Creatively we stand. While last year's Lit 50 went behind the scenes and dove headfirst into the literary world's most powerful, this year we're contemplating those whose creative influence is the greatest--mostly authors and poets. But don't try to read a qualitative evaluation into our rankings: how could you assess the value of a novelist versus a poet anyway?

Instead, we're measuring influence, and it's been a banner year in that regard, whether it's the almighty Oprah's reprimand heard round the world (James Frey--who is he again?) or the especially astonishing ascent of a University of Chicago economics professor to the top of the bestseller list. So, herewith, the 2006 edition of Lit 50, a celebration of the women and men who keep us hooked on books.

1. Oprah Winfrey

Sure, we know she's got the power, but apparently that ain't enough. She's also one of the best-paid authors in history, and she hasn't even written her book yet. The queen bee of daytime television runs, by far, the most successful book club ever--it's an author's meal ticket if one of his or her books is chosen. She's jumpstarted the careers of then little-known authors such as Jacquelyn Mitchard and Wally Lamb, and just look what she did for the Faulkner estate--when the big O pushed Faulkner's classics on everyone last year, sales for the wild Southerner shot to the top, just behind Harry Potter. Some expected she would take a hit when James Frey's "A Million Little Pieces" turned out to a be a bundle of lies, but she turned the flame where it belonged, on Frey himself, and gave him a nationally televised whipping. She publishes her thriving O magazine, and just last week it was announced that Simon & Schuster will hand over more than $12 million to her to write a memoir about her weight-loss battle, the biggest nonfiction book deal in history.

2. Studs Terkel

Chicago's literary treasure turned 94 in May, and even though this master of oral history's nearing the century mark, he's not retiring any time soon. In last fall's "And They All Sang: Adventures of an Eclectic Disc Jockey," Studs writes of his life in music, including interviews with the likes of Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin, and he recently promoted the book on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." And he'll still protect us like a big brother--just last week he filed a lawsuit against AT&T in federal court in order to stop them from dishing out customer phone records to the NSA without proper warrants.

3. Scott Turow

While the author-attorney has several bestselling legal thrillers he can claim, including "Presumed Innocent" and "The Burden of Proof," he took a little detour last year when he wrote of fathers and sons during WWII in "Ordinary Heroes." He's back to the courtroom with "Limitations," a serial currently running in the New York Times that will be published by Picador as a paperback original this fall. After that, Turow says, he'll dive into a sequel to "Presumed Innocent."

4. Chris Ware

While Chicago continually breeds new talent in the comics world, no one is as influential as Ware, whose "Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth" earned him mainstream attention and acclaim. He publishes a series called "The ACME Novelty Library," the seventeenth issue of which will be released in the fall. He says that he's "supposedly" guest-editing the second volume of "The Best American Comics" for Houghton Mifflin, and his work is currently on display in an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art. He has one more achievement he can claim--the first cartoonist to land a series in the New York Times, in its magazine's "Funny Pages" section. Other than that, Ware reports he "can't claim anything too out of the ordinary."

5. Jeffrey Eugenides

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Middlesex" emerged a decade before with the suburban-gothic "The Virgin Suicides," a one-two punch of masterworks that put him at the top of the fiction world. Lucky for us, he relocated to Chicago from Germany in 2004, and given his history of writing about the places he lives, maybe the city will serve as a setting for his next award-winning work. While that might be just wishful thinking and it could be some time before we see a new novel (ten years passed between "Virgin" and "Middlesex"), we can wait.

6. Steven Levitt

The University of Chicago's economics professor had a surprise super-seller with "Freakonomics" last year, which sat up high on the New York Times bestseller list and, for the first time, had nearly the entire literary world enthralled by economics. The young professor, widely regarded as one of the top economists in the country, was recently chosen by Time magazine as one of the "100 People Who Shape Our World."

