Wednesday, Aug. 9 at 6:30 p.m. Gay Women's Gathering: An Evening on Lesbian Pregnancy hosted by
Friday, Aug. 11 at 7:30 p.m.
Emily Yoon, C.M. Burroughs &
Holly Amos
Poetry Reading
Thursday, Aug. 17 at 7:30 p.m.
Andrea J. Ritchie
Reading, Q&A, and Signing
Friday, Aug. 18 at 7:30 p.m.
Lindsay Hunter
Eat Only When You're Hungry
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Sunday, July 9 at 2 p.m.
Baking Cakes in Kigali
by Gail Parkin
Sunday, July 9 at 4 p.m.
Confessions of an Imaginary Friend
by Michelle Cuevas
Sunday, July 9 at 5 p.m.
Outrun the Moon
by Stacey Lee
Sunday, July 9 at 6:30 p.m.
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Kimmerer
Tuesday, July 11
at 7:15 p.m.
White Teeth
by Zadie Smith
Sunday, July 16 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The Odd Woman in the City by Vivian Gornick
Sunday, July 16
at 2 p.m.
Bitch Planet, vol. 2 by Kelly Deconnick
Sunday, July 16 at 4 p.m.
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
Tuesday, July 18 at 7:30 p.m.
LaRose by Louise Erdrich
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Dear Friends of Women & Children First,
Did you see what June brought to the bookstore? After 15 years, we have a bright, new awning!
But some very important things remain the same, like our beloved
Annual Used Book Sale, which will be held July 29th & 30th and continues to benefit our non-profit arm, the Women's Voices Fund
. Now through July 24th, you can drop off donations on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
To learn more about our used book sale criteria, click
HERE.
Don't miss
Terry Tempest Williams,
who will be visiting the store as part of the paperback tour for her new book, The Hour of Land, on July 5th!
And stay tuned for August--or as we like to call it "The Book Launch Party Month"! Next month, we're honored to be hosting launch celebrations for local authors Megan Stielstra, Augustus Rose, Jac Jemc, Lindsay Hunter, and Celiz C. Perez! There's always something rad to do at your local feminist bookstore!
With love,
W&CF
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Wednesday, June 28 at 7:30 p.m. Reading, Conversation & Book-signing
In this masterful narrative of the 2016 campaign year and the events that led up to it, Susan Bordo unpacks the conservatives' assault on Clinton's reputation, the way the Left provoked suspicion and indifference among the youth vote, the inescapable presence of James Comey, questions about Russian influence, and the media's malpractice in covering the candidate. Urgent, insightful, and engrossing, The Destruction of Hillary Clinton is an essential guide to
understanding the most controversial presidential election in American history.
Susan Bordo is a media critic, cultural historian,
and feminist scholar. Her books include Unbearable Weight, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and most recently, The Creation of Anne Boleyn. She is professor of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Kentucky. For this event, Susan will be in conversation with Kim Brooks. Kim Brooks is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was a teaching-writing fellow. Her fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train, One Story, the Missouri Review, and other journals, and her essays have appeared in Salon, Buzzfeed and New York magazine. Her memoir Small Animals will be published in 2017. She lives in Chicago with her family.
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Thursday, June 29 at 7:30 p.m.
A READ LOCAL
Event
Writing in the tradition of Howard Zinn, Kevin Coval's
A People's History of Chicago celebrates the history
of this great American city from the perspective of those on the margins, whose stories often go untold. These 77 poems (for the city's 77 neighbor-hoods) honor the everyday lives and enduring resistance of the city's workers, poor people, and people of color, whose cultural and political revolutions continue to shape the social landscape.
Kevin Coval is the poet/author/editor of seven books, including
The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop
and the play
This Is Modern
Art
, co-written with Idris Goodwin. Founder of Louder Than A Bomb: The Chicago Youth Poetry Festival and
the artistic director of Young Chicago Authors, Coval teaches hip-hop aesthetics at the University of Illinois-Chicago.
