Center Stage (On S. Dearborn St. in Printers Row Park between Polk and Harrison Streets, West Side of Dearborn.) Sunday 9/13, 12pm Nikesha Elise Williams is the author of The Seven Daughters of Dupree. She is a two-time Emmy award winning producer and producer and host of the Black and Published podcast. A narrative strategist ... Read more
Center Stage (On S. Dearborn St. in Printers Row Park between Polk and Harrison Streets, West Side of Dearborn.) Saturday 9/12, 1pm Featured in The Guardian and on HBO, multidisciplinary artist, Nikki Patin has performed and taught at the University of Chicago, Rikers Island prison, EXPO Chicago, Brooklyn Museum, the National Black Theater in Harlem ... Read more
Joseph & Bessie Feinberg Foundation Stage (On W. Polk St., just east of Clark St.) Sunday 9/13, 3pm Processed with VSCO with c2 preset Nina Sudhakar is a writer, poet, and lawyer based in Chicago. She is the author of Where to Carry the Sound (winner of the 2024 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short ... Read more
North Stage (On S. Dearborn St., just south of Ida B. Wells Dr.) Sunday 9/13, 12pm Noa Micaela Fields is the author of E (Nightboat Books, 2026), a poetry alter-book embracing mishearing as a ritual of transformation. She has recently performed at the Palais de Tokyo, Poetry Project, Artists Space, Elastic Arts,Poetry Foundation, Beyond Baroque, ... Read more
Grace Place, 1st Floor (637 S. Dearborn St.) Saturday 9/12, 1pm Olesya Salnikova Gilmore is the author of The Fortune Tellers of Rue Daru, The Haunting of Moscow House, and The Witch and the Tsar. Before becoming an author, she graduated from Northwestern School of Law and worked as a litigator in Chicago. Originally from ... Read more
Digital Realty Stage (On W. Polk St., at Plymouth Ct.) Sunday 9/13, 4pm Omar El Akkad is a writer based near Portland, Oregon. He is the author of two novels (American War and What Strange Paradise) and one book of non-fiction (One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This).
North Stage (On S. Dearborn St., just south of Ida B. Wells Dr.) Saturday 9/12, 3pm Queer historian and writer Owen Keehnen has written several fiction and nonfiction titles. His books of Chicago LGBT history include Dugan’s Bistro and the Legend of the Bearded Lady, Man’s Country: More Than a Bathhouse, Gay Chicago Memories 1300 ... Read more
Joseph & Bessie Feinberg Foundation Stage (On W. Polk St., just east of Clark St.) Saturday 9/12, 4:30pm Paul Martinez-Pompa is a Canto Mundo fellow and currently edits for Packingtown Review. His poetry has been widely anthologized and was commissioned for a Chicago Public Radio project called "In Verse," which aimed to explore the emotional ... Read more
Grace Place, 2nd Floor (637 S. Dearborn St.) Saturday 9/12, 1pm Paula Carter is the author No Relation, which was shortlisted for the Stanford Libraries William Saroyan International Prize. Her award-winning essays have appeared in The New York Times, Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, Creative Nonfiction, Fourth Genre, The Offing, and elsewhere. She ... Read more
North Stage (On S. Dearborn St., just south of Ida B. Wells Dr.) Saturday 9/12, 5pm Priya Hutner is an author, teacher, and co-founder of the Tahoe Literary Festival. A journalist and writer, her work has been featured in the Tahoe Guide, Moonshine Ink, Muse Magazine, Monday Night Poetry Anthology and several other publications. Priya ... Read more
Digital Realty Stage (On W. Polk St., at Plymouth Ct.) Sunday 9/13, 5pm Emeritus Professor of Politics at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, frequent visiting professor in Europe, former member of Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He has written widely on the political Right and Left, with a focus on eastern Europe, particularly Poland, ... Read more
North Stage (On S. Dearborn St., just south of Ida B. Wells Dr.) Sunday 9/13, 3pm Rachel DeWoskin is the award-winning author of five novels, two poetry collections, and a memoir. Her awards include a National Jewish Book Award, Sydney Taylor Book Award, American Library Association Award, and Academy of American Poets Award. Three of ... Read more
