Judith Valente
Book Launch Party
Faisal Mohyuddin
Book Launch Party
Wednesday, May 16
at 7:30 p.m.
Elisabeth Rosenthal
Paperback tour
Thursday, May 17
at 7:30 p.m.
Sofia Samatar
Reading and Conversation
Friday, May 18
at 7:30 p.m.
Rita Bullwinkel with special guests Jac Jemc and Anne Yoder
Wednesday, May 30
at 7 p.m.
Franchesca Ramsey
in conversation with Luvvie Ajayi
Reading, Conversation, and Book-signing
Please note: this ticketed event will be held at Wilson Abbey
(935 W. Wilson)
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Sunday, April 8
11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Suggested Reading:
Letter To My Daughter
by Maya Angelou
Sunday, April 8
at 2 p.m.
A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea
by Melissa Fleming
Sunday, April 8
at 5 p.m.
The Wanderers
by Kate Ormand
Sunday, April 8
at 6:30 p.m.
Color of Violence
by Incite!
Monday, April 10
at 7:15 p.m.
Mrs. Caliban
by Rachel Ingalls
(please note new date)
Sunday, April 15
at 4 p.m.
When They Call You a Terrorist
by Patrice Khan-Cullors
Tuesday, April 17
at 7:30 p.m.
Electric Arches
by Eve Ewing
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Dear Friends of Women & Children First,
Finally! It's beginning to feel like spring in Chicago! It's time to quit hibernating and come out and enjoy the fantastic events at your feminist bookstore, including our favorite day of the year:
Independent Bookstore Day (Saturday, April 28)! Get your #MyChicagoBookstore passport stamped at all the Chicago-area indies while enjoying snacks, giveaways, exclusive merch, and more in honor of Chicago's unique indie bookstore community.
Tickets are going fast for our hugely popular event with
Cecile Richards in conversation with David Axelrod! Learn more and buy tickets
HERE.
Plus, our beloved
Samantha Irby is back! Don't miss the Chicago launch of
Meaty, the fully updated re-issue. Buy tickets
HERE.
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special guests Angela Just
Thursday, March 29 at 7:30 p.m.
Poetry Reading
Join us as we celebrate the winner of the 2017 Bird's Thumb Chapbook Contest, Matriarchetypes by Nina Sudhakar.
Nina Sudhakar
is an Indian-American writer, poet, and lawyer who lives in Chicago. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in such publications as Ecotone, Breakwater Review, and Big Lucks.
READ MORE
Angela Just
is a Chicago-based poet whose chapbook Everything I Own was recently published by Porkbelly Press. Her work has appeared in Bird's Thumb, Sow's Ear, MAKE, and other journals.
READ MORE
Suzanne Frank
designs residential landscapes and studies birds. Her poems have been published in Bird's Thumb, 10x3 plus, Another Chicago Magazine (ACM), and Stray Bullets: A Celebration of Chicago Saloon Poetry.
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Together We Rise:
Organizer Panel Discussion
Friday, March 30th at 7 p.m.
In celebration of the one-year anniversary of the Women's March, Together We Rise offers an unprecedented chronicle of this galvanizing movement, with exclusive interviews with Women's March organizers, never-before-seen photographs, and essays by feminist activists.
READ MORE
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Kitty Curran & Larissa Zagerris
Wednesday, April 4 at 7:30 p.m.
Book Launch Party
Come celebrate the launch of the romance novel that lets you pick your path, follow your heart, and find happily ever after. Make choices, turn pages, and discover all the daring delights of the multiple (and intertwining) storylines. READ MORE
Larissa Zageris and Kitty Curran are the creative team behind the viral series Taylor Swift: Girl Detective, as well as countless other zines and comics. Larissa is a writer, educator, and photographer whose work has appeared in
McSweeney's Internet Tendency, among many other internet places.
READ MORE
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Sandra Allen
in conversation with Jessica Hopper
Thursday, April 5 at 7:30 p.m.
Conversation and Book-signing
Sandra Allen did not know her uncle Bob very well. As a child, she had been told he was "crazy" and had spent time in mental hospitals. Then in 2009 Bob mailed Sandra his autobiography--sixty single-spaced pages of all-capped, error-riddled sentences. READ MORE
Sandra Allen grew up in Muir Beach, California. She attended Brown University and received an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Iowa. Her work has appeared in McSweeney's
Internet Tendency, among many other internet places.
