|
|
|
|
|
|
Edited by Sam Jemielity Written by Dave Chamberlain, Sam Jemielity, Ray Pride, Frank Sennett and Annabelle Villanueva With Michael McClintock and Simone Muench BOOKS HUB |
|
|
|
Second 25
26 INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLERS 27 BRIDGET KINSELLA 28 LUIS RODGRIGUEZ 29 MARY DEMPSEY 30 ANA CASTILLO 31 HAKI MADHUBUTI 32 MICHAEL WARR 33 LISEL MUELLER 34 MILT ROSENBERG, MARA TAPP 35 MARILYN HARRINGTON 36 BILL OTT 37 JOHN O'BRIEN 38 BOB BRYANT 39 ROBERT RODI 40 JOHN BLADES 41 JOSEPH PARISI 42 JANE JORDAN BROWNE 43 FREDERICK POHL 44 BETTE CERF HILL 45 CURTIS WHITE 46 GREG POPEK 47 CAROL DECHANT 48 HENRY KISOR 49 MARC SMITH 50 ACHY OBEJAS |
|
For the past two years, the Independent Booksellers of the Chicago Area (IBCA) have looked to help customers buy those books from the thirtyodd independents in IBCA's family. The group runs joint advertising and special events, as well as an interstore coupon system, to aid the indies' battles against attacking corporate giants, an issue that former IBCA president and Women and Children First Bookstore coowner Linda Bubon says "remains a constant threat." Although he works within the less-contentious bargain books world, Brad Jonas is able to characterize the independents/superchain war very simply. "What people need to realize is that if you take the individual stores together, you have the biggest, most comprehensive superstore around," he says. "But customers basically don't care about the rhetoric between chains and independents-they're just interested in buying their books." Yet despite the chains' growth, indies are still a strong force driven by specialization (examples are Women and Children First's feminist lit and Seminary CoOp's huge reserves of scholarly works), plus community involvement and staff knowledge (such as Unabridged bookstore's amazingly competent employees, who seemingly can recall thousands of titles without the benefit of a store computers.) And even stores outside of IBCA's realm can flourish-Afrocentric Bookstore's steady expansion recently culminated in a move to a large, prominent space at the busy DePaul Center.
Noteworthy: Other IBCA members include The Children's Museum Store, City Newsstand, The Stars Our Destination, The Savvy Traveller and Transitions Bookplace.
|
26
|
|
The dismal coverage of the book business in Chicago's mainstream media makes Publishers Weekly a must-read if you want to know what going on in and around Chicago as it happens. Just grab the trade mag off a discerning newsdealer's rack and look for Kinsella's byline, and you'll know what every publisher, bookseller and reporter in the city knows about everything from indie bookstores to Oprah. Kinsella scored a coup by getting the talk-show diva to pause for a chat about The Book Club (and with all those books to read, Oprah ain't got much time for chit-chat). Since the decision to hold her BookExpo at McCormick Place for the near future has all those New York types wondering about us alien Midwestern life forms, Kinsella's on the hot seat to deliver the dish.
Noteworthy: Publishers Weekly does not review self-published titles. Last year: 29
|
27
|
|
A distribution deal with Northwestern University Press means Tia Chucha Press books reach a wider audience, much to the delight of director Rodriguez. Coming under the direction of the Guild Complex two years ago reunited Rodriguez in the struggle for politically and socially conscious literature with his old roommate, Michael Warr, a veteran of making a little go a long way. An April front-page Tribune Books review singled out Tia Chucha poetry collections by locals Carlos Cumpian and Cin Salach for reserved praise in honor of National Poetry Month. And as a writer, Rodriguez gives the lie to the old dichotomy between the mind sets of academic and streetwise poetrys. He just received a $105,000 Lila Wallace Writer's Award that stipulates a three-year writing mentorship program for inner-city youth. Having authored the acclaimed "Always Running: A Memoir of La Vida Loca, Gang Life in L.A.," Rodriguez is the right man for the job. He's assembling a book of essays, most written over the past two years for publications such as The Nation, Utne Reader and Hungry Mind Review. He's also pulling together a book of short stories and still looking for a publisher for a completed book on the spread of L.A. gang culture to Central America and Mexico.