7. Audrey Niffenegger

Niffenegger's breakthrough debut, the innovative love story "The Time Traveler's Wife," had everyone's attention in 2004, even Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, who bought the rights to the novel for a movie to make together. Well, we all know how that worked out. Since then, however, Niffenegger has released a Gorey-like illustrated novel, the beautifully morbid "The Three Incestuous Sisters," and reportedly has been at work on a new novel, "Her Fearful Symmetry," a London-set mystery.

8. Aleksandar Hemon

The Bosnian-born author of "The Question of Bruno" and "Nowhere Man" has had multiple stories published in The New Yorker and Esquire, and his short story "The Conductor" will be featured in "The Best American Short Stories 2006." He says that lately he's been writing nonfiction pieces, one of which will soon be published in an upcoming New Yorker, and has been writing and traveling, working on a book titled "The Lazarus Project."

9. Stuart Dybek

Dybek counts as a Chicagoan, even though he lives in nearby Kalamazoo, Michigan, and has for a long time. He was raised in Little Village and Pilsen, and his 2004 novel, "I Sailed with Magellan," told various different Chicago stories (and won him a prize from the Society of Midland Authors). Mayor Daley even chose his "The Coast of Chicago" for One Book, One Chicago a couple years ago.

10. James McManus

Chicago's card-shark, author of the enthralling "Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs and Binion's World Series of Poker," returned late last year with "Physical: An American Checkup," a look at McManus' own health, the health of his diabetic daughter and the United States' healthcare system. The Art Institute prof told Newcity in January that he plans on moving back into the fiction realm soon and also plans to write a nonfiction book about the history of poker, which he calls "America's true national pastime."

11. Christian Wiman

The editor of the distinguished Poetry magazine released his second collection of poems, "Hard Night," last year. He won the 1998 Nicholas Roerich Prize for his debut, "The Long Home," and now he says that he has "a book of selected essays, `Ambition and Survival,' coming out next year. Other than finishing up a concluding essay for that, I'm working on new poems."

12. Garry Wills

The prolific historian and adjunct professor at Northwestern University--and Pulitzer winner--has penned nearly thirty books on American history and religion, including 2005's "Henry Adams and the Making of America" and "The Rosary," plus this year's "What Jesus Meant."

13. Joe Meno

The punk-rock author, playwright and Punk Planet columnist had his biggest success in 2004 with "Hairstyles of the Damned" and followed up last fall with the short-story collection, "Bluebirds Used to Croon in the Choir," for which he received a prize from the Society of Midland Authors. His new play, "The Boy Detective Fails," currently shows at the Viaduct Theater, and the book version hits shelves in September, complete, according to Meno, with a "beautifully designed decoder ring." He reports, "The next thing I'm working on is a show for Redmoon Theatre called `Once Upon a Time,' a fairy tale set in the fifties, which will open next March. It's about a little girl who can talk to birds and how all the birds in the world are suddenly stolen and she has to find a way to get them back."

14. Bill Zehme

One of the country's best profilers, Zehme has covered some of show business' biggest and most enigmatic, from Frank Sinatra to Andy Kaufman to Hugh Hefner, not to mention a stellar dissection of Bob Greene in Esquire magazine a few years back. His next book, "Carson the Magnificent: An Intimate Portrait," which examines American icon Johnny Carson in the last interviews the late comic granted, hits shelves this November.

15. Alex Kotlowitz

Kotlowitz has been called an "accidental Chicagoan" because of his New York roots, but 2004's "Never a City So Real," a collection of Chicago tales filled with Chicago characters, proved that he's adopted the Windy in stride. He says he's "Just finished up a piece for the New York Times Magazine that will be out June 11," and that he has "another book in the works."

16. Roger Ebert

The first film critic to win a Pulitzer, the movie man has a hit every year with his "Movie Yearbook" series--the 2006 edition was published in November. His "Great Movies" anthologies provide his take on the best of the best, and as a journalist who can pretty much make or break a film with a review, his thumb should be up for a long time.

