North Stage
(On S. Dearborn St., just south of Ida B. Wells Dr.)
Sunday 9/13, 12pm

Rocío Franco is a Chicana poet from Chicago. The Frost Place, The Watering Hole, Periplus Collective, VONA, Tin House, StoryStudio, and the Ragdale Residency have supported her work. She was selected for the 2026 Guild Literary Complex’s 35 Writers to Watch, a list that honors local writers whose careers represent the future of the literary arts in Chicago. Her poems have appeared in The Acentos Review, Exposition Review, Chicago Reader, Lunch Ticket, L@tino Literatures Journal, AGNI, Mom Egg Review, The Rumpus, and others. Her debut chapbook, Where the Monarchs Never Die, won the 2025 Arcana Poetry Press Chapbook Contest.