the news

THE NEWS


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Sunday

Mar 8

2:00 PM

Oak Park - Borders
1144 Lake St
Oak Park, IL

TallGrass member is Chicken Soup...contributor.

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Divorce & Recovery

Award-winning freelance writer Marcy Darin has published non-fiction in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Parenting and Ms. Magazine. Her short stories have been published by Outrider Press. Darin's writing has won first-place awards from the National Federation of Press Women, and the Illinois Women's Press Association. She lives in Oak Park with her son, Aaron, and daughter, Aster , and three cats. Her oldest daughter, Abby, is a student at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.

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Sunday, March 8th at 9 a.m. on channel 21

Monday, March 9th at 3 p.m. on channel 21
Thursday, March 12th at 8 a.m. on channel 19
Saturday, March 14 at 9 p.m. on channel 21

Watch the launch reading of A Writers’ Congress, Chicago Poets on Barack Obama’s Inauguration!

Talk about cool!

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Sunday

Mar.8

5pm

YCA Louder Than a Bomb: FINALS @ the VIC

3145 N. Sheffield Ave.

Doors open at 5pm

Show starts at 6pm

This years' YCA LTAB FINALS proudly presents Bill Ayers, Larry Huggins, and William Garth, HBO's Kalimah Forbes as honorary judges. Including special guest MC Leon Rodgers.

Young Chicago Authors

Word of Mouth

Hey gang!

YCA's Louder Than a Bomb 2009 is HERE!

All poets, performers, and slam fans help support YCA for the 9th annual teen poetry slam festival. Don't forget to purchase your LTAB 09 tickets, especially for FINALS: MARCH 8th. Tickets are going fast. Please support Young Chicago Authors bring this incredible teen poetry festival to our wonderful city.

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Monday

Mar 9

7:00 -- open mic sign-up begins

7:30 -- open mic (5 minutes per reader)

9:00 -- featured reader

Molly Malone's Irish Pub

7652 Madison Street

Forest Park, IL

708-366-8073

The Molly Malone's Open Mic with your hosts Nina Corwin and Al DeGenova invites you to be part of one of the longest running and most highly respected open mics in the Chicago area. Read down to the end of this email for a special announcement on the reading next week Sunday, March 15, at Woman Made Gallery.

Join us in welcoming poet and musician John Bradley

John Bradley grew up in Framingham, Massachusetts; Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska; Massapequa and Lynbrook, New York; and Wayzata, Minnesota. His book Love-In-Idleness, a collection of persona poems set in Fascist Italy, won the Washington Prize. More recent books include Add Musk Here, Terrestrial Music, and War on Words. He has received an Illinois Arts Council grant and a previous NEA Fellowship in Poetry. He received his MA from Colorado State University and his MFA from Bowling Green State University. He has been teaching writing at Northern Illinois University since 1992. He lives in DeKalb, Illinois, with his wife, Jana, and cat, Luna.

Coming Soon:

April - Paul Martinez Pompa

May - Gina Franco

$5 if you can, $3 if you can't

Poetry/fiction at Molly's is the second Monday of every month.

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Tuesday

Mar 10

8:00-10:00 PM

The Cafe

5115 N. Lincoln

Buddah309 features

Open mike & feature every Tuesday...8:00-10:00

$2 Admission

(And we do pass the Crown Royal bag for voluntary feature financial enhancement.)

The Café is a Poetry Green Zone.

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Get Your Tickets Now for our Rotating Repertory:

The Changeling and Tallgrass Gothic on sale now!

Rehearsals are underway for our 5th anniversary Rotating Repertory of the Jacobean classic The Changeling, and its 20th century prairie riff Tallgrass Gothic.

For an inside look at this process, visit our artists blog to see design sketches and rehearsal photos-and to read what it's like behind the scenes.

Buy Tickets Now:

Our Special 5th Anniversary

Rotating Repertory

The Changeling

by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley

Directed by Rachel Walshe

Tallgrass Gothic

by Melanie Marnich

Directed by Jennifer Shook

March 12-April 12, 2009

at The West Stage of the

Raven Theatre Complex

Caffeine Theatre is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization.

All donations are tax-deductible.

Caffeine Theatre

P.O. Box 1904

Chicago, IL 60690

(312)409-4778

caffeinetheatre.com

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Saturday

Mar 14

7pm

NEW LOCATION

the Orientation Center

2129 N. Rockwell -- Chicago, IL

(corner of Milwaukee/Rockwell in the Congress Theater building)

http://orientationcenter.wordpress.com

Red Rover Series

{readings that play with reading}

Experiment #27:

The Art of Confession

Featuring

Doug Ischar & RM Vaughan

Guest curated by Nathanaël (Nathalie Stephens)

suggested donation $4

Chicago artist DOUG ISCHAR received an MFA from Cal Arts in 1987. Since 1990 he has taught in the Photography Department of the University of Illinois at Chicago where he is presently Associate Professor. His multi-media installations have been exhibited internationally, in Sweden, Brazil, the UK and throughout the United States and Canada. Since 2007 he has been producing short videos around issues of cross-generational male intimacy and psychological/social loss. Recently, he has been re-exploring and exhibiting his documentary photographic work from the 1980s which focuses on Chicago’s historic Belmont Rocks gay beach and the San Francisco SM leather scene at the height of the AIDS crisis.