17. Ted C. Fishman

Fishman's best-selling "China, Inc: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges American and the World," a detailed dissection of China's economic power, has garnered the author overwhelming attention, making him the go-to guy for both local and national news media on all matters Chinese, not to mention policy-makers in Washington. Otherwise, he spends his time penning in-depth stories for the likes of The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, Esquire and others--when he's not jetting arournd the world on speaking gigs.

18. Luis Alberto Urrea

The Naperville resident's 2004 novel "The Devil's Highway," about a group of Mexican immigrants lost in an Arizona desert, was named a best book of the year by the Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and the Miami Herald, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction and won the Lannan Literary Award. His follow-up, "The Hummingbird's Daughter," just released in paperback, won the Kiriyama Prize for fiction. According to his blog, Urrea is at work on a sequel.

19. Elizabeth Berg

The prolific Berg released "We Are All Welcome Here" just this last April, a drama about a polio victim and her 13-year-old daughter. This fall, she publishes "The Handmaid and the Carpenter," which she says is "a Christmas book, looking at the events that inspired the holiday. It's kind of like `When Harry Met Sally,' but it's `When Mary met Joseph.'" After that, Berg looks to complete a short-story collection, titled "Returns and Exchanges."

20. Joseph Parisi

Former editor of Poetry magazine Parisi is at it again. Not one to be forgotten, his legacy resounds with his latest editorial project, "Between the Lines: A History of Poetry in Letters, 1962-2002," for which he teamed up with Poetry Foundation program director Stephen Young, with whom Parisi has put forth several other collections, including "Dear Editor: A History of Poetry in Letters" and "The Poetry Anthology 1912-2002."

21. Lisel Mueller

The former University of Chicago instructor and Chicago Daily News book reviewer won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1997 with her collection "Alive Together: New and Selected Poems." Yet acclaim for the Lake Forest resident's work didn't stop there; she is the recipient of the Lamont Poetry Selection, the Carl Sandburg Award, the Illinois Poet Laureate Award and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship.

22. Jim DeRogatis

If you're a musician, DeRo either makes your day or breaks your bones in his columns for the Sun-Times, and March's "Staring at Sound: The True Story of Oklahoma's Fabulous Flaming Lips," is just one more notch in his music-lit belt. (He's also written psychedelic rock book "Turn On Your Mind" and collected "Milk It!", an anthology of his writings.) He's now working on a book that chronicles his life as a musician, tentatively titled "The Best Thirty Minutes of My Life."

23. Alex Ross

No doubt about it, Alex Ross is one superhero of an illustrator. Within the past year, he's lent his pen to a variety of projects, including "The World's Greatest Super-Heroes" with Paul Dini and "Absolute Kingdom Come (Absolute)" with Mark Waid.

24. Harry Mark Petrakis

The Chicago storyteller's follow-up to his mighty "Twilight of the Ice" was 2004's "The Orchards of Ithaca," which dissected a fictional, restaurant-owning family on Halsted Street in Greektown. The award-winning author received a Doctor of Humane Letters from Indiana University Northwest this year--he's been a resident of nearby Chesterton, Indiana for some time now.

25. Elizabeth Crane

The award-winning "When the Messenger Is Hot" author followed-up on her debut with another collection of linking short stories, "All This Heavenly Glory," last spring--the paperback is out this week. She says that book number three is in the works, and we should expect more short stories.

26. Isaac Adamson

For the Billy Chaka series--in which Adamson sends his journalist hero all over the world, mostly to Japan, where he finds himself in a slew of adventures that usually involve murder--the author has written four novels, the last of which was 2004's "Kinki Lullaby." His skill of combining murder mystery with dry humor attracted Tobey Maguire, who optioned the rights to Adamson's first book, "Tokyo Suckerpunch," and Variety reported last year that the wheels are in motion and Maguire is set to star. "Right now I'm working on an intricate mess of a novel set in Prague," Adamson says. "It's a bit more ambitious than anything I've done so far."

27. Father Andrew Greeley

The Catholic priest and sociologist has written more than fifty books during his time in the church, including the recent "The Catholic Revolution: New Wine in Old Wineskins, and the Second Vatican Council" and "Priests: A Calling in Crisis." Just last September he released "The Making of the Pope 2005" through Little, Brown & Co.

