Standing in the sunshine and crowds and books and authors that was Printers Row Lit Fest over the weekend, it was not possible to hear the Soldier Field crowd expressing its collective relief and enthusiasm during and after the Bears win over the Tennessee Titans. It wasn’t until about 5 p.m. Sunday when a couple of guys stood in the middle of the street and screamed, “Super Bowl!!” that many people even remembered there was a game.
That was because five blocks of Dearborn Street, south from Ida B. Wells Drive to (and on) Polk Street, was so alive with activities that it was able to overshadow sports and punctuate our vitality as a literary center.
One of the first people I saw was Bette Cerf Hill, who founded this event in 1985, nodding approvingly and sharing memories of Lit Fest’s past, often belted by storms or made to sizzle by heat. Nearby, smiling even in the face of the thousands of details and a few overly demanding writers, was Amy Danzer, who was the director of programming for the festival. And there was Don Evans, the founder of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, telling me about the upcoming Fuller Award going to Alex Kotlowitz for his lifetime achievements.
I believe that I have been at every one of the previous festivals, usually in the role of asking questions of authors and so was remembering yearly Lit Fest chats with Studs Terkel inside the Harold Washington Library. Other conversations echoed from past years and I could hear Pete Hamill, Frank Deford, Dan Rather, Karen Abbott, Jonathan Eig and on and on.
This year’s “job” was a breeze. No book to read, no research and the line formed early for what was billed as “Remembering Mike Royko.”
“He’s been dead for what…?” asked a gray-haired man named Neil Stanford, who had driven in from Indiana.
Since 1997 he was told, and he also heard that not only are Royko’s books — many column collections and the amazing “Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago” — still easily available, they are such a current presence that some clever writers have dubbed this the “Summer of Royko.”
I was on a small stage with Royko’s wife Judy; Mitchell Bisschop, currently on another stage as Mike in his one-man show at the Chopin Theatre’s “Royko: The Toughest Man in Chicago”; and Northwestern University professor Bill Savage, who teaches Royko to young people who wind up loving Mike. C-Span was filming.
In addition to Bisschop’s play, there is a small but engaging presentation, co-curated by Savage, “Chicago Style: Mike Royko and Windy City Journalism,” at the Newberry Library, which I called “not a complete portrait but rather a thoughtful look at Royko’s newspaper career. As such, it enlightens and informs and there is no doubt that it will compel visitors to explore further.”
Haven’t seen that yet? How about Saturday? Say hello. I’ll be there for “Chicago Storytelling,” a free event that begins at 1:30 p.m. and is scheduled to include four local storytellers and a performance by the Joel Hall Dancers.
Following that comes the presentation of the Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award, an award first given in 2022, with a presentation to former Tribune colleague Dawn Turner Trice for her “Three Girls from Bronzeville.”
Initiating this award, Mark and Lisa Pattis of The Pattis Family Foundation said, “As lifelong Chicagoans and book people, we are delighted to support the Newberry Library as it recognizes and spotlights recently published books which explore the complexity, diversity, and dynamism of this vibrant city we call home.
Last year, Toya Wolfe won for her novel “Last Summer on State Street.”
This year’s recipient is Thomas Leslie for his “Chicago Skyscrapers, 1934-1986: How Technology, Politics, Finance, and Race Reshaped the City.” He will be joined in conversation by Ed Keegan, the Tribune’s new architecture columnist.
This award of $25,000 is among the most financially lucrative in the country. By comparison, the Pulitzer Prize for fiction or nonfiction is $15,000. In addition to the major award, others receive lesser amounts.
Generally, people don’t write for money, though Royko had a framed quotation from 18th-century English writer Samuel Johnson hanging on his office wall: “Only a fool writes for anything but money.”
No one expects to get rich writing. The human need for self-expression does not come with a price tag. (There is a fine website that keeps track of the many storytelling events around town).
One place to meet writers is in the “Chicago Quarterly Review,” which recently published its 30th-anniversary issue, a thick and potent 450-some pages.
It contains dozens of stories, fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Former newspaper colleague Mary Wisniewski has a story and so does Pablo Neruda. Another former colleague, John Blades, is the magazine’s fiction editor and has a fine short story here, as does former journalist and actor Gary Houston, one of CQR’s managing editors. Other writers I admire, among them Miles Harvey and Peter Ferry, are on these pages.
Editor Syed Afzal Haider, who has a story in the issue and a new collection, “The Dying Son and Other Stories,” writes that “CQR was born out of conversations among a group of Chicago writers who also happened to be friends… Our true joy, the labor of love or love of labor comes when we can showcase the writing of young and new as well as seasoned and established writers.”
It is also a celebration of the written word and, it’s important to note that, as Haider does, “the heart and soul of CQR is our all-volunteer staff.” Emphasis on all-volunteer.