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Beginning July 1st!
Perfect for kids age 3 and up
Our annual month-long, neighborhood-
wide scavenger hunt for Waldo is back! Pick up your passports at Women & Children First anytime after July 1st and then begin searching for Waldo at participating Andersonville businesses (
Borderline, The Goddess and Grocer, Alamo Shoes, George's, Alley Cat Comics, Chicago Dance Supply, T-Shirt Deli, First Slice Pie Co., Toys et Cetera, Andersonville Galleria, Candyality, and Foursided
). When you find Waldo in each business, get your passport stamped at that business. Be sure to bring
your stamped passport to Women & Children First on Saturday, July 22nd at 3 p.m. for the
Where's Waldo?
Party with snacks, games, and activities! Participants with passports that have five stamps or more will be entered in a raffle for fantastical
prizes, many of which have been donated by local businesses. Prize winners must be present to win.
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Terry Tempest Williams
Wednesday, July 5 at 7:00 p.m.
Reading, Q&A and Book-signing
Join us as we celebrate the paperback tour of Terry Tempest Williams'
The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of the National Parks. Published for the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, Williams' examination of twelve parks is a guide to the history and landscape of these sacred places as well as a personal journey. She offers a much-needed meditation on the purpose and relevance of national parks in the 21st century. Terry Tempest Williams is the award
-winning author of fifteen books, including
Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place
,
Finding Beauty in a Broken World
, and
When Women Were Birds
. She lives in Castle Valley, Utah, with her husband.
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Laurie Kahn
Thursday, July 6 at 7:30 p.m.
Book Launch Party
A
READ LOCAL Event
For
three decades, Laurie Kahn has treated clients who were abused as children, often by people in their daily lives. Kahn, too, had to learn to recover from a rocky childhood to find the good kind of love as an adult. In
Baffled by Love
, she interweaves her own story with those of her clients, creating a narrative full of resonance, meaning, and shared humanity.
Laurie Kahn, MA, LCPC, MFA, is a pioneer in the field of trauma treatment. For more than 30 years, Laurie has specialized in the treatment of survivors of childhood abuse. In 1980,
she founded Womencare Counseling and Training Center. Laurie's personal essays have been published in anthologies, and her articles and book reviews in professional journals. In 2010, Laurie completed an MFA in creative nonfictio
n at Goucher College.
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First Fridays
Friday, Jul
y 7 from 6 to 10 p.m.
Neighborhood Event
This summer, the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce is launching two exciting initiatives to reward and entice folks who shop local and shop independent! For First Fridays, participating businesses will stay open until 10 p.m. on the first Friday of every month. From 6 to 10 p.m., Women & Children First shoppers will receive 15% off on any purchase of $25 or more when they check-in at our bookstore on Yelp or Facebook. If social media is not your thing, don't worry! You can also get the discount when you write a "shelf-talker"--one of those beloved handwritten recommendation cards that you see tucked among our bookshelves--for one of your favorite books.
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t'ai freedom ford with Avery R. Young and Ciara Darnise Miller
Poetry Reading
Join us for an evening of poetry featuring t'ai freedom ford, Avery R. Young, and Ciara Darnise Miller.
t'ai freedom ford
is a New York City high school English teacher, Cave Canem Fellow, winner of The Feminist Wire's inaugural poetry contest, and two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in the
African American Review, Gulf Coast, RHINO, Poetry
, and others. Her work has also been featured in several anthologies including
The BreakBeat Poets, Brooklyn Poets,
and
Bettering American Poetry 2015
. In 2012 and 2013, she completed two multi-city tours as a part of a queer women of color literary salon, The Revival. t'ai lives in Brooklyn.