 Jessica Hopper is a Chicago-based music journalist and author.
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Maya Dusenbery
in conversation with Paula Kamen
Friday, April 6 at 7:30 p.m.
Conversation and Book-signing
Maya Dusenbery, editorial director of Feministing.com, will be joined by Chicago-based feminist writer Paula Kamen for a conversation about chronic pain, gender bias in medicine, and the history of hysteria. READ MORE
Maya Dusenbery has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has also appeared in Bitch and TheAtlantic.com, as well as in the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project.
READ MORE
 Paula Kamen is the author of four books, including All in My Head and Finding Iris Chang: Ambition, Friendship and the Loss of an Extraordinary Mind, explores postpartum depression and bipolar disorder in women.
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Sappho's Salon
Spring Open Mic
Co-hosted by Liz Baudler
&
Eileen Tull
Monday, April 9 at 7:30 p.m.
Doors open at 7 p.m.
Sappho's Salon slides into our third anniversary with some fantastic faves. First up, we have Himabindu Poroori, former Salonathon host and multi-disciplinary artist, and then heavy-hitting storyteller extraordinaire Ada Cheng, who we love with the fire of a thousand suns.
It's also your turn at the open mic as long as your're female identifying, trans, or nonbinary! And finally, co-hosts Liz and Eileen will be especially . . . revealing. Gonna be one of our best anniversaries yet, so celebrate with us!
Pay what you can, open mic performers get a bookstore coupon! Middle Eastern snacks and celebration cupcakes!
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Rachel Arndt
in conversation
Wednesday, April 11 at 7:30 p.m.
Book Launch Party
Beyond Measure is an exploration of the rituals, routines, metrics, and expectations through which we attempt to quantify and ascribe value to our lives.
READ MORE
Rachel Z. Arndt received MFAs in nonfiction and poetry from the University of Iowa, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow and nonfiction editor of the Iowa Review.
READ MORE
 Aviya Kushner is the author of The Grammar of God: A Journey into the Words and Worlds of the Bible, which was a National Jewish Book Award finalist, a Sami Rohr Prize finalist, and one of Publishers Weekly's Top 10 Religion Stories of 2015.
READ MORE
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Christine Lahti in conversation with Bernardine Dohrn
Thursday, April 12 at 7 p.m.
Reading, Conversation, and Book-signing
Please note: this ticketed event will be held at the Swedish American Museum (5211 N. Clark St.)
We're thrilled to welcome Christine Lahti in conversation with Bernardine Dohrn in celebration of Christine's forthcoming essay collection,
True Stories from an Unreliable Eyewitness: A Feminist Coming of Age
.
Christine Lahti is an Academy, Golden Globe, and Emmy Award-winning acclaimed director and stage, television, and film actor with a career that spans more than forty years. She most recently starred in Fucking A by Pulitzer Prize-winner Susan Lori Parks.
 Bernardine Dohrn, activist, academic, and children's and women's rights advocate, is a retired associate clinical professor at Northwestern University School of Law, where she was the director of the Children and Family Justice Center for 23 years.
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Jenny Boully
with special guests
Piper Daniels and Alexis Pope
Friday, April 13 at 7:30 p.m.
Book Launch Party
Join us as we celebrate the new essay collection from Jenny Boully. Boully's essays are ripe with romance and sensual pleasures, drawing connections between the experience of falling in love and the life of a writer.
Jenny Boully is the author of The Body, The Book of Beginnings and Endings, not merely because of the unknown that was stalking toward them, and other books.
 Piper J. Daniels is a Michigan native, queer intersectional feminist, and professional ghostwriter who holds a BA from Columbia College Chicago and an MFA from the University of Washington. READ MORE
 Alexis Pope is the author of two poetry collections, most recently That Which Comes After (Big Lucks, 2018), as well as several chapbooks, including Debt (Madhouse Press, 2017). READ MORE
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Cecile Richards in conversation with David Axelrod
Saturday, April 14 at 4 p.m.
Please Note: This event will be held at Senn High School (5900 N. Glenwood). Buy tickets HERE.
Women & Children First is honored to host the only Chicago event on Cecile Richards' Make Trouble book tour. As a young woman, Cecile Richards watched as her mother, Ann, transformed from a housewife into the straight-talking, truth-telling Democratic governor of Texas.