Noteworthy: Ironically, while Tia Chucha's other authors are breaking through to larger audiences, Rodriguez' own "Always Running" has been banned by the Rockford, Illinois' school district from its school library shelves since 1996. Last year: 22
|
28
|
| At a time when bookstores do triple duty as coffeeshops, music stores and all-purpose entertainment centers, Dempsey and her staff have subtly reshaped the public library system's focus to reflect the demands made by a more sophisticated audience. Along with adding new neighborhood branches at a fevered pace-sixteen in the last three years and four more by the end of 1997-Dempsey plans to roll out the free Internet access now enjoyed at twenty-five branches to all eighty outposts by 2000. She's also beefed up adult programming, including expanding popular neighborhood book discussion groups and widening the periodical and bestseller titles at community branches.
Noteworthy: The Harold Washington Library's finally fulfilling its promise of being a central cultural resource, hosting high-profile events such as April's Alice Walker reading, the Rescuers of the Holocaust exhibit and the Chicago Matters series sponsored with WBEZ and WTTW. Last year: 38
|
29
|
| A vibrantly imaginative Latina voice seems incongruous with the gruff Algren and Dreiserlike ghosts haunting the local scene, but Ana Castillo nonetheless has emerged as one of the most important manifestations of Chicago letters. She followed the critical success of her short-story collection, "Loverboys," by editing "La Diosa de las Americas," an anthology of writings on the Virgin of Guadaloupe. Future works include a poetry collection, the children's book "My Daughter, My Son, My Eagle My Dove" and another novel, "Peel My Love Like an Onion," to be released in 1998. The softspoken West Side native's also a regular at The Guild Complex and appears at several other local readings, although the best barometer of her elevated status came during the Tribune's hyperactive Democratic National Convention coverage, when Castillo contributed an essay to a feature series that included thoughts by Saul Bellow, Scott Turow, Sara Paretsky and David Mamet.
Noteworthy: Castillo's breakthrough novel, "So Far From God"-a funny, mystical family saga showcasing her considerable talents. Last year: 15
|
30
|
| Although the 55-year-old Madhubuti's far from a household name, he estimates sales of his poetry collection, "Don't Cry, Scream" at half-a-million; the Chicago State University teacher puts the sales for another of his books, "Black Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous?" at a cool million paperbacks. Like a pitcher helping his own cause with a clutch homer, the poet and publisher scored a hit for his Third World Press with his own "Groundwork: Selected and New Poems 1966-1996." "Groundwork" and the second volume of Gwendolyn Brooks' autobiography-along with continuing sales of Madhubuti's 1995 "Million Man March/Day of Absence"-helped Third World accelerate their list from twelve last year to twenty-five for 1997. These days, Madhubuti devotes much of his time to the African-centered New Concept school (along with his wife, Safisha, a teacher at Northwestern University's School of Education), which he founded a quarter-century ago. He brought in William Mayo, a D.C. publishing veteran, as Third World's chief operating officer.
Noteworthy: Third World has high hopes for forthcoming titles by ex-Harvard president Derek Bell and locals such as blues poet Sterling Plumpp and Chicago State president and marathoner Dolores Cross. Last year: 31
|
31
|
| Warr has built the Guild Complex from a $30,000 budget five years ago to 1997's $209,000 fund. He directs a nonprofit literary center so successful that foreign countries starting to feel an Americanized pinch in arts funding come calling to ask how he put on the show. Although the search for grant money and donations is never-ending, Warr largely credits the volunteer staff-now up to sixty-for making the Complex work. But Warr's masterful programming has made the Complex a locale for mixing culture and ideas: in one memorable evening, he followed up a reading of W.B. Yeats' poetry to fiddle accompaniment with a reading by Jamaican dub poet Mutabaruka. While the Complex has moved several times in eight years, Warr has never missed a Wednesday night. And a diligent effort courting the Lila Wallace Foundation scored the Guild a $105,000 Audiences for Literacy Project grant normally reserved for million-dollar institutions. As Warr puts it, despite the Guild's budget, "we have million-dollar programming." And while he puts his poetry career on the back burner, Warr has published one book of poems, "We Are All the Black Boy," and is working on a second, "Hero Worship."