Avery R. Young
is also an award-winning teaching artist who mentors youths in the crafts of creative writing and theater. He has been an Arts and Public Life Artist-in-Residence at the University of Chicago and has written curriculum for Chi
cago-area schools and colleges. Young's poems and essays on HIV awareness, misogyny, race records, and art integration have been published in
The BreakBeat Poets, The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks,
and other anthologies. He currently works as a teaching artist, mentoring Rebirth Youth Poetry Ensemble and performing with his band, de deacon board.
Ciara Darnise Miller
, a native of Chicago, earned a BA in liberal arts from Sarah Lawrence College and both an MFA and MA in Poetry and African American/African Diaspora Studies from Indiana University. She is the co-founder of Bloomington, Indiana's p
oetry slam series and has published poems and essays in
BreakBeat Poets, The Whiskey of Our Discontent,
and
Callaloo,
among others. She is the author of
Silver Bullet
and is currently the community schools program manager at Greater Auburn-Gresham Development Corporation. She teaches poetry and drama classes throughout Chicago.
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Tuesday, July 11 - Doors Open and Open Mic sign-up at 7 p.m. Show Starts at 7:30 p.m.
Sappho's Salon rolls on with another open mic night! Open to female-identifying, trans, and nonbinary individuals talking about gender, sexuality, and feminism, though everyone's welcome to come listen! We will also have some featured performers who will thrill and inspire you. Open mic folks get a bookstore coupon to the best bookstore in Chicago! Stay tuned for a special announcement about the future of Sappho's! Pay what you can, with proceeds benefiting the featured performers and the Women's Voices Fund. Mediterranean delectables provided by the Middle Eastern Bakery.
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Quraysh Ali Lansana, Sandra Jackson-Opoku, Keith S. Wilson, and Tara Betts
Thursday, July 13 at 7:30 p.m.
Poetry Reading & Book-signing
The ye
ar 2017 marks the 100th birthday of the late poet a
nd cultural icon Gwendolyn Brooks. Miss Brooks' depictions of poor and working-class African Americans provides insight into the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s; and her lens on the Great Migration, hard and necessary truths about race injustice, and the Black Power movement interprets and contextualizes current racial inequities and tensions. This collection of poetry, essays, and art inspired by the work of Miss Brooks celebrates her life, writing, and activism.
Quraysh Ali Lansana
is author or editor of twenty books. He is a faculty member of the Writing Program of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Lansana served as director of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Cre
ative Writing at Chicago State University from 2002 to 2011.
Sandra Jackson-Opoku
has written two novels.
The River Where Blood Is Born
earned the American Library Association Black Caucus Award for Best Ficti
on.
Hot Johnny (and the Women Who Loved Him)
was an
Essence
magazine bestseller. Her fiction, poetry, articles, essays, and scripts have appeared the
Los Angeles Times, Ms., the Literary Traveler, Islands
Tara Betts
is the author of
Break the Habit
and
Arc & Hue
. Her chapbooks include the upcoming
Never Been Lois Lane, 7 x 7: kwansabas
, and
THE GREATEST! An Homage to Muhammad Ali
. Tara holds a MFA from New England College and a PhD from Binghamton University. Her
poems, essays, and short stories have appeared in several magazines and anthologies, including
Essence, Poetry, NYLON, Octavia's Brood, The Break Beat Poets, CHORUS: A Literary Mixtape, Home Girls Make Some Noise, and both Spoken Word Revolution
anthologies
. Tara currently teaches at University of Illinois at Chicago.
Keith S. Wilson
is a game desi
gner, an Affrilachian Poet, Cave Canem fellow, and graduate of the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop. He serves as assistant poetry editor at
Four Way Review
and digital me
dia editor and web consultant at
Obsidian
. Keith's poetry has been published in two chapbooks:
Generation Oz
and
K
indermeal
. Keith's poetry has appeared in a number of anthologies and journals. Additionally, Keith has had poe
m
s nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net award.
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Erika L. Sánchez
Friday, July 14 at 7:30 p.m.
