Thursday, Nov. 3 at 6:15 pm 

In her book Celebrating Good Black Men, E. Adekunle-wilson encourages one to feel the joy of RE-THINKING the promoted negative and narrow images of American Black Men. Providing a "Top 20 Hall of Fame" and a "Challenge 20 Hall of Fame", she shows quite clearly the strong Black men are doing positive things. Ms. Adekunle-Wilson is the founder and chief executive officer for Life Solutions Enterprises 365 and is an adjunct professor of Childhood Education for Concordia University Wisconsin.  

This event is free and all are invited to attend!

Join editor Kathie Bergquist and Windy City Queer contributors kay barrett, Mark Zubro, Deb R. Lewis, and Richard Fox for a rousing evening of queer poetry and  prose!

The contributions of the Midwest and, specifically, Chicago to LGBTQ literature have been invaluable yet largely uncelebrated over the last century. This anthology charts a map of queer Chicago and showcases its thriving urban arts community, which boasts a unique history, legacy, and sensibility deeply rooted in the urban Midwest.

Here is a first-rate collection of queer voices from Chicago's literary landscape. Celebrated writers Edmund White, Achy Obejas, Sharon Bridgforth, Brian Bouldrey, E. Patrick Johnson, Carol Anshaw, David Trinidad, and Mark Zubro are joined by emerging voices from the queer literary scene. These pieces span all literary genres, from fiction and poetry to memoir and essays, and portray a full gamut of gay Chicago lives from the everyday to the quirky, from public spectacles to quiet intimacies, from family life to nightlife, from dating to marriage, from loving to mourning. The writing that comprises this volume, which seeks to claim a queer space on the literary continuum, is surprising, smart, hilarious, and heart wrenching.

 Sunday November 13, 2:00 pm

Read about Big Tiny, the rooster that made the hens swoon; Buff Orpingtons and Welsummers named for poets and writers; and scary creatures of the night that strike terror into many a feathered breast. Chapters include The Joy of Chix, Tastes Like Chicken, Wicked Roosters This Way Come, How to Hypnotize a Chicken, The Zen of Hens, and many more. For animal lovers, pet owners, and art enthusiasts who enjoy tales well told.

Susan lives with her chickens, dogs, cats, a whole family of horses who were all born on the sixth of June, and her husband on a small farm near New Glarus, Wisconsin, where they raised three animal-loving daughters who are now grown and have their own pets. In her other life she is an award-winning newspaper reporter for the Capital Times in Madison, where she has written about the thriving local food movement and currently covers K-12 education. Here's a funny, poignant, wry look at the backyard phenomenon of raising chickens for eggs, meat or just plain pets. Cluck, contains additional stories by Jane Hamilton, Michael Perry, and Ben Logan.

FR Press, the publishing arm of popular horror site FlamesRising.com, announces its debut anthology, Haunted: 11 Tales of Ghostly Horror. The anthology features authors like Alex Bledsoe, Chuck Wendig, and Rich Dansky.

Bledsoe, known for his Eddy LaCrosse series of novels, had this to say about his short story. "I love the absurd seriousness of Victorian ghost stories, and the sheer ineptitude of most current 'ghost hunter' TV shows. This story lets me give a little shout-out to them both."

In addition to "What's the Frequency, Francis?" the ghost hunting anthology features ten other tales that have never before been published. The collection of spooky stories also includes an introduction penned by Jaeson K. Jrakman, a ghost hunter who hails from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Lorine Niedecker (1903-70) was a poet of extraordinary talent whose life and work were long enveloped in obscurity. After her death in 1970, poet Basil Bunting wrote that she was "the most interesting woman poet America has yet produced . . . only beginning to be appreciated when she died." Her poverty and arduous family life, the isolated home in Wisconsin that provided rich imagery for her work, and her unusual acquaintances have all contributed to Niedecker's enigmatic reputation.

Margot Peters brings Lorine Niedecker's life out of the shadows in this first full biography of the poet. She depicts Niedecker's watery world on Blackhawk Island (near Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin), where she was born and spent most of her life.