Center Stage Sunday, Sept. 8th at 11am Sandra is a Chicago documentary photographer working on assignments about education, the arts and community development. For two years, she photographed the transformation of the former Morton Salt complex along the Chicago River, chronicled in her book, The Salt Shed. Sandra is a silver gelatin master printer and ... Read more
Center Stage Sunday, Sept. 8th at 11am Heidi Stevens is the Director of External Affairs at the TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health, a research institute at the University of Chicago. She worked for 23 years as a writer and editor at the Chicago Tribune, writing a daily column called Balancing Act for ... Read more
Grace Place Stage (1st floor) Saturday, Sept. 7th at 11am Megan Stielstra is the author of three collections: Everyone Remain Calm, Once I Was Cool, and The Wrong Way to Save Your Life. Her work appears in the Best American Essays, New York Times, The Believer, Poets & Writers, Tin House, and elsewhere. A longtime ... Read more
Joseph & Bessie Feinberg Foundation Stage Sunday, Sept. 8th at 3pm Louise Story is an award-winning investigative journalist who spent more than fifteen years at the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, where she was a top masthead editor. Her investigative reporting has led to the largest kleptocracy forfeiture in US history, the ... Read more
Center Stage Saturday, Sept. 7th at 12pm Dan “Sully” Sullivan is a Chicago-born poet residing in Bloomington, IN. Sully’s new book, O Body (Haymarket Books 2024), considers the male body—its momentum and privilege, but also its softness and vulnerability. With appearances on HBO Def Poetry, WGN, and NPR, Sully is a three-time Chicago Slam Champion, ... Read more
Grace Place Stage (2nd floor) Saturday, Sept. 7th at 10am Guggenheim-winner and author of over twenty books of poetry, fiction, biography, memoir and translation, Terese Svoboda has won the Bobst Prize in fiction, the Iowa Poetry Prize, an NEH translation grant, the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize, Jerome Foundation and NEA media grants, the O. Henry Award ... Read more
Plymouth Court Stage Sunday, Sept. 8th at 2pm Rachel Swearingen is the author of the story collection How to Walk on Water and Other Stories. Her stories, essays, interviews and reviews have appeared in Electric Lit, VICE, The Missouri Review, Kenyon Review, Off Assignment, Agni, American Short Fiction, and elsewhere. She lives in Chicago.
North Stage Saturday, Sept. 7th at 4pm Thomas Swick grew up in Phillipsburg, NJ, and lives in Fort Lauderdale, FL, where he spent 19 years as the travel editor of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He is the author of four books, the most recent being Falling into Place: A Story of Love, Poland, and the ... Read more
Center Stage Sunday, Sept. 8th at 10am Rich Swierzewski is a seasoned improv performer with a passion for spontaneous storytelling and comedy. With years of experience in the world of improvisation, Rich has honed his craft, delighting audiences with his creativity. Known for his dynamic stage presence and ability to think on his feet, he ... Read more
Plymouth Court Stage Sunday, Sept. 8th at 11am USA Today bestselling author Sonali Dev writes stories that explore the experience of being a woman in today's world. Her novels have been named Best Books of the Year by Library Journal, NPR, The Washington Post, Cosmo, Buzzfeed, Popsugar, and Kirkus. Dev has won several awards including ... Read more
Plymouth Court Stage Saturday, Sept. 7th at 2pm Steven Thrasher is the author of the award-winning debut book The Viral Underclass, which won the POZ Award for Best in Literature and was a longlist finalist for the PEN/America John Kenneth Galbraith Award and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction Literature. He recently finished writing ... Read more
Jazz Showcase Stage Saturday, Sept. 7th at 4:30pm In 2022 Marisa Tirado published Selena Didn’t Know Spanish Either with Texas Review Press. Though just a chapbook, the collection on Latinx identity and language loss was well-received and featured in The Atlantic, Vogue, HipLatina, and The Poetry Foundation. Marisa studied poetry and literary translation at the ... Read more
