Dear Friends of Women & Children First,

After a bustling October, autumn continues with back-to-back events with Sara Paretsky, Gemma Correll, Mona Chalabi, and more! Read on for details and registration.

Women & Children First turns 47 this month. We've survived three moves, three changes in ownership, and continue to thrive as a hub for not only reading, but also venting, organizing, resting, and recharging. So, after you go vote -- the polls are open! -- come visit, join an event, a book club, bring your kiddo to storytime, meet up with old friends, and find new ones.

With love & gratitude,

W&CF

W&CF Fall Photo Round-up!

Sarah slinging books at the Chicago End-of-Life Expo at Sleeping Village.

W&CF favorite Franny Choi returning to the bookstore to discuss her debut essay collection, We Radiant Things

Kaylie meeting her hero, Barbara Kingsolver, in honor of Barbara's new masterpiece Partita.

Happy Halloween from all of the Ms. Rachels at your local feminist bookstore!

JJane Schoenbrun celebrating the release of Public Access Afterworld in front of a sold-out audience at the Gene Siskel Film Center (we now have signed copies!

Hieu Minh Nguyen with Fatimah Asghar celebrating Hieu's new collection, Staying Still.

Want to support W&CF even more?

Become a recurring donor to the

Women's Voices Fund!

One of the best ways to support free, accessible, feminist programming in Chicago is to become a recurring donor to our nonprofit, The Women’s Voices Fund. Your ongoing support makes our year-round calendar of robust in-store programming possible and helps us offer free scholarship tickets to our off-site events.

The Women’s Voices Fund is a pooled fund managed in partnership with Crossroads Fund, a public foundation that supports grassroots organizations and movements advancing racial, social, and economic justice throughout the greater Chicago metropolitan area.

DONATE TODAY

We're proud to be a drop-off location for

Kelly Cassidy's Winter Clothing Drive

November Events

Monday, November 9 at 7 p.m.

Bad Company by Sara Paretsky

in conversation with Lori Rader-Day

Women & Children First

We're excited to host the book launch party for Sara Paretsky in celebration of the release of her new thriller, Bad Company. For this event, Paretsky will be in conversation with Lori Rader-Day!

The date of this event is especially auspicisous as it coincides with Women & Children First's 47th birthday! We've had the honor of hosting Sara for nearly every book she's published throughout her prolific career.

Tuesday, November 10 at 7 p.m.

Anxietyland by Gemma Correll

in conversation with Lucy Knisley

Women & Children First

We're over the moon excited to host Gemma Correll to celebrate the release of Anxietyland! For this event, Gemma will be joined in conversation by Lucy Knisley. To accommodate more folks, this event will now be held at the Swedish American Museum, half a block south of the bookstore.

In 2018, Gemma Correll had a panic attack that lasted for weeks on end. Unable to do much more than walk aimlessly through the streets of Berkeley, Correll admitted herself to the hospital to reckon with The Bad Feeling that had been her companion since she was a child.

Wednesday, November 11 at 7 p.m.
Where I'm from by Ebony Walden

U.S. Civil Rights Trail by Deborah D. Douglas

Women & Children First

Join Ebony Walden to discuss her new book, Where I'm From: A Poetic Journey Across Five Continents, in conversation with Deborah D. Douglas, author of The U.S. Civil Rights Trail: A Traveler's Guide to the People, Places, and Events That Made the Movement.

Ebony's soulful memoir follows her journey backpacking and volunteering across five continents and fifteen countries, where she wrote "Where I'm From" poems with new friends. Deborah's eye-opening travel guide offers a vivid glimpse into the story of Black America's fight for freedom and equality. Together, they will explore Black diasporic travel, cultural memory, and how journeys across landscapes shape history, identity, and belonging, followed by an audience Q&A and book signing.

Thursday, November 12

at 7 p.m.

Mask Required

Speed Dating

hosted

by Hot Potato Hearts

Women & Children First

Hot Potato Hearts in partnership with Save The Night curates covid cautious events in Chicago.

