food,... Continue Reading →
Like most kids of the last 40 or so years, I loved Shel Silverstein's poems. His books were a must buy through that glorious institution, the Scholastic Book Fair. The poems were hilarious, the artwork great, and the hardcover books themselves were beautiful. I regularly read all the classics - The Giving Tree, Where the... Continue Reading →
Being one of the great cities of the world, many novels have been set in Chicago. This is the second of a series looking at how the city has been portrayed/described in novels. David Mamet's 2018 novel, Chicago, takes up the city in the 1920s to tell the story of Mike Hodge, a reporter for... Continue Reading →
I was asking one of the regulars at the coffee shop I work at about his fiction writing. In describing it he made a comparison to Stuart Dybek. Living mostly in classics as I do, I wasn't familiar but added him to the list. As it would happen, the next day I stumbled onto a... Continue Reading →
Chicago History Museum - 1601 N. Clark Street The permanent "Chicago Authored" exhibit at the Chicago History Museum is pretty rad. Celebrating "how those who write about Chicago shape our understanding of the city," it's the museum's first ever crowdsourced exhibition. Yup, back in 2013, people were given some 450 topics to chose from and... Continue Reading →
William Shakespeare Monument - Lincoln Park Near the Lincoln Park Conservatory sits none other than The Bard himself. Installed in 1894, the statue was created by William Ordway Partridge, who did extensive research to determine what Shakespeare actually looked like. A plaster model of the monument was displayed at the 1893 World's Colombian Exposition. It... Continue Reading →
Oak Park Public Library (Main Branch) – 834 Lake Street Yesterday we looked at the beautiful main library in Oak Park. Today I want to highlight some of the Ernest Hemingway related materials there. Hemingway, a literary hero of mine, grew up in Oak Park and lived there through the end of high school. While... Continue Reading →