Noteworthy: Adrienne Rich praised the Complex for "bringing both literacy and poetry into local communities, workplaces, libraries, reservations, and prisons" in "The Best American Poetry, 1996." Last year: 28
|
32
|
| For someone who acquired a Pulitzer for her latest book, "Alive Together: New and Selected Poems," published by Louisiana State University Press, Lisel Mueller has had shockingly little written about her. A resident of Lake Forest, Mueller was born in 1924 and was subsequently transplanted from Germany to the States when she was fifteen. She has written several books, including "The Private Life," which won the 1975 Lamont Poetry Selection, "The Need to Hold Still," which received the American Book Award in 1981, and "Circe's Mountain," a translation of twelve stories by Marie Luise Kaschnitz. "Alive Together" is her sixth book of poetry, incorporating poems from all of her previous books. Both accessible and resonant, Mueller, as in the poem "Things," pens lines with precision and lyricism: "We fitted our shoes with tongues/as smooth as our own/and hung tongues inside bells/so we could listen/to their emotional language."
Noteworthy: Lisel Mueller's daughter, Jenny, a poet herself, is a former NewCity staffer. Last year: Not ranked
|
33
|
| Way before Stedman's girlfriend revolutionized book promotion, radio broadcasters spent years lining up writers to flog their books onair. Now that Studs Terkel's WFMT-FM show rides into the sunset later this year and WGN-AM mainstay Roy Leonard focuses on celebrity and entertainment news, the local bookchat mantle falls on the shoulders of Leonard's station-colleague Rosenberg and WBEZ-FM know-it-all Mara Tapp. The drippingly erudite Rosenberg's hardly new to the scene, as his Extension 720 program has faithfully plugged along for around twenty years as the prime Midwestern stop for author tours. Listeners from its huge audience often light up station switchboards after appearances by guests who range from unknown nutritionists to Harley enthusiasts, to former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. Tapp's author conversations fill only a small portion of her multifaceted arts program and don't come close to reaching WGN's ratings, but unlike Rosenberg, her program often engages fiction writers in probing discussions on literature.
Noteworthy: Dr. Rosenberg battles for late night radio supremacy against fellow doc Dr. Drew of Q101's "Loveline." Last year: Not ranked
|
34
|
| The big publishing houses dropped out of BookExpo this year: no Random House, no Simon & Schuster, no Bantam-Doubleday-Dell. Harrington and BookExpo are trying to put a happy face on things, emphasizing booksellers, but there's little doubt attendance will drop off, perhaps precipitously. Good news for most Chicagoans, who don't really care what's going on at McCormick Place and in little parties around the city. In case the little guys don't provide enough of a draw, Harrington is bringing in Oliver Stone, Naomi Judd, even Moses (aka Charlton Heston) to try to part the Red Ink Sea and prove that BookExpo isn't missing a beat.
Noteworthy: Did we mention Naomi Judd's gonna be there? Last year: 20
|
35
|
| As editor and publisher of Booklist, the American Library Association's 93-year-old book-review publication, Bill Ott weeds out diamonds from rhinestones for the library market. Booklist reviews around 7,500 books in its twenty-two issues each year; a featured reviewer averages two books a day! Booklist has a "recommend only" policy; only in the "Upfront: Advance Reviews" section will editorial staffers tee off on the celebrity bios and bestsellers, while at the same time warning librarians to put in that order. Ott has the magazine moving toward more feature-oriented articles, in hopes of attracting a general-interest audience. An April mystery showcase created an online buzz among whodunit fans. And Booklist recently devoted a column to evangelical Christian fiction; in that alternate publishing world, Janette Oke has been posting "Stephen King-like" numbers, and librarians care, even if New York doesn't.