READ MORE
Cecile Richards began her career helping garment workers, hotel workers, and nursing home aides fight for better wages and working conditions. She also served as deputy chief of staff to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.
READ MORE
 David Axelrod is a veteran of politics and journalism and the former chief strategist and senior advisor to President Barack Obama.
READ MORE
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Eloisa Amezcua with special guests Jose Olivarez and Xandria Phillips
Wednesday, April 18 at 7:30 p.m.
Poetry Reading
Please join us for a poetry reading celebrating Eloisa Amezcua's debut book, From the Inside Quietly, inaugural winner of the Shelterbelt Press Poetry Prize, selected by Ada Limón.
READ MORE
Eloisa Amezcua is a MacDowell fellow, the author of three chapbooks, and founder and editor-in-chief of The Shallow Ends: A Journal of Poetry.
READ MORE
José Olivarez is the co-author of the book of poems Home Court and the co-host of the poetry podcast The Poetry Gods.
READ MORE
Xandria Phillips is a poet based in Chicago. She is the author of Hull (forthcoming in 2019) and Reasons for Smoking, which won the 2016 Seattle Review Chapbook Contest, judged by Claudia Rankine. READ MORE
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Nicole Hollander
Thursday, April 19 at 7:30 p.m.
Join us for a presentation with Nicole Hollander in celebration of her graphic memoir, We Ate Wonder Bread, Hollander's first long-form work. This is a coming-of-age story, starring the gangsters, the glamorous, the bed bugs, the (enviable) Catholic girls, the police, the jukebox, the fortune teller, and the family's blue Hudson.
READ MORE
Nicole Hollander is best known for her syndicated comic strip, Sylvia. Her work has been archived in the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library at Ohio State University.
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Nicole Garneau
Friday, April 20 at 7:30 p.m.
For this event, Nicole Garneau will present a lively and interactive evening of performative engagement with her new book,
Performing Revolutionary: Art, Action, Activism.
Nicole Garneau is an interdisciplinary artist making site-specific performance and project art that is directly political, critically conscious, and community building.
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Anatomy of a Tiny
Native Garden
Saturday, April 21 at 11 a.m.
Monica Buckley, owner of
Andersonville-based Red Stem Native Landscapes, shares the step-by-step creation and development of the two-year-old native plants garden that graces the parkway along Farragut behind our store!
What are all those crazy plants, and how do they thrive in the blazing sun and with so many people, dogs, and vehicles going by? Monica will tell all.
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Meg Wolitzer in conversation with Greta Johnsen
Tuesday, April 24 at 7 p.m.
Reading, Conversation,
and Book-signing
Join us as we welcome back staff favorite Meg Wolitzer in celebration of her acclaimed new novel. The Female Persuasion introduces Greer Kadetsky, a shy college freshman, as her life is transformed by Faith Frank, a dazzlingly persuasive pillar of the women's movement.
Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times-bestselling author of The Interestings, The Uncoupling, The Ten-Year Nap, The Position, The Wife, and the young adult novel Belzhar.
READ MORE
 Greta Johnsen
is a reporter and host at WBEZ here in Chicago. Greta hosts WBEZ's Nerdette podcast with Tricia Bobeda, where they talk to everyone from authors to astronauts.
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Rebekah Frumkin
Wednesday, April 25 at 7:30 p.m
Join us as we celebrate the highly anticipated debut novel from local author Rebekah Frumkin! A blistering dark comedy,
The Comedown
is a romp across America, from the Kent State shootings to protest marches in Chicago to the Florida Everglades.
Rebekah Frumkin's fiction and essays have appeared in Granta, McSweeney's, and Best American Nonrequired Reading, among other places.
READ MORE
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Marie Hicks with special guests
Julie Keck and Jessica King
Thursday, April 26 at 7:30 p.m.
In 1944, Britain led the world in electronic computing, but by 1974 its computing industry was all but extinct. Women had been a hidden engine of growth in high technology, but as computing became male-identified in the 1960s and 1970s, the government systematically neglected its largest trained technical workforce, leading to catastrophe.
READ MORE
Marie Hicks is a historian of technology who focuses on the hidden histories of computing.
READ MORE
 Julie Keck and Jessica King are Chicago-based filmmakers and writers whose work includes: F*ck Yes, a modern sex ed series focused on improving communication (and sex) between consenting adults
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Friday, April 27 at 7:30 p.m.
