What's your vision for a Chicago that makes room for all of its people? What's still here, but in danger of being lost? What was here, and what does the fact that it's gone tell us about what's possible in the future? How do we survive? Where do we find joy? Join City Bureau and Free Street Theater for an interactive workshop that invites participants to share stories of the past and actively envision a more just future.

This workshop is part of Free Street Theater's Still/Here: Manifestos for Joy and Survival, a performance that will tour for free to communities across the city this summer. Based on conversations and workshops with people all across the city, Still/Here asks Chicagoans to consider what the past can tell us about the future, and invites us all to imagine the Chicago that could be - five years from now, fifty years from now, five hundred years from now. In the tradition of sci-fi and speculative fiction, we are interested in how the stories we tell about our future shape the way we act today.

Excited to be interviewing Idra Novey for the Chicago Humanities Festival! From their website:

Idra Novey’s thrilling and suspenseful new novel, Those Who Knew, seems to have presaged, almost eerily, more than a few of our recent headlines. The crime at its heart—the suspicious death of a young woman involved with a senator—takes place on an unnamed island in the wake of political upheaval. But the broader story at its core—involving the intersection of politics, corruption and sexual violence—is one that has played out again and again, setting every ounce of Novey’s fiction, as she says, startlingly “within the realm of reality.” The questions at the heart of the novel are resonant and roaring: Does breaking silence ever go well for the silence-breaker? When does fear become complicity? And is there anything the powerful can’t get away with?

Eeeeeeeeee. Teaming up with ALL my favorite people to talk journalism, storytelling, and getting real! I mean: City Bureau, BAM! Natalie Moore, BAM! 2nd Story, BAM! Build Coffee, BAM! I can’t wait. Here’s the scoop:

How can personal storytelling and journalism come together to challenge dominant narratives, and how they can be used as a tool for building community?

To explore those questions, we're bringing together a panel with WBEZ’s South Side Reporter Natalie Moore, Free Street Theater’s Artistic Director, Coya Paz, and 2nd Story company member Eric May. Moore is the author of The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation as well as monthly columns for the Sun-Times, where she draws from her personal and family history to ground current issues. In 2017, Paz collaborated with ProPublica Illinois to lead a series of workshops across the state that utilized theater practices to engage residents on ProPublica’s reporting. A former journalist with the Washington Post, May has taught fiction writing at Columbia College since 1993 and published his debut novel, Bedrock Faith, in 2014.

After the conversation, attendees will have a chance to participate in an activity that will connect personal history with broader news.

This event is a collaboration with 2nd Story, a storytelling nonprofit celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, and is part of their "Open Space" series. "Open Space" makes room for conversation, learning, and healing around a particular issue or an outside form of art-making. This new series utilizes 2nd Story's approach to empathy building through story making to convene, challenge, and empower our audience to be active participants as catalysts for real change in their lives and communities. Learn more at 2ndstory.com

Journey with us beyond the binary and heteronormative! Join us as Kim Hunt, executive director of Pride Action Tank, moderates a discussion about the vibrant history of LGBTQIA themes in speculative fiction (science fiction, comics, and fantasy). Take a closer look at how the genre gives authors and readers the freedom to imagine societies, releasing them from reality and forcing the reader to reconsider his or her heteronormative cultural assumptions. Panelists include:

-Coya Paz, associate professor at DePaul University and artistic director of Free Street Theater
-Derek Lee McPhatter, writer and producer
-Ricardo Gamboa, artist, activist, and academic
-Cesar Torres, journalist, author, and filmmaker

6:30 P.M. program, reception to follow. $20, $15 members and students. Tickets here.

Catch me talking about my work with ProPublica at the One State Together in the Arts conference, presented this year in Galesburg, IL. I’ve never been! Looking forward to eating some spinach bread, which was recommended to me by a colleague.

Excited to be collaborating with Aura Xilonen at this Live Magazine Show Extravaganza

From MAKE: Participating writers and artists from Mexico City and Chicago work as teams to create a 10-minute-or-less collaboration. Past presentations have included the birth of a rock band, new poetry translations, typewriter epistles via video, inter-city photo essays, and comedic monologues. What will 2017 and the theme, “Belonging, “ have in store? Find out at this exclusive event that moves between Spanish and English, live lit and image, and caps Lit & Luz 2017.

Thrilled to have the opportunity to celebrate the great Gwendolyn Brooks by participating in Brooks in Translation, a special event that features - SURPRISE - her works translated into Spanish by poets including Cristina Rivera Garza, Eduardo Arocho, y YO, The Lovely and Talented Coya Paz. 

What: 
Brooks In Translation, A Special Palabra Pura Celebrating Gwendolyn Brooks

When:
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Doors 5:00 PM, Event 6:00-8:00 PM

Where: 
Chicago Public Library
Harold Washington Library Center
Cindy Pritzker Auditorium
400 South State Street | Chicago | 60605

Grab a beer and join me - I'll be telling a story about *something." Jajajajaja. Mostly I'm super excited to be sharing a line-up with two of my favorite humans - Megan Stielstra
& Veronica Arreola! 

From the Art Institute website: "In this partnership with the Poetry Foundation, Chicago poet Coya Paz shares works inspired by the collection of African and American Indian Art."

Free with museum admission. More info here.