New anthology showcases Chicago's LGBTQ literary culture, reading, reception coincides with AWP - 4791 - Gay Lesbian Bi Trans News

( Chicago ) . On Friday, March 2, from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m., Editor Kathie Bergquist joins contributors David Trinidad, Achy Obejas, E. Patrick Johnson, Karen Lee Osborne, J. Adams Oaks, and Deb R. Lewis for a reading and reception celebrating the groundbreaking new literary anthology Windy City Queer: LGBTQ Dispatches from the Third Coast ( University of Wisconsin Press ) . This event will take place at Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash. It is cosponsored by the Fiction Writing Department of Columbia College Chicago, The Creative Non-Fiction and Poetry programs of Columbia College Chicago, and the Columbia College Chicago Critical Encounters initiative, with support of the Lambda Literary Foundation. This event coincides with the Associated Writing Programs ( AWP ) conference taking place in Chicago from 2/29/12 — 3/3/12. The reading and reception are free and open to the public.

The contributions of the Midwest and, specifically, Chicago to LGBTQ literature have been invaluable yet largely uncelebrated over the last century. Windy City Queer 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. 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. Spanning all literary genres, from fiction and poetry to memoir and essays, these pieces 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 results are simultaneously surprising, smart, hilarious, and heart wrenching.

Rave reviews for Windy City Queer:

"The seeming third wheel to the bi-coastal queer literary scenes of New York and San Francisco, Chicago comes out of this collection a true contender. The breadth of this collection is undoubtedly its biggest strength and we have Bergquist to thank. From the queer theoretical treatise on Chicago gentrification by Yasmin Nair to the gorgeous impressionistic poetry of Carina Gia Ferraro, this volume delivers top-notch pieces across the board."—Lambda Literary

"Capturing a wide range of voices and experiences, Bergquist has assembled a collection that will make her town proud."—Curve Magazine

"Terrific writing . . . . The pieces offered here are paradoxically romantic, low-key, intense, happy, melancholy, and rapturously Midwestern."—Bay Area Reporter

Editor Kathie Bergquist teaches writing at Columbia College Chicago. She is coauthor ( with Robert McDonald ) of A Field Guide to Gay and Lesbian Chicago, and her writing has appeared in such publications as Advocate, OUT, Girlfriends, and Diva as well as in several collections, including Best Lesbian Romance 2009 and Out in All Directions. She is a former editor of the Windy City Times Pride Literary Supplement and a former fellow at the Lambda Literary Foundation's Emerging Writers Retreat.

Windy City Queer Reading and Reception

Friday, March 2, 2012

6:00 p.m. — 8:00 p.m.

Film Row Cinema

1104 S. Wabash, Chicago

Free and open to the public