Printers Row Lit Fest, the largest free outdoor literary showcase in the Midwest, returns for its 36th year with 100% free programming for book lovers and five blocks of diverse booksellers this weekend on Saturday, Sept. 11 and Sunday, Sept. 12 from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. daily in Chicago’s historic Printers Row neighborhood. For the most up to date list of programs, visit printersrowlitfest.org.
Award-winning journalist and novelist Dawn Turner opens the festival in a conversation about her new memoir Three Girls from Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood, on Saturday, Sept. 11 at 10 a.m. Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and National Book Award winner Colson Whitehead appears on closing day in an event about his new book Harlem Shuffle, presented by the American Writers Museum on Sunday, Sept. 12 at 4 p.m. (advance registration required HERE).
Wintrust is the major program sponsor for Printers Row Lit Fest. Additional festival highlights include conversations with Pulitzer Prize winner Marcia Chatelain (Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America); Pulitzer Prize finalist and National Book Critics Circle Award winner Amy Stanley (Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Japanese Woman and Her World); Shirley Jackson Award winner Stephen Graham Jones (My Heart Is a Chainsaw); bestselling author and Harold Washington Literary Award winner Scott Turow (The Last Trial); award-winning author and political analyst Jonathan Alter (His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life); Pushcart Prize winner Dantiel W. Moniz (Milk Blood Heat); bestselling author Lemony Snicket (Poison for Breakfast); and Reuben Jonathan Miller (Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration) in conversation with bestselling author and Harold Washington Literary Award winner Alex Kotlowitz.
Diverse Chicago stories also take center stage at this year’s festival, with events featuring Michelle Duster, the great-granddaughter of crusading journalist Ida B. Wells who honors her life in a celebratory biography (Ida B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells); Elly Fishman, with a book based on her immersive reporting at Chicago’s Sullivan High School, where half of the student population are refugees or new immigrants (Refugee High: Coming of Age In America); a commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire with Carl Smith (Chicago’s Great Fire: The Destruction and Resurrection of an Iconic American City); and award-winning journalist and author Melissa Isaacson (State: A Team, A Triumph, a Transformation) speaks about her experiences on the 1979 girls state championship basketball team for Niles West High School, in a conversation with Chicago’s First Lady Amy Eshleman and sportswriter K.C. Johnson.
The 36th Printers Row Lit Fest takes place this weekend on Saturday, Sept. 11 and Sunday, Sept. 12 from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. daily, in Chicago’s historic Printers Row neighborhood along Dearborn Street from Polk Street north to Ida B. Wells Drive. All festival programs are free and open to the public. For more information and the most up to date programming details, visit printersrowlitfest.org.
An Opening Ceremony just before Dawn Turner’s event on Sept. 11 will feature Chicago’s First Lady Amy Eshleman, Chicago Public Library Commissioner Chris Brown, 4th Ward Alderman Sophia King, Wintrust Bank Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Matt Doubleday, American Writers Museum President Carey Cranston, Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation President and Chief Executive Officer Janice Feinberg and Near South Planning Board President Bonnie Sanchez-Carlson.
Printers Row Lit Fest is monitoring the latest CDC and City of Chicago guidelines and will follow all requirements to ensure the health and safety of its guests and authors.
For all programs hosted inside tents and indoor venues, masks will be required and guests over the age of 12 will be required to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test result within the last 48 hours, along with a valid photo ID. For outdoor locations, the festival encourages guests to properly socially distance or to wear masks whenever that is not possible.
HEADLINE AUTHOR BIOS
Colson Whitehead is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Underground Railroad, which in 2016 won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and the National Book Award and was named one of the Ten Best Books of the Year by the New York Times Book Review. His 2019 novel The Nickel Boys won the Pulitzer and Kirkus prizes for fiction and was longlisted for the National Book Award. He is also the author of The Noble Hustle, Zone One, Sag Harbor, The Intuitionist, John Henry Days, Apex Hides the Hurt, and The Colossus of New York. He has received MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships. He has taught at Princeton University, New York University, the University of Houston, Columbia University, Brooklyn College, Hunter College, Wesleyan University, and been a Writer-in-Residence at Vassar College, the University of Richmond, and the University of Wyoming. He lives in New York City.
Dawn Turner is an award-winning journalist and novelist. A former columnist and reporter for the Chicago Tribune, Turner spent a decade and a half writing about race, politics, and people whose stories are often dismissed and ignored. Turner, who served as a 2017 and 2018 juror for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary, has written commentary for The Washington Post, PBS NewsHour, CBS Sunday Morning News show, NPR’s Morning Edition show, the Chicago Tonight show, and elsewhere. She has covered national presidential conventions, as well as Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential election and inauguration. Turner has been a regular commentator for several national and international news programs and has reported from around the world in countries such as Australia, China, France and Ghana. She spent the 2014–2015 school year as a Nieman Journalism fellow at Harvard University. In 2018, she served as a fellow and journalist-in-residence at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. Turner is the author of two novels, Only Twice I’ve Wished for Heaven and An Eighth of August.
Printers Row Lit Fest is produced and created by the Near South Planning Board, with major programming support from Wintrust and significant support from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. Additional sponsors include Alphawood Foundation, American Writers Museum, Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation, Sourcebooks, Better, BritBox, Poetry Foundation, Chicago Public Library, 4th Ward Alderman Sophia King, Grace Place, Hotel Blake, 3L Living and Hilton Chicago. Media partners include C-SPAN, WBEZ Chicago, Hyde Park Herald, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Reader and Newcity.
Near South Planning Board, founder of the Printers Row Lit Fest, is a not-for-profit community-based organization serving businesses, institutions and property owners of the Near South Side of Chicago since 1946.
Printers Row Lit Fest programs are 100% free and open to the public. For the most up to date programming details, visit printersrowlitfest.org.