previous events

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  Thursday, January 12

  7:00pm

  Mick Napier of ANNOYANCE, "Improvise" and "Behind the Scenes"

  About Mick Napier: Mick is the founder and Artistic Director of The Annoyance. He came to Chicago in 1987 after studying at Indiana University and with a group of friends, created The Annoyance’s first show Splatter Theater. Following the success of Splatter, Mick directed Coed Prison Sluts, (still…

  About Mick Napier: Mick is the founder and Artistic Director of The Annoyance. He came to Chicago in 1987 after studying at Indiana University and with a group of friends, created The Annoyance’s first show Splatter Theater. Following the success of Splatter, Mick directed Coed Prison Sluts, (still Chicago’s longest running musical) and The Annoyance was on its way. Mick is a renowned teacher of improvisation and has taught classes and workshops all over the world. Mick has also appeared as an actor in numerous television and films including The Ice Harvest, Let’s Go to Prison, Second City’s Next Comedy Legend, Exit 57 and Talent (directed by former ensemble member Eric Hoffman). Mick has also directed many shows outside of the Annoyance, including David Sedaris’ Obie Award winning One Woman Shoe, more than 15 Second City revues, Martin Short & Friends, and Jeff Garlin’s one-man show I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With. Mick is currently Executive Producer on a project with NBC.

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  Wednesday, December 14

  7:00pm

  Lindsay Tigue, "System of Ghosts" and Jac Jemc "A Different Bed Every Time"

  Lindsay Tigue grew up in Michigan. Her poems and stories have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Blackbird, Indiana Review, and Hayden's Ferry Review, among other literary journals. She lives in Athens, Georgia, where she is a PhD student in creative writing at the University of Georgia. She is a graduate…

  Lindsay Tigue grew up in Michigan. Her poems and stories have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Blackbird, Indiana Review, and Hayden's Ferry Review, among other literary journals. She lives in Athens, Georgia, where she is a PhD student in creative writing at the University of Georgia. She is a graduate of the MFA program in Creative Writing and Environment at Iowa State University and currently an editorial assistant at the Georgia Review.
  
  In System of Ghosts, Lindsay Tigue details the way landscape speaks to isolation and personhood, how virtual and lived networks alter experience. She questions how built environments structure lives, how we seek out information within these spaces, and, most fundamentally, how we love. Rooted in the personal, the speaker of this collection moves through society and history, with the aim of firmly placing herself within her own life and loss. Facts become an essential bridge between spatial and historical boundaries. She connects us to the disappearance of species, abandoned structures, and heart-break—abandoned spaces that tap into the searing grief woven into society’s public places. There is solace in research, one system this collection uses to examine the isolation of contemporary life alongside personal, historical, and ecological loss. While her poems are intimate and personal, Tigue never turns away from the larger contexts within which we all live. System of Ghosts is, at its core, an act of reaching out—across time, space, history, and across the room.

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  Thursday, December 8

  7:00pm

  Jilly Gagnon, "Choose Your Own Misery: The Holidays"

  Jilly Gagnon is currently based in Chicago, but is originally from Minnesota, a fact she'll likely inform you of within minutes of meeting you. Her humor writing