RM VAUGHAN is a Toronto-based writer and video artist. He is the author of eight books and a contributor to over 50 anthologies. His latest book, Troubled: A Memoir in Poems and Fragments, caused much controversy in 2008 and continues to stir up trouble. His video works have been shown in galleries and festivals across North America and the world, most recently as part of Pleasure Dome's annual Best of Toronto exhibition. He also writes a weekly celebrity interview column for The Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper. Please visit http://www.rmvaughan.ca.

Red Rover Series is curated by Lisa Janssen and Jennifer Karmin. Each event is designed as a reading experiment with participation by local, national, and international writers, artists, and performers. The series was founded in 2005 by Amina Cain and Jennifer Karmin.

UPCOMING

April 25 - Carrie Olivia Adams & Andy Gricevich

Email ideas for reading experiments

to us at redroverseries@yahoogroups.com

The schedule for upcoming events is listed at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/redroverseries

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Sunday

Mar 15

2-4 p.m

WomanMade Gallery

675 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago

READING - International Open - Free refreshments are provided

Hosted by Nina Corwin, this special reading will feature a select group of writers who have had a collection of work published in the past year.

These include

Alice George, This Must Be the Place (Mayapple Press),

Parneshia Jones, co-editor of Women. Period. (Spinster Ink Books) w/Julia Watts, Jo Ruby and Elizabeth Slade

Jesse Lee Kercheval, Cinema Muto (Southern Illinois University Press)

Kristy Odelius, Strange Trades (Shearsman Books),

Elise Paschen, Bestiary (Red Hen Press),

Kathleen Rooney, Oneiromance (an epithalamion) (Switchback Books) and Live Nude Girl: My Life as an Object (Arkansas).

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Sunday

Mar 15, 2009

3:00pm - 5:00pm

Old Town School of Folk Music

4544 N. Lincoln Ave.

Milly's (almost) All Kid Revue

One show only!

Starring

Barrel of Monkies

Nora O'Connor

Rock For Kids All Star Choir

Lola the Circus Dog

and much, much more!!!

Phone: 773-728-6000

Email: www.oldtownschool.org

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Sunday

Mar 15

7:00 pm

Myopic Books, Chicago

1564 N. Milwaukee Ave.

Chicago, IL 60622

(773) 862-4882

Chad Heltzel & Garrett Brown

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Monday

Mar 16

7:30pm - 10:00pm

Jaks Tap (the back room)

901 W Jackson

with special guests Tom Curry and Chris Gallinari

WAITING4BUS@GMAIL.COM

an open mic celebrating the work of Celtic Poets

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Tuesday

Mar 17

8:00-10:00 PM

The Cafe

5115 N. Lincoln

Bob Katzman features

Special Guest Host whilst Charlie vacations with the lovely Tonya - Matt Barton

Open mike & feature every Tuesday...8:00-10:00

$2 Admission

(And we do pass the Crown Royal bag for voluntary feature financial enhancement.)

The Café is a Poetry Green Zone.

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Wednesday

Mar 18

5:30 p.m.

Columbia College Chicago

Sherwood Conservatory Recital Hall

1312 S. Michigan Ave.

Kimiko Hahn & Tracie Morris

KIMIKO HAHN is the author of seven collections of poetry, including The Unbearable Heart, which received an American Book Award; Earshot, a Theodore Roethke Memorial Prize and an Association of Asian American Studies Award; and most recently, The Narrow Road to the Interior (W.W. Norton, 2006). The latter—whose title is stolen from the haiku master, Basho—consists of work inspired by Japanese classical forms. She has also written for film; the latest, Everywhere At Once, was narrated by Jeanne Moreau and presented at The Cannes and Tribeca Film Festivals. Hahn has taught in the MFA Programs at N.Y.U. and the University of Houston and is currently a Distinguished Professor in the English Department and MFA Program at Queens College, The City University of New York. She is working on a new collection, Toxic Flora, poems prompted by science articles.

TRACIE MORRIS is an interdisciplinary poet who has worked extensively as a sound poet, bandleader and multimedia performer. Her sound installations have been presented at the Whitney Biennial and the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning. Tracie is the recipient of numerous awards for poetry and performance and has contributed to, and been written about in, several anthologies of literary criticism. She holds an MFA from Hunter College and a PhD from New York University.

Free and open to the public

Sponsored by the Columbia College Chicago English Department, Creative Writing--Poetry Program http://www.colum.edu/Academics/English_Department/Events.php#hahn

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Friday

Mar 20

8:00pm - 10:00pm

The Horseshoe

4115 N. Lincoln Avenue

773.248.1366

booking@folkyou.org

Folk You!