HPH Speed Dating is just like typical speed dating. You go on multiple 5 minute dates, anonymously write down who you like, & get emailed your matches the next day. However, at Hot Potato Hearts, we invite people of all genders and sexualities to date. We do not pair people based on their sexual orientation; who you date is completely random, so you can get a romantic date or make some new friends!

Sunday, November 15 at 6:30 p.m.

Ten Lives: How What We Have Shapes Who We Are by Mona Chalabi

Haymarket House

800 W. Buena

We are thrilled to host Mona Chalabi for an event at Haymarket House to celebrate the release of Ten Lives: How What We Have Shapes Who We Are. Mona will be joined in conversation by Myriam Ben Salah.

For five years, data journalist Mona Chalabi followed ten Americans, documenting how wealth shaped their feelings, their choices, their identities, and their insecurities. She researched the data behind their taxes, groceries, inheritances, and so much more to understand the systems that keep people stuck. But then, she too found herself facing the same fears, when her mother’s sudden illness and subsequent medical bills threatened her own financial safety and made the questions she had been writing about all too real. How much money is enough? To live a “good” life? To protect the people you love in an emergency?

Please join us to celebrate the debut poetry collection Violent Wave by Natasha Mijares. She will be joined for this reading by Robin Reid Drake and Stefania Gomez.

The torrential sensations, forms of matter, literary references, and ecologies of being that feed Natasha Mijares' practice come pouring out in violent wave. As a poet, Mijares holds the sparse page with remarkable potency, using mimesis to move through worlds and push readers into ripples of quiet overwhelm. Her language gathers experiential inputs ranging from earthworms to the interstate, celebrating interrelationships delicately crafted on the page.

Saturday, November 28

SMALL BUSINESS SATURDAY

ALL DAY

Women & Children First

This Small Business Saturday, get your holiday shopping started (or done) in Andersonville! We'll be open late until 7 p.m. and have special incentives like gift cards hidden throughout the store and local authors stopping by to serve as guest booksellers.

Why shop small? A study by Civics Economics found that supporting independently-owned retailers leads to 52.9% of revenue being recirculated locally, while supporting chains only leads to 13.6%. While monolithic corporations are busy avoiding taxes, small businesses circulate their profits within our community through sales and property taxes that go toward our schools, public transit, and more.

Why shop early? Due to difficulty hiring warehouse workers because of ICE, Amazon’s relentless hiring machine, new Canadian tariffs that are causing a paper shortage, and shipping challenges due to rising fuel prices caused by Trump's war, there are countless factors that will make this holiday season a challenging one for the supply chain.

When you shop small, you make our future possible. When you shop early, you make your holiday simpler. Let's do this!

Wednesday, December 2 at 7 p.m.

Wildest by Kira Tucker

with Amari Amai, Ola Faleti & Sam Herschel Wein

Women & Children First

Please join us to celebrate the poetry collection Wildest by Kira Tucker, who will be joined by Amari Amai, Ola Faleti, and Sam Herschel Wein.

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL POETRY SERIES, Kira Tucker’s Wildest rethinks the American Dream as a series of ecological nightmares and the untold stories buried within. These unflinching lyrics bear witness to the raging wildfires, literal and figurative, of social injustice—from the haunting origins of Lake Lanier to the human rights crisis converging at this nation’s borders and beyond.

Tuesday, December 8 at 7 p.m.

Free Love by Michelle Tea

in conversation with Vera Blossom

Women & Children First

We are excited to welcome back Michelle Tea for an event to celebrate the release of Free Love! For this event, Michelle will be joined in conversation by Vera Blossom.

A revelatory and wildly entertaining chronicle of polyamory, from PEN/America Award winner, Guggenheim fellow, and beloved literary and tarot icon Michelle Tea.

In recent years, polyamory has become a topic of fascination for the general public, but it has long enjoyed a great deal of popularity in many subcultures formerly deemed “underground” or “alternative.” Having been a member of these communities for years, Michelle Tea explores the complexity, beauty and affirmation of this practice with candor, humor, and deep appreciation. Combining her prodigious skills as a storyteller, deep research, and the kind of gonzo reporting that has earned her scores of dedicated readers, Tea takes us into the lives and hearts of those who are creating new relationship systems and forms of honest, ethical communication.