Chicago writers! Great free event with 'Pemi Aguda & @rebeccamakkai.bsky.social coming up this Friday 8/14 at @driehausmuseum.bsky.social as part of the annual StoryBoard Festival from @storystudiochicago.bsky.social 📚🖊📖 More details & free registration through StoryStudio.

My first essay for @realsimple.com is the most personal thing I've ever shared: "What It Feels Like to Have a 7-Inch Ovarian Tumor." Grateful for the platform to advocate for better #womenshealthcare 💛 With thanks to Dr. Jamie Bakkum-Gamez @mayoclinic.org for her insight. #nonfiction #womenshealth

Looking for a beach read? 🏖📖 My summer books feature for Newcity magazine includes new novels from @kathleenmrooney.bsky.social (Man Overboard!), @cynthiapelayo.bsky.social (It Came from Neverland), Rowan Beaird (Tenderness) & Dawn Turner (Majestic Hills). Link below! #BookRecommendations #newbooks

The Fine Arts building get a new tenant, a ground floor coffee shop named Groundswell, run by a former baseball pitcher and evoking good memories of the bygone Artists Cafe. Online now and in print Sunday. www.chicagotribune.com/2026/07/14/f...

Column: Groundswell Coffee is the Fine Arts Building’s new, caffeine-laced tenant

As Groundswell Coffee Roasters opens in the storied Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue, we remember the former Artists Cafe.

chicagotribune.com

Oh we love this piece by our brilliant Board member @elizabethniarchosneukirch.com in Newcity Lit about summery Chicago novels! lit.newcity.com/2026/07/08/b...

Booking at the Beach: Chicago Authors with New Novels Explore the City’s Formidable Reading Tastes

Four local authors with novels releasing this summer try to define the kind of books our city likes to read while lounging Lake-side.

lit.newcity.com

This piece in Newcity by @elizabethniarchosneukirch.com about what makes a Chicago Beach Read -- including Rowan Beaird, @cynthiapelayo.bsky.social, Dawn Turner, and yours truly -- is fantastic! lit.newcity.com/2026/07/08/b...

Booking at the Beach: Chicago Authors with New Novels Explore the City’s Formidable Reading Tastes

Four local authors with novels releasing this summer try to define the kind of books our city likes to read while lounging Lake-side.

lit.newcity.com

@storystudiochicago.bsky.social's StoryBoard Festival 2026 is quickly coming up (August 14th and 15th in Chicago!) and now’s a great time to get your tickets. Here’s what you can look forward to… 🧵 www.storystudiochicago.org/writers-fest...

Happy July, writers! Let's read books! The @chicagorevbooks.bsky.social has your 12 must-read books for July, including exciting new novels from Chicago writers Rowan Beaird and @kathleenmrooney.bsky.social! chireviewofbooks.com/2026/07/01/1...

12 Must-Read Books of July 2026 - Chicago Review of Books

It’s a heat wave here in Chicago leading into the Fourth of July! Whether you’re looking for some great outdoor reading or want to beat the heat with a good book, the new releases in July are sure to ...

chireviewofbooks.com

My poem "Lake Myth" was selected to appear on a bus in Racine this year, courtesy of The Poetry Movement 🚌📝 Read other winning poems & the complete bus poetry anthology here: www.thepoetrymovement.org/bus-poems

President Barack Obama spoke about our shared American values, and our collective responsibility to strengthen democracy at the Grand Opening Ceremony of the Obama Presidential Center.

My fifth novel MAN OVERBOARD! comes out on Tuesday, July 7 & I'm doing a bunch of events to celebrate. Come say hi & scoop up a copy. I'll even sign it with a seahorse pen!

Great fun working with Rick Kogan @chicagotribune.com & Stefano Esposito @chicago.suntimes.com to tell the stories of a few of the 90+ writers featured at the free #AmericanWritersFestival this weekend (June 6 & 7) hosted by @americanwritersmuseum.org & @chipublib.bsky.social 📚✍️ #AWFest2026

‘Mexodus,’ an acclaimed hip hop musical, will play the Studebaker Theater this fall

‘Mexodus,’ an acclaimed hip hop musical, will play the Studebaker Theater this fall

chicagotribune.com

Our first Chicago Writers Showcase reader is @kathleenmrooney.bsky.social reading from his new novel MAN OVERBOARD! (Gallery Books). Kathleen is a founding editor of Rose Metal Press, as well as a founding member of Poems While You Wait 🧵 docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Excited to support this year's #AmericanWritersFestival presented by @americanwritersmuseum.org & @chipublib.bsky.social! This year's lineup includes @danielkraus.com and @susanorlean.bsky.social along with dozens of other bestselling, award-winning writers. Join me June 6 & 7 in Chicago! 📚

American Writers Museum@americanwritersmuseum.org · 4mo ago

This year's American Writers Festival is just over a month away! The 2026 festival will be bigger and better than ever, featuring 80+ writers and 40+ panels over TWO days of programming! Find out more and plan your festival weekend here hubs.ly/Q04frF_p0

One of my poems will be traveling around on the side of a BUS this summer! ✨🚍✨ Thrilled to be selected for this moving poetry installation thanks to The Poetry Movement & RYDE Racine. What a great way to provide free public access to literature! I hope Wisconsin riders like my poem, "Lake Myth."