28. Haki Madhubuti

With a new book out in 2004, "Run Toward Fear: New Poems and a Poet's Handbook," Haki Madhubuti maintains his presence as a prominent thinker in Chicago. He is also the founder of the Third World Press and the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing, where he acts as Distinguished University Professor and director emeritus.

29. Paul Hornschemeier

The graphic novelist, whose "Sequential" series and "Forlorn Funnies" series gave him a name in the comics underground, took a cue from Chris Ware with 2003's stunningly tragic "Mother, Come Home." Up next are two books via Fantagraphics, "Let Us Be Perfectly Clear" in June and "The Three Paradoxes" in September.

30. Laura Kipnis

Ever the agent provocateur, Laura Kipnis follows up her notorious polemic "Against Love"--which put adultery in a new, perhaps more flattering, light--with "The Female Thing: Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability," due out from Pantheon in October. Focusing on the psyche of the twenty-first-century female, "The Female Thing" will no doubt attest to Kipnis's undeniable influence in Chicago's literary scene.

31. Joseph Epstein

This native Chicagoan is author of the bestselling "Snobbery: The American Version," and a regular contributor to glossies like The New Yorker, Harper's and the Atlantic Monthly. Formerly editor of the American Scholar Magazine, Epstein is currently working on a book about friendship, out this July.

32. Sara Paretsky

Author of the celebrated VI Warshawski mystery series, for which she won a CWA Silver Dagger Award, Sara Paretsky continues to chill her readers with her newest--and twelfth--edition, "Fire Sale." With a MBA in finance and a Ph.D. in history, Paretsky remains one of the foremost writers of crime fiction in America.

33. Sam Weller

The award-winning journalist, former Midwest correspondent for Publishers Weekly and instructor at Columbia College (not to mention a former Newcity staff writer) delivered "The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury" last spring, one of the year's best nonfiction entries and the only authorized biography about the sci-fi scribe. For the book, Weller recently grabbed a Society of Midland Authors prize, and up next is a graphic novel called "Time Travellin' Truckers."

34. Gioia Diliberto

On the heels of her successful 2003 biography "I Am Madame X," Gioia Diliberto is now putting the finishing touches on her latest effort, a historical novel set in the couture world of Paris in 1919. Though the actual story is invented, Diliberto immersed herself in research and says she developed a newfound appreciation for the art of dressmaking.

35. Simone Muench

The Kathryn Morton Prize-winning poet and University of Illinois at Chicago professor released "Lampblack & Ash" last November through Sarabande Books, her follow-up to the acclaimed "The Air Lost in Breathing." She's currently at work on a new collection of poems, titled "The Twenty-Ninth Bather."

36. Barry Silesky

The editor of Another Chicago Magazine and Lawrence Ferlinghetti's biographer has received critical acclaim for his most recent book, "John Gardner: The Life and Death of a Literary Outlaw." In the fall, Silesky is getting back to his roots with a new collection of poetry coming out from Tampa University Press, titled "This Disease."

37. Reginald Gibbons

Co-founder and editor of Northwestern University Press's contemporary imprint, TriQuarterly Books, Reginald Gibbons keeps himself busy as a poet, critic, translator, fiction writer, artist and professor of English and Classics at Northwestern. His thirtieth book--due out from the University of Texas Press in 2007--is an edited collection of the autobiographical writings of William Goyen, called "While You Were Away."

38. Kevin Guilfoile

Guilfoile's thriller "Cast of Shadows" breathlessly involved murder, cloning and father-daughter love in its wonderfully complex plot. The author's written for McSweeney's, Salon and The New Republic, and contributed to last year's "Chicago Noir" anthology.