Winner of the 2016 National Book Award for Poetry for his collection
The Performance of Becoming Human,
Daniel Borzutzky
is a Chil
ean-American writer and translator living in Chicago.
READ MORE
Daniel Borzutzky's other poetry books include
In the Murmurs of the Rotten Carcass Economy,
The Book of Interfering Bodies, The Ecstasy of Capitulation, and
Lake Michigan among others.
READ MORE
 Nate Marshall is from the South Side of Chicago. He is the author of Wild Hundreds and an editor of The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop.
READ MORE
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Saturday, April 28 - ALL DAY!
Independent Bookstore Day
is
a one-day national party that takes place at indie bookstores across the country on the last Saturday in April. Every store is unique and independent, and every party is different. There will be giveaways and complimentary refreshments galore! Plus, there are exclusive books and literary merch that you can only get on that day.
You can also try the second annual #MyChicagoBookstore Challenge.
Celebrate Chicago's indie bookstore community by getting a passport and visiting as many stores in a single day as possible! If you get stamps from 10 or more stores, you'll get a discount in all the participating stores for a full year.
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Sunday, April 29 at 6 p.m.
We're thrilled to be a stop on the Madness Machine Tour featuring poets Franny Choi and sam sax.
READ MORE
Franny Choi is a writer, performer, and teaching artist. She is the author of Floating, Brilliant, Gone, the chapbook Death by Sex Machine, and the forthcoming Soft Science.
READ MORE
sam sax is a queer Jewish writer, performer, educator, and organizer. He's the author of Madness, winner of the National Poetry Series, selected by Terrance Hayes.
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Sunday, April 29 at 6 p.m.
After a forty-year absence, the Viola da Gamba Music Festival has returned to the picturesque isle on the tip of Wisconsin's Door County peninsula. Sheriff Dave Cubiak enjoys a rare day off as tourists and a documentary film crew hover around the musicians.
Patricia Skalka is the author of Death Stalks Door County, Death at Gills Rock, and Death in Cold Water, winner of the Edna Ferber Fiction Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers.
READ MORE
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Thursday, May 3 at 7 p.m.
Please note: this ticketed event will be held at Wilson Abbey
We're thrilled to host the Chicago launch celebration for the reissue of Irby's first essay collection,
Meaty
. This new edition is fully updated, includes new content, and has a killer new cover.
READ MORE
Samantha Irby
is the author of the
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life
and writes a blog called bitches gotta eat.
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Friday, May 4 at 7:30 p.m.
Join us as we welcome blake nemc, author of
Sharing Plastic, and special guests Aerin Cooper, Nora Gaines, and Kiam Marcelo Junio. This event will celebrate hybrid forms, incorporating readings, sound work, and more.
blake nemec is a writer, teacher, and sound/media artist based in Chicago whose work extends the extraordinary musicality of everyday conversations by unprotected workers, pansexuals, and gender variant people.
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Chelsey Clammer
with special guest Deborah Siegel
Saturday, May 5 at 6 p.m.
Winner of the 2015 Red Hen Press Nonfiction Award,
Circadian
is a collection of essays that weaves together personal account with cultural narrative using poetic language and lyric structures.
READ MORE
Chelsey Clammer
is the author of
BodyHome
. Her work has appeared
in the
Normal School, Black Warrior Review,
the
Ru
mpus
, and
McSweeney's,
among others.
Deborah
Siegel is the author of
Sisterhood,
Interrupted, co-editor of the literary anthology
Only Child, and founder of the website She Writes--the largest online community for women who write.
READ MORE
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Melissa Broder in conversation with Megan Stielstra
Conversation and Book-signing
Please note: this ticketed event will be held at Uptown Underground (4707 N. Broadway). Tickets on sale HERE.
In celebration of her new novel, The Pisces, Melissa Broder (@sosadtoday) will be in conversation with local author Megan Stielstra. READ MORE
Melissa Broder is the author of the essay collection So Sad Today and four poetry collections, including Last Sext. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry magazine, the Iowa Review, Tin House, and Guernica and has been awarded the Pushcart prize.
READ MORE
Megan Stielstra is the author of three collections: The Wrong Way To Save Your Life, Once I Was Cool, and Everyone Remain Calm. Her work appears in the Best American Essays, the New York Times, Catapult, PANK, and elsewhere. READ MORE
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