I can finally tell you that I was the fiction jury chair for this year's Pulitzer. I had a blast, and am so grateful for the experience.

Only three days and change left to bid! Support @storystudiochicago.bsky.social and unleash me on 2,500 of your best words! It'll be fun!

Manuscript Review with Benjamin Dreyer

New York Times Bestselling author Benjamin Dreyer will read and offer comprehensive feedback on up to 2,500 words of your manuscript. (The winner of

new.biddingowl.com

Meet "The Favorites" author Layne Fargo at a Block Club event May 4. 📚 The latest edition of the Block Club Book Club, in partnership with Jarvis Square Books, will take place at the Jarvis Square Tavern and include a Q&A and a book-signing. blockclubchi.co/4sW729F

Today I met the brilliant author @susanorlean.bsky.social who wrote one of my favorite books (THE LIBRARY BOOK) at the LA Times Festival of Books AKA #Bookchella. The vibes here were 🔥 which coincidentally is related to Susan's book. #bookfest #latimesfob

Excited for the @latimes.com Festival of Books this weekend, April 18 & 19! Come see me at booth 67 with the American Writers Museum & meet bestselling author @susanorlean.bsky.social on Sunday at 11am. She will be signing copies of her new book JOYRIDE. #bookfest #latfob #booklover

ANNOUNCING! We are beside ourselves with glee to tell you that @fulmerford.com is this year's StoryStudio Chicago Instructor of the Year! We can't wait to celebrate Juan's award at this year's StoryBall -- May 7 at Ravenswood Event Center. buff.ly/Q2XfUh7

Yes.

The New Yorker@newyorker.com · 5mo ago

If writing fiction is a layered endeavor—if premise, plot, style, and so on are to some extent separable—then must all the layers be made by the same individual, or even by a human? www.newyorker.com/culture/open...

Thank you so much @elizabethniarchosneukirch.com for talking with me about "On an Inland Sea" ❤️

Belt Publishing@beltpublishing.bsky.social · 5mo ago

“We can feel so disconnected as a region because we all have this personal connection with lakes that seem to have no end, but when we stare out across the horizon it’s more likely than not that someone is standing on the other side doing the same thing.” New interview with @mbwwelch.bsky.social!

Ha ha! My recent article, "Found in Translation," about the @newberrylibrary.bsky.social's Newberry Transcribe project, for @chicagomag.com, is now online. Enjoy! Share! Consider transcribing a few letters and diaries! www.chicagomag.com/chicago-maga...

Found in Translation

To fully digitize its archives, the Newberry Library is tapping people who can decipher a foreign language: cursive.

chicagomag.com

Looking forward to this conversation with the brilliant @michaelzapata.bsky.social & @pulitzerprizes.bsky.social winner Jennifer Egan at @newberrylibrary.bsky.social on April 9! 📖

StoryStudio Chicago@storystudiochicago.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Registration is now open for the next event in our Writers on Writing series, in partnership with the Newberry Library! The event happens April 9 with Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Jennifer Egan in conversation with Michael Zapata. buff.ly/jCaeFz3

Great story from @ericathompson.bsky.social in @chicago.suntimes.com about La Femme Dance Festival in Chicago this Saturday, celebrating Black women in dance. #WomensHistoryMonth

Chicago Sun-Times@chicago.suntimes.com · 5mo ago

Rena Butler said she hopes her new piece, "Her Table," captures the multifaceted nature of Black women. The work premieres March 28 at Red Clay Dance Company's La Femme Dance Festival.

My latest Newcity magazine review is about a new novel from Olesya Salnikova Gilmore, a writer of mysterious and heartfelt stories about strong women, inspired by Russian history & folklore. Read it below. #BookRecommendation #WomensHistoryMonth

I'm on assignment writing about summer books ☀️📚 Specifically from Chicago & Midwest authors. If this sounds like you, and your book comes out June-August, link your details below! All genres welcome. #beachreads #booksky #WritingCommunity #newbooks

Thanks @ninametz.bsky.social @chicagotribune.com for this great interview about the National Hellenic Museum's Trial of Odysseus, and why the myth remains so compelling today. Story linked below 🏺🔱⛵️🏛 #TheOdyssey #mythology #TheOdysseyMovie