Book Launch Party
Poet,
novelist, and essayist Erika L. Sánchez's powerful deb
ut poetry collection explores what it means to live on bot
h
si
des of the border--the border between countries and languages, despair and possibility, the living an
d the dead. S
ánchez tells her own story as the daughter of
undocumented Mexican immigrants steeped in faith, work, grief, and expectations. The poems
confront sex, shame, race, and an America roiling with xenophobia, violence, suspicion, and suppression. With candor, urgency, and the unblinking eyes of a journalist, Sánchez explores the lives of sex workers, narco-traffickers, factory laborers, artists, a
nd lovers. What emerges is a powerful, multifaceted portrait of survival. Lessons on Expulsion is a vibrant, essential work. Erika L. Sánchez has won a Discovery poetry prize from the Boston Review and a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. Her debut novel for young adults, I am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, will publish in October. She lives in Chicago.
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Wednesday, July 19 at 7 p.m.
For each meeting of our Activism Series, we
showcase specific local social justice organizations. Representatives from the organizations give a presentation detailing their mission, followed by a Q&A and an action plan of how attendees can get involved. In July, we'll be joined by Mary Kay Devine, Amanda Collins, and Aisa Ismail from Women Employed.
Women Employed is a nonprofit advocacy organization based in Chicago. Founded in 1973, Women Employed's mission is to improve women's economic status and remove barriers to economic equity. They promote fair workplace practices, increase access to training and education, and provide women with tools and
information to move into careers paying family-supporting wages.
Join us for a conversation about the tremendous advances so many women have made over the past four decades and the work that remains to ensure that: All women are treated fairly in the workplace, are able to attain the skills they need for the jobs they want, and are respected for the work they do.
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Tim Taranto in conversation
with Suzanne Scanlon
Friday, July 21 at 7:30 p.m.
Reading, Conversation, and Signing
Join us as we welcome Tim Taranto, who will be discussing his new book,
Ars Botanica
, with local author Suzanne Scanlon. Written as letters to his unborn child, Tim Taranto's
Ars Botanica
describes the infinite pleasures of falling in love--the small discoveries of each other's otherness, the crush of desire, the frightening closeness--and the terrifying impossibility of losing someone. Through examinations of the ways in which various cultures and religions carry grief, Taranto discovers the emotional
instincts that shape his own mourning. He seeks solace in the natural world, divining meaning from the Iowa fields that stretch around him and the stones and plants he discovers on walks through the woods. At times astonishingly personal and even painful, Ars Botanica is also playfully funny, a rich hybrid of
memoir, poetry, and illustration that delightfully defies categorization.
Tim Taranto
is a writer, visual artist, and poet from New York. His work has been featured in
Buzzfeed,
FSG's Works in Progress,
Harper's,
the
Iowa Review, McSweeney's Internet Tendency,
and
the Rumpu
s
. Tim is a graduate of Cornell University and the Iowa
W
rit
ers' Workshop.
Suzanne Scanlon
is the author of
Promising Young Women
and
Her 37th Year, an Index
. She lives in Chicago.
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Where's Waldo? Party!
Saturday, July 22 at 3 p.m.
You've been searching for Waldo all month long! Now it's time to bring your stamped passport to Women & Children First on Saturday, July 22n
d at 3 p.m. for the Where's Waldo? Party with snacks, games, and activities! Participants with passports th
at have f
ive stamps or more will be entered into a raffle for fantastical prizes, many of which have been donated by local businesses. Prize winners must be in attendance to win! See you there!
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Feminist Craft Circle!
Tuesday, July 25 at 7 p.m.
For this month's craftivism meeting, we'll be knitting and crocheting Chemo caps for patients at Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. This event is BYOB and BYO crafting tools. All levels welcome!