Noteworthy: A Booklist reviewer rejected "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" as a low priority, noting: "The focus is limited to the conflict between two persons rather than the larger problems of mental illness." Last year: 47
|
36
|
| Dalkey Archive Press might sound like a dusty academic throwback, such as it is under the wing of Illinois State University in Normal, and beneficiary of a "spectacular" distribution deal with University of Chicago Press that's moving into a second year, and well-known for its backlist of what is usually called "experimental" fiction. "Chicago is know for thier fantastic efficiency. It's important for a book to get out there at the same time as reviews." In the last year, however, with titles landing on the shelves in chain stores, sales have continued to grow, and critical gold was struck with several volumes, especially with one of the finest books published in 1996, after its rejection by tens of presses, David Markson's remarkable, exuberant "Reader's Block," a concatenation of fact-mongering about the peculiar lives and strange deaths of the famous, all collected in a commonplace book of the thoughts racing through an aging writer's mind. "While Dalkey had record high sales last year, and record high gross sales, this year, the press has also seen, like everyone in the industry, record high returns. ŚWe still don't know what his means. Historically, it's been 15-18%, now it's 35-70% over a six month period. We has high net sales, but those return rates play utter havoc with any kind of predictablity. How many do you print to satisfy artifical demands? With Borders we've quadrupled our net sales through them, but thery're returning more as well.'" Markson's earlier "Wittgenstein's Mistress" is a mainstay of the Dalkey list, along with their trademark writers, such as Flann O'Brien, Felipe Alfau, Rikki Ducornet, Celine, Djuna Barnes, and ardent career experimentalists such as Harry Matthews and Joseph McElroy. While volumes from Dalkey's first decade were designed in the severe black-and-white style of books from classy publishers such as Gallimard New Directions, the output of which O'Brien has always admired, recent volumes from the press have been more stylish, with frisky typography and bright colors, and it seems, brighter prospects. "It just means my taste in covers doesn't amount to shit." Still, O'Brien's mission seems to remain solid: to make available books that are playful, yet as serious as death, or grammar. Dalkey has a polict of never letting books go out of print, adding six to eight titles eacht year to their 18-20 front list titles and a backlist of over 150.
Noteworthy: Flann O'Brien's poker-faced picaresque about James Joyce faking his death, "The Dalkey Archive," gave the press its name. Last year: 40
|
37
|
| Since 1963 Barbara's has been the quintessential neighborhood bookstore, known particularly for its comprehensive, intelligent literature section and celebrated author readings. Even stalwarts aren't impervious to bookstore wars, however, and Barbara's has recently regrouped with shrewd moves and innovative expansion. Owner Don Barliant shuttered Barbara's weakening Lakeview store in September and opened a space in ethnically diverse Evergreen Park. A few months later, he replaced his management staff and promoted the twentysomething Bryant to the Chicago general manager. The company intends to open more stores in uncontested locations, with plans for a new store in Highland Park. The growth has provoked grumbling in some circles, though, by those who contend that the store is losing some of its independent spirit, particularly by opening Barbara's Bestsellers kiosks in Sears Tower, near Union Station and in Boston's train station (another Barbara's Best is slated to debut at New York's LaGuardia Airport later this year). Still, naysayers probably shouldn't be too concerned-a popular seller at the Madison and Canal kiosk is existentialist Albert Camus' rediscovered classic "The First Man."