North Stage (On S. Dearborn St., just south of Ida B. Wells Dr.) Sunday 9/13, 10am Rachel León is a writer, editor, and social worker who has worked in child welfare for nearly two decades. She serves as Managing Director for Chicago Review of Books and Fiction Director for Arcturus. Their work has appeared in ... Read more
North Stage (On S. Dearborn St., just south of Ida B. Wells Dr.) Sunday 9/13, 5pm Rachel Swearingen is the author of How to Walk on Water and Other Stories, which received the New American Press Fiction Prize and was named a Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year. Her work has appeared in Electric ... Read more
Digital Realty Stage (On W. Polk St., at Plymouth Ct.) Saturday 9/12, 3pm In addition to consulting and facilitating at Stanford University, Dr. Rajesh Oza writes columns, travel essays, book reviews, and baseball doggerel at Bardball.com. Several of his short stories have been published, including “Dr. Mango and Johnny Fish” in Living in America: Poetry ... Read more
Center Stage (On S. Dearborn St. in Printers Row Park between Polk and Harrison Streets, West Side of Dearborn.) Saturday 9/12, 2pm Randy Richardson is an attorney, award-winning journalist, and founding president of the Chicago Writers Association. He is the author of the Tanner Ford thriller series, including Havana Hangover and Another Havana Hangover, along ... Read more
Digital Realty Stage (On W. Polk St., at Plymouth Ct.) Sunday 9/13, 2pm Reshona Landfair was the face of of 4 The Cause, a four-person musical group signed to RCA/BMG from 1994-2000. More recently, Reshona has worked in community health within the Chicago public school system and is the founder of Project Refine, a mentor ... Read more
Rich Vincent is a Chicago-area performer, director, producer, and improviser with a passion for creating theatre that brings people together. A founding member of Stagecraft Collective Theatre, Rich enjoys working both onstage and behind the scenes to make theatre accessible, collaborative, and fun. He is excited to return to Printers Row Lit Fest with Broadway ... Read more
Center Stage (On S. Dearborn St. in Printers Row Park between Polk and Harrison Streets, West Side of Dearborn.) Sunday 9/13, 1pm Born and raised and still living in Chicago, Rick Kogan has worked for the Daily News, Sun-Times and Tribune, where he is a columnist. Inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame in ... Read more
Grace Place, 2nd Floor (637 S. Dearborn St.) Saturday 9/12, 11am Robert P. Baird is a novelist, journalist, and critic. In 2025, he published his debut novel, The Nimbus, which The New Yorker called one of the “Best Books of the Year” in 2025 and The Washington Post put on its list of notable fiction. ... Read more
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 ... Read more
Center Stage (On S. Dearborn St. in Printers Row Park between Polk and Harrison Streets, West Side of Dearborn.) Sunday 9/13, 12pm Rowan Beaird's first novel, The Divorcées, was named a best book by Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, People, The Independent, and the Chicago Review of Books. Her short fiction has appeared in The Kenyon Review, ... Read more
Grace Place, 1st Floor (637 S. Dearborn St.) Saturday 9/12, 1pm Ruthvika Rao is from Hyderabad, India. Her debut novel, The Fertile Earth, was a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the Chautauqua Prize, the Crossword Book Award, and longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. She has taught creative writing at the ... Read more
North Stage (On S. Dearborn St., just south of Ida B. Wells Dr.) Sunday 9/13, 5pm Sahar Mustafah is an award-winning Palestinian American author of The Slightest Green, The Beauty of Your Face, and Code of the West. Her recent fiction is featured in Stories from the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction; ... Read more
Center Stage (On S. Dearborn St. in Printers Row Park between Polk and Harrison Streets, West Side of Dearborn.) Sunday 9/13, 2pm Samantha Hoffman is a writer, a reader, an artist, film and theatre buff, world traveler, and 8-time marathoner. She is the author of What More Could You Wish For (St. Martin’s Press) and ... Read more