39. Lisa Buscani

A Pushcart Prize nominee for her poetry, the executive director of the Poetry Center of Chicago has published one book, "Jangle," and has been featured in various anthologies. Buscani, an alumna of theater company the Neo-Futurists, replaced the influential Kenneth Clarke at the Poetry Center last year, and the institution continues to thrive under Buscani's direction with an illustrious reading series and the "Hands on Stanzas" program.

40. Jeffrey Brown

The king of heartbroken social awkwardness, graphic novelist Brown broke through with long-form books "Unlikely" and "Clumsy," and then with his superhero collection, "Bighead." Recently, he's released "Every Girl Is the End of the World for Me" and drawn a music video for Death Cab for Cutie, which is featured on its "Plans" DVD.

41. Li-Young Lee

With one of the best-selling poetry titles in U.S. history, "Rose," to his name, Li-Young Lee is clearly in high demand. His most insightful interviews have been arranged and edited by Earl Ingersoll in a new book called "Breaking the Alabaster Jar: Conversations with Li-Young Lee (American Readers Series)," to be released in September.

42. Carol Anshaw

The writing professor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is an award-winning novelist and book critic. Her debut novel, "Aquamarine," won the Sandburg Award, and she was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for her latest effort, "Lucky in the Corner."

43. Bayo Ojikutu

The author and professor at DePaul University's debut "47th Street Black" was a heralded work that traced the mean streets of the Chicago's South Side. Ojikutu contributed a story to Akashic Press' "Chicago Noir" anthology last fall and releases his new novel, "Free Burning," this October.

44. Rosellen Brown

The critically acclaimed author of "Before and After," a novel that explores the strained relationships in a family dealing with trauma (made into a movie with Meryl Streep, no less), Rosellen Brown is a prolific writer and poet. Contributing to a variety of journals and releasing several other books, Brown has also published collections of poetry, including "Cora Fry's Pillow Book."

45. Larry Heinemann

The Chicago native won the 1987 National Book Award with "Paco's Story," an uncompromising look at the effects on a soldier post-Vietnam, which beat out Toni Morrison's "Beloved." Since then he's written "Cooler by the Lake" and a nonfiction work, "Black Virgin Mountain," about his service during the war.

46. Randall Albers

The creative force behind Columbia's soaring literary profile, Albers is the founder of the Columbia College Story Week Festival--which celebrated its tenth anniversary this year, with readings from Studs Terkel, Stuart Dybek and Edward P. Jones. He also serves as Fiction Writing Department Chair at the school. Albers tells us that he plans to finish a novel this summer, part on which was recently published in F Magazine.

47. Cris Mazza

The professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and editor of the "Chick Lit" series has written more than fifteen books, including last year's "Many Ways to Get it, Many Ways to Say It," the novella "Disability," plus her 2003 memoir "Indigenous: Growing Up Californian."

48. Victoria Lautman

The host of the monthly author series "Writers on the Record" at the Lookingglass Theatre has seen a variety of literary heavy-hitters since the program's inception in 2004, including Michael Cunningham, Augusten Burroughs, Jonathan Safran Foer, Frank McCourt and Bret Easton Ellis, making it the most distinguished series in the city.

49. Jessa Crispin

Behind the Chicago wheel of the literary blogosphere, Crispin's bookslut.com anatomizes endless pools of novels, plus features author interviews and her own daily blog, which not only covers her musings on literature but on general pop culture as well, like the concisely written recent post that reads, "Fuck You, X-Men 3." Bookslut's reading series has also recently launched, with periodic events at Hopleaf.

50. Thax Douglas

The baseball-cap-donning rock 'n' roll poet is recognizable by pretty much anyone who has seen a rock show in Chicago--he prologues performances with poems inspired by bands--and the "Tragic Faggot Syndrome" scribe currently catalogues all of his work on his Myspace.com blog, where you can find nearly 2,000 pieces. He's also the subject of a documentary to be screened this summer at the Music Box.

The Lit 50 was written by Tom Lynch, with additional contributions from Agatha Gilmore and additional reporting by Kate Puhala

Printers Row Book Fair
A look at the highlights of this year's fest

(2006-05-30)

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