The Printers Row Lit Fest, now entering its 32nd year, is the Midwest's largest literary event. Hundreds of authors and booksellers appear over the two-day street festival on Saturday-Sunday, June 11-12.
The festival takes place on Dearborn Street, from Balbo Avenue to Congress Parkway, with additional programming at the Harold Washington Library Center and Jones College Prep High School. The festival is free and open to the public, as is the majority of programming.
The following LGBT authors are featured at Printers Row Lit Fest 2016:
—Ana Castillo will be featured in conversation with Chicago Tribune columnist and reporter Dahleen Glanton at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 11, at the Grace Place auditorium. Castillo is one of the most powerful voices in contemporary Latina/o literature. Her newest book, Black Dove, is a memoir.
—Charlie Jane Anders will be a featured speaker on the Fantastic Visions panel at 12:30 p.m. Sunday, June 12, at the Center Stage. Co-panelists include Daniel Sinker ( head of Mozilla's Knight-Mozilla OpenNews Project, Punk Planet founder and the man behind the satirical @MayorEmanuel Twitter account ) and author Kameron Hurley ( The Geek Feminist Revolution ). Anders is the author of the best-selling novel All the Birds in the Sky and editor-in-chief of io9.com . She has won a Lambda Literary Award and a Hugo Award.
—Garrard Conley will be a featured speaker on the Life stories panel at 12:15 p.m. Sunday, June 12, in the Shedd Room at the Blake Hotel. The moderator is Tony Romano and co-panelists include children's author and 2016 Sendak Fellow Elisha Cooper and memoirist Zoe Zolbrod. Conley is the author of a memoir, Boy Erased, and he has been a Bread Loaf Writers' Conference scholar and an Elizabeth Kostova Foundation fellow. He teaches English literature at the American College of Sofia and promotes LGBTQ equality in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Headlining novelists include Goosebumps creator R.L. Stine, who recently won the Chicago Tribune Young Adult Literary Prize; Pulitzer Prize-winner Marilynne Robinson; and New York Times best-selling author Terry McMillan.
Graphic-novel fans, historians and movie buffs will come together to see Tony- and Oscar-nominated actor Ethan Hawke. He will appear with illustrator Greg Ruth to discuss their recent graphic novel, INDEH: A Story of the Apache Wars. While best known for his roles in Dead Poets Society, Boyhood and Training Day, Hawke has also penned several novels and screenplays.
Foodies will have the opportunity to view cooking demos by several renowned and celebrity chefs on the Good Eating stage, including Ruth Reichl, Rick Bayless and Meathead Goldwyn.
News junkies will enjoy presentations from several journalists and nonfiction authors, including Sebastian Junger, Steve Inskeep and Kim Barker.
See printersrowlitfest.org/participant/1731.html .