Joseph & Bessie Feinberg Foundation Stage Sunday, Sept. 8th at 1pm Angela (Angie) Trudell Vasquez was the city of Madison Poet Laureate from 2020 to 2024. The first Latina to hold the position, she received her MFA in poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts in 2017. In Light, Always Light, her third collection ... Read more
North Stage Saturday, Sept. 7th at 1pm Billy Tuggle is a parent, educator, mentor, performer, and proud South Side Chicagoan. A poetry slam champion, Billy won the 2006 Rustbelt Poetry Slam; multiple Chicago Grand Slams; was the 2015 National Poetry Slam Haiku Champion; and recognized by The Odyssey Online as one of the top 30 ... Read more
Joseph & Bessie Feinberg Foundation Stage Sunday, Sept. 8th at 3pm Nicol Turner Lee writes at the intersection of technology, race, and social justice. She is a Senior Fellow in tech policy at Brookings and her work has appeared in major media outlets. Her new book, Digitally Invisible: How the Internet is Creating the New ... Read more
Joseph & Bessie Feinberg Foundation Stage Sunday, Sept. 8th at 4pm Luis Alberto Urrea, a Guggenheim Fellow and Pulitzer Prize finalist, is the author of 19 books, winning numerous awards for his poetry, fiction and essays. His latest novel, Good Night Irene, was an instant New York Times bestseller. He is a distinguished professor of ... Read more
North Stage Saturday, Sept. 7th at 3pm Cyn Vargas has garnered acclaim for her short story collection, On The Way, earning praise from Shelf Awareness, Library Journal, and other notable sources. As well as being honored as one of Book Scrolling's Best Short Story Collections of All Time. Her latest book, Nothing's Ever The Same, ... Read more
Joseph & Bessie Feinberg Foundation Stage Sunday, Sept. 8th at 12pm Sammie is a bookselling wizard at Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville, IL, where they also moonlight on the events team. On BookTok, you have probably seen them dancing with books as they are most well known for their dancing book reviews. Sammie lives in the ... Read more
North Stage Saturday, Sept. 7th at 12pm Michael M. Weinstein is a poet and essayist whose writing has appeared in venues such as The New Yorker, Boston Review, The Kenyon Review, Conjunctions, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. His debut poetry collection, Saint Consequence, is forthcoming next year from Alice James Books. He teaches ... Read more
North Stage Saturday, Sept. 7th at 2pm Michele Weldon is an award-winning author, journalist, TEDx speaker and emerita faculty at Northwestern University. A senior leader with The OpEd Project and editorial director at Take The Lead, her work has appeared in The New York Times, CNN, The Washington Post, TIME, Newsweek, Guardian, Chicago Tribune, USA ... Read more
Joseph & Bessie Feinberg Foundation Stage Sunday, Sept. 8th at 3pm Cassandra West is an assistant managing editor for news features at Crain’s Chicago Business, where she oversees the monthly Forum and Equity series. She has been an editor at the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune and worked in corporate and nonprofit communications.
Grace Place Stage (2nd floor) Saturday, Sept. 7th at 12pm Theodore Wheeler is the author of four books, including the USA Today bestselling novel The War Begins in Paris (Little Brown, 2023). He has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Nebraska Arts Council, and Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany. For fourteen ... Read more
Joseph & Bessie Feinberg Foundation Stage Sunday, Sept. 8th at 10am Jackie K. White, Professor Emerita at Lewis University, is the author of three chapbooks: Bestiary Charming, 2006 Anabiosis Press Award; Petal Tearing & Variations, Finishing Line (2008); and Come Clearing, Dancing Girl Press, 2012. Her poems and translations have appeared in ACM, Bayou, Fifth ... Read more
Plymouth Court Stage Sunday, Sept. 8th at 1pm Phillip B. Williams is from Chicago, Illinois, and is the author of two collections of poetry: Thief in the Interior, which was the winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and a Lambda Literary Award, and Mutiny, which was a finalist for the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry ... Read more
North Stage Sunday, Sept. 8th at 4pm Jeremy T. Wilson is the author of the novel The Quail Who Wears the Shirt and the short story collection Adult Teeth. He is a former winner of the Chicago Tribune’s Nelson Algren Award for short fiction and the Hessman Trophy, presented by legendary Principal Durward U. Hessman ... Read more