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Annual Used Book Sale
Saturday, July 29 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday, July 30 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Women & Children First's Used Book Sale is an annual tradition benefiting the Women's Voices Fund, the nonprofit arm of the store that supports all our programming and events. Our annual used book sale is part of Andersonville's Sidewalk Sale
weekend. Book lovers and bargain hunters won't want to miss this opportunity to treasure hunt through the stacks for great deals on fiction, nonfiction, children's books, and LGBTQ titles--all priced to sell.
We are accepting donations now through Monday, July 24th,
on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 7
p.m. We will only be accepting books that we determine to be in good condition. We will NOT accept reference books, textbooks, mass market books, DVDS, or foreign language books. Any books that do not meet our criteria will be returned to you. Interested in volunteering for our Used Book Sale? Please email Sarah at wcfsarah@gmail.com. Volunteers will work 3- to 4-hour shifts and, in exchange, receive credits to redeem for free books! Yay!
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Megan Stielstra
Tuesday, Aug. 1 at 7 p.m.
Book Launch Party
Please Note: This ticketed event will be held at Uptown Underground (4707 N. Broadway) Buy Tickets HERE.
In this poignant and inciting collection of literary essays, Megan Stielstra tells stories to ward off fears both personal and universal as she grapples toward a better way to live. Whether she's imagining the implications of open-carry laws on college campuses, recounting the story of going underwater on the mortgage of her first home, or revealing the unexpected pains and joys of marriage and motherhood, Stielstra's work informs, impels, enlightens, and embraces us all. The result is somethi
ng beautiful-this story, her courage, and, potentially, our own.
Megan Stielstra
is the author of two previous collections:
Once I Was Cool
and
Everyone Remain Calm
. Her work appears in the
Best American Essays, the
New York Times, the
Chicago Tribune, Poets & Writers, Guernica,
and elsewhere. A longtime company member with 2nd Story, she has told stories for National Public Radio, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Steppenwolf, the Neo-Futurarium, and regularly with the Paper Machete "live magazine" at the Green Mill. She teaches creative nonfiction at Northwestern University.
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Come celebrate the book launch of local author Augustus Rose's riveting novel and discover what all the literary buzz is about!! Betrayed by her family after taking the fall for a friend, Lee Cuddy seeks refuge first in an abandoned building called the Crystal Castle, before going deeper underground into the unmapped corners of the city--empty aquariums, deserted motels, patrolled museu
ms, and the homes of vacationing families. But the deeper she goes, the more tightly she finds herself bound in the strange web she's trying to elude. This is a novel of puzzles, conspiracies, secret societies, urban exploration, art history, and a singular, indomitable heroine.
Augustus Rose
is a novelist and screenwriter. Originally from northern California, he now lives in Chicago with his wife, the novelist Nami Mun, and their son. He teaches fiction writing at the University of Chicago.
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Thursday, Aug. 3 at 7:30
Book Launch Party
Jac Jemc's The Grip of It tells the eerie story of Julie and James, a young couple settling into their new home and their relationship. But the house has plans for the unsuspecting couple. The architecture is claustrophobic, with rooms hidden rooms within rooms that become unrecognizable, decaying before their eyes. Stains are animated on the wall, contracting, expanding, and mapping themselves onto Julie's body in the form of bruises. Together the couple embark on a panicked search for the source of their mutual torment, a journey that mires them in the history of their peculiar neighbors and the mysterious residents who lived in the house before them. Jac Jemc is the author of My Only Wife, a finalist for the 2013 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction a
nd winner of the Paula Anderson Book Award, and the short story collection A Different Bed Every Time. She has been the recipient of two Illinois Arts Council Professi
onal Development Grants and in 2014 was named one of 25 Writers to Watch by the Guild Literary Complex and one of Newcity's Lit 50 in Chicago. She recently completed a stint as the writer in residence at the University of Notre Dame and currently teaches at Northeastern Illinois University and StoryStudio Chicago. She is also the web nonfiction editor for Hobart.
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Are you addicted to audiobooks? You can now support Women & Children First by buying your audiobooks from Libro.fm! More details HERE.
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