Noteworthy: Or should they? The famed author's wall at Barbara's Wells Street location, stocked with photos of the elevated ilk of William Burroughs and Saul Bellow, was removed after the store's renovation. Last year: 34
|
38
|
| Kirkus Review calls Robert Rodi "the undisputed doyen of the effervescent gay novel of manners." Rodi likes the characterization. "If you take the trouble to effervesce," says Rodi, "you want people to notice." In his 1996 novel, "Kept Boy," Rodi tackles another stereotype of the gay world, but you wouldn't have read about it in the mainstream press. Although his first novel, "Fag Hag," is in its tenth printing, Rodi's only foray into mainstream books coverage so far has been as a reviewer-he recently wrote a Tribune Books cover story on books about dogs, an appropriate assignment for a man whose answering machine message consists solely of a canine's growling yawps. (Rodi also contributes to NewCity.) He's flown the coup from Dutton, where he felt pigeonholed, and is close to closing a deal with a more-mainstream publisher. His next novel, "Not a Well Woman," deals with a lady who hasn't left her house for thirteen years (Ms. Havisham "with a more extensive wardrobe"). Out of desperation, she goes out for milk and gets shanghaied into a trip to California. Rodi calls it his David Lynch version of the Wizard of Oz. Until he settles in with a new publisher, however, Rodi fans can look for the November paper release of "Kept Boy."
Noteworthy: Rodi is a member of a gay performance group, the Pansy Kings, that presents comic monologues. Last year: 30
|
39
|
|
He doesn't seem to write as much lately, but he sure gets the plum assignments and delivers the most consistently weighty Tempo stories and book reviews for the Tribune. Blades has had some fun assignments lately. He weighed in on the controversy surrounding Adrian Lyne's steamy remake of Nabokov's "Lolita"; playfully mocked Salinger obsessives while lampooning his own inability to get any information on the publication of the reclusive Catcher-man's long-lost, unfortunately found "Hapworth 16, 1924"; he talked Westerns with Garry Wills. If we're seeing less of Blades' byline lately, it only makes us appreciate more his ability to engage readers without seeming pompous.
Noteworthy: Blades feveals his squirrel phobia in his 1992 novel, "Small Game." Last year: 17
|
40
|
Established in 1912 and considered the premier journal by Writer's Digest and Poet's Market, Poetry has been a chapel for the deities of verse: T.S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens. Parisi has worked for Poetry for twenty-one years, replacing poet John Frederick Nims as editor in 1983. Critic but not a poet, Parisi says by not writing verse himself, he can maintain objectivity, publishing only the highest-quality work. Poetry Press will release Parisi's second edition of "Poets in Person" in June. Parisi is currently at work on a Poetry anthology, and the "Poetry Index: 1912-1997," which has taken ten years to compile, will be out in October. In response to the criticism that Poetry is entrenched in academia, Parisi is vehement: "We are not an academic journal." According to him, one-third of its contributors are new, ranging from surgeons to ranchers, and the poetry runs the continuum from formal poems to the freest of verse. "We are not only venerable, but alive, and in it for the long-term," he says.
Noteworthy: In an era when journal circulation is falling due to cutbacks in goverment funding, Poetry's circulation has increased, which is no small feat for a journal devoted only to verse. Last year: Not ranked
|
41
|
| When Jane Jordan Browne tells you one of her greatest successes has been selling the joke books of Larry Wilde, you start to laugh-until she hits you with the punch line that he's got 10 million joke books in print! Since moving her company, Multimedia Product Development, from Beverly Hills to Chicago in 1978, Browne has had a giddy career as an independent literary agent in an unlikely location. She's scored with novelizations ("Poltergeist I and II," "The Return of the Jedi," even "Goonies"), medical thrillers (Leonard Goldberg's "Deadly" series), bios ("Don't do the crime if ya can't do the time" Robert Stack, and J. Patrick Wright's "On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors: John DeLorean's Look Inside the Automobile Giant.") And she does it all with the help of one assistant.
Noteworthy: Being away from L.A. hasn't turned Browne into a Hollywood outsider: Her client Axel Madsen's book "Chanel: A Woman of Her Time" is in development as a movie starring sophisticate Demi Moore at Universal. Last year: Not ranked
|
42
|
| His most recent novels, "The Voices of Heaven" and "The Other End of Time," confirm Pohl's standing as the dean of American science fiction. The early basis of his reputation was "The Space Merchants" (1953), the collaboration with C.M. Kornbluth that set the standard for SF satire. In the same year, Pohl pioneered the idea of the original science-fiction anthology with "Star Science Fiction Stories." Later he edited Galaxy and If magazines, winning If three Hugo Awards in its late-sixties golden age. His achievements since reconstituting himself as a full-time writer in 1971 make him peerless in his own generation, with few equals of any age. His Heechee series ("Gateway" and three sequels) remains the best multi-volume SF of the last forty years. Other novels and shorter fiction (most notably "Man Plus," "Jem," "Narabedla Ltd." and "The Gold at the Starbow's End") display his intelligence, satirical wit and colloquial elegance. His "Day Million" may be the most sophisticated science-fiction short story ever written. An autodidact, Pohl never finished high school and never attended college, but he gets his science right, he understands what it means, he makes it matter to his characters, and so he makes it matter to us.
Noteworthy: Two of Pohl's "Gateway" novels are the basis for popular computer games. Last year: 49
|
43
|
| Although no longer the executive director of the Printers Row Book Fair, Hill still makes her presence felt in the South Loop's biggest event as a tireless volunteer. She came up with the idea for this year's major new attraction, a storefront re-creation of the room in the kiddie classic, "Good Night Moon." Hill arranged for Steppenwolf Theatre Ensemble's artistic director Martha Lavey and actress Katherine Erbe (recently starring as "Stella" in "A Streetcar Named Desire") to read childrens' books. She also developed a tour of the South Loop based on Lois Wille's book, "At Home in the Loop: How Clout and Community Built Chicago's Dearborn Park." Hill's attention is not limited to one spring weekend, either. She has been instrumental in the new Printers Row "Authors in the Schools" series, which brings writers into third-grade classrooms around the city.
Noteworthy: Hill is a painter with a studio on South Wabash. Last year: 46
|
44
|
| As co-director of Fiction Collective 2/Black Ice Books in Normal, Curt White has felt the heat from self-appointed morals protector Pete Hoekstra, the Republican U.S. Representative from Michigan. As head of the ironically named House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, Hoekstra questioned grants awarded to FC2 which went toward producing sexually explicit texts. He singled out FC2 titles "S&M" by Jeffrey DeShell (see this issue's Reading List) and "Chick-Lit 2," edited by DeShell, Elisabeth Sheffield and Chicago writer Cris Mazza, among others. The storm has apparently passed, with threats of an audit coming to naught. And FC2's book, "Distorture," by Rob Hardin, is up for a Firecracker Award and was a Tower Books bestseller.
Noteworthy: White has published five novels; his sixth, "Memories of My Father Watching TV," comes out next spring from Dalkoy Archive Press. Last year: Not ranked
|
45
|
| Under the guidance of then-employee Popek, the Lincoln Park Borders became the first national chain bookstore to vote in a union. Since then, Popek quit to become a fulltime organizer for the United Food and Commercial Workers, devoting most of his time to the struggle against Borders and its squad of lawyers. Just recently, says Popek, the union's proposed wages and benefits package was met with a stone wall. While Borders employees' starting wage of $6.50 an hour puts it ahead of Barnes & Noble, Popek sees the union as an antidote to a corporate mentality that de-emphasizes small presses and has increasingly replaced handselling with co-op advertising (companies pay to have books displayed instead of having staffers choose what to display). Popek says the union's demands would give Borders' often highly educated staff members a reason to stay with the company. "We're trying to change the face of retail," he says, "in the same way the teacher's union changed the image of teaching as lower-paying women's work." Borders stores in Pennsylvania and Iowa, have already followed Lincoln Park's lead in choosing to unionize, and stores in Seattle and New York are planning union votes in June. Says Popek: "Borders will be trying to stamp out little brushfires all summer long."
Noteworthy: In a recent article in The Nation, Michael Moore claimed Borders' corporate headquarters banned him from speaking or signing "Downsize This" at any Borders in the country after he invited picketers outside a Philadelphia Borders inside and gave one fired worker the microphone to talk to the crowd. Last year: Not ranked
|
46
|
| One of a handful of PR firms that specializes in national media coverage for books and authors, Dechant-Hughes & Associates has been creating a buzz since 1974. With the help of Kelly Hughes for the past thirteen years, a small army of freelancers and now one assistant, founder Carol DeChant has worked with more than 150 publishers. Concentrating on nonfiction titles with topics ranging from pets to menopause, DeChant-Hughes organizes publicity campaigns and tours for around twenty books a season. The firm has done book PR for local sports celebs Mike Singletary and Shaun Gayle, but also for "Jimmy Stewart's Book of Poems" (Crown), a national fiction bestseller. One ongoing success has been "The New International Version of the Bible": In the firm's eight years of retainer work, the NIV has become the top-selling Bible translation in English, ousting the King James version, which had, notes DeChant, a "384-year head start." The firm is gearing up the hype for a book on cults, including the Nike-mad Heaven's Gaters, and a September release from Doubleday, "Tuesdays with Morrie," by Detroit Free Press writer and ESPN-TV commentator Mitch Albom.
Noteworthy: DeChant-Hughes supervised the publicity whirlwind for Cardinal Bernardin's, "The Gift of Peace" (Loyola Press). Last year: Not ranked
|
47
|
| On-hiatus theatre scribe Hedy Weiss gets the kudos as the Sun-Times' main arts maven, but Sunday book section editor Henry Kisor delivers meat-and-potatoes literary coverage palatable for the masses. Kisor publishes more author interviews than boiler-plate book reviews and keeps the focus mainly on Chicago. Kisor's section in a recent Sunday Showcase included a piece on David Mamet as poet and a Q&A with Barry Gifford, whose new memoir, "The Phantom Father," details what it was like for the author to grow up as a mob kid in Chicago. Mmmm, pass the meatloaf.
Noteworthy: Kisor's an author, too. His book "Flight of the Gin Fizz" retraces the route of Calbraith Perry Rodgers, the first aviator to fly America coast-to-coast. Last year: 39 |
48
|
| For an outspoken, in-your-face performance artist, nationally known Marc Smith is surprisingly reticent, declining to answer questions about his role as originator and MC at the Green Mill's Uptown Poetry Slam. Smith, it appears, has turned more towards plays than poetry these days; he's currently at work on his third. A construction worker before becoming the sire of slams, Smith began at the grass roots in the Chicago bar Get Me High and has since transformed the slam into an international phenomenon. In its eleventh year, the Uptown Slam hosts its largest crowds ever. Smith's venue has provided a platform for performers such as Ojibway poet Mark Turcotte (his book "The Feathered Heart" was released by MARCH/Abrazo), local performance goddess Brigid Murphy and Cin Salach (Tia Chucha Press recently published her book "Looking for a Soft Place to Land"). Regular readers at the Mill include Reggie Gibson and Maria McCray, both of whom have poems featured in Theodore Witcher's poetry romance movie "love jones." While opponents of slams maintain that the form is self-promoting, serving up political propaganda and it's-a-pitiful-life journal writing, one can't refute that by providing an interactive forum, Smith has done much to generate public interest in poetry outside of the often-asphyxiating academic microcosm.
Noteworthy: Smith has put his poetry on the page in a collection entitled "Crowdpleaser." Last year: 44
|
49
|
| That's Achy, like bocce. But readers don't have to pronounce the name with any accuracy in order to appreciate Obejas' work at the Tribune, ferreting out pockets of culture throughout Chicago where previous reporters dared not tread. Before trekking into the Trib's grey monolith, Obejas spends her mornings working on fiction. Her debut novel, "Memory Mambo," earned the Cuban senorita a Lambda Award Finalist nod and undoubtedly helped her publisher, Cleis Press, get named a finalist for Oustanding Independent Press of the Year by the Firecracker Alternative Book Award committee. Obejas offers hope-along with a handful of other writers-that the Tribune might still dress up its ragged reputation for quality arts coverage.
Noteworthy: Selections from Obejas' collection of short stories, "We Came All the Way From Cuba So You Could Dress Like This?" are currently being performed as a one-woman show at the Lunar Cabaret. Last year: Not ranked
|
50
|
|
|
|
|