The loosest, funnest & most existential singer-songwriter round-robin in Chicagoland! Inspired by round-robin nights held regularly in Nashville, Los Angeles and New York, Chicago-based singer-songwriter

Larry O. Dean started Folk You! in December 2001. Weary of standard acoustic showcases, Dean wanted something more intimate and at the same time, more varied.

Held the third Friday of every month, Folk You! presents a quartet of performers taking the stage simultaneously with naught but their guitars and songs. Interaction is encouraged but there is no script; performers may play and let the songs speak for themselves, or talk about how they came to write them. Backing is also provided on occasion by violist, Derek Walvoord.

Who performs at Folk You! ? Larry hosts and plays, joined by three others. The one throughline is the night must comprise songs that can be played nakedly and stand up alone. Obviously performers well-versed in folk-type solo acoustic situations are welcome, but Dean also encourages songwriters who tend to front electric combos to step out from their role as one of the band and let the songs be heard as they were written.

This month’s guests: CHRISTINE FLORES-COZZA, DAVE LYKINS & RICH MILLER

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Friday

Mar 20

8:00 PM

Coffee Chicago

5256 N. Broadway Ave

Open mic...

Jenene Ravesloot features

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Through Mar 22

Chicago Josephinum Academy

1500 N. Bell,

The White Airplane

Bringing Surreality to Reality

Jason Epperson had the challenging task of bringing the unreal to the very real confines of a theater, specifically Polarity Ensemble Theater. He is the scenic designer for the body-swapping, time-defying play The White Airplane. “There are,” according to Epperson, “moments [in The White Airplane] like the underwear’ dream we all have, you know where you find yourself in school in your underwear and ask, ‘How did I get here?’”

Join Us Sunday for a Special Event

Ever wonder about the process needed to get a new work onstage? Would you like the chance to discuss The White Airplane with playwright Darren Callahan, director Susan Padveen and Polarity’s Artistic Director Richard Engling? Now’s your chance!

Join us this Sunday to offer your opinions, ask any questions, and indulge in a glass of wine and a noodle tasting from our friends at Noodles and Co. in Evanston. It all takes place after our 3 pm performance on Sunday March 1, so get your tickets now. Your regular $15 ticket is good for the full event.

We apologize to those turned away on our sold-out opening night!

Please purchase your tickets early to avoid disappointment.

The White Airplane runs through March 22.

Show times are 8pm on Fridays and Saturdays, 3pm on Sundays. ($15)

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Saturday

Mar 28

8 PM

St. Paul’s Church/Acme Art Works

2215 W. North Avenue

Join Us for Nelson Algren’s 100th Birthday Party!

100 years to the day after Nelson Algren’s birth – come celebrate the centennial of the author of such masterworks as Chicago: City on the Make, The Man with the Golden Arm and Never Come Morning in the West Town neighborhood where Algren lived and wrote.

The event is dedicated to Studs Terkel, one of the founders of the Nelson Algren Committee.

A highlight of the evening is the Algren Committee Awards, given to local artists and activists who demonstrate Algren’s ideal of “a conscience in touch with humanity.” This year’s honorees are

Denis Mueller - veteran documentary filmmaker

Ken Dunn - pioneering urban environmentalist, founder of the Resource Center;

Alma Washington - performer and union leader

Previous Algren Committee Award winner Don Rose will speak.

As always, the party will be a tribute to Algren’s work and life and a festival of poetry, music, art and media in the Algren vein.

Participants include poets

Gregorio Gomez

Dan Godston

Charlie Newman,

performance artist Sid Yiddish and company.

Algren Committee member Alice Prus reads from the love letters of Simone de Beauvoir

British Algren scholar Josephine Guillfoyle discusses his work.

Algren confidant Art Shay presents never-published pictures from his vast archive

filmmaker Tom Palazzolo explores the lost world of Maxwell Street

photographer Dan Zamudio reveals Chicago’s after-hours neon wilderness.

Musicians include John Garvey and the Frankie Machine Blues Band.

And this year, several traditions return: the birthday cupcakes, prize drawing and closing salute of “Sto Lat” – “May you live a hundred years.” While Algren died in 1981, his legacy and spirit endure.

The Algren Committee was founded in 1989; founders and early members included the late Stu McCarrell, Warren Leming, Nina Gaspich, Alice Prus and Char Sandstrom. Current members include Hugh Iglarsh, Kurt Jacobsen and Charlie Newman.

When the Committee began, none of Algren’s books was in print; now, partly through its efforts, all of his major work is available. The Committee has placed a plaque on Algren’s former home in Wicker Park and dedicated a commemorative fountain at the triangle of Ashland, Division and Milwaukee.

The party is co-sponsored by the Near Northwest Arts Council and Acme Art Works. For more information, call (773) 235-4267 or check the Web site at www.nelsonalgren.org.

Admission is $10, $7 students and seniors, less if you’re broke.

Refreshments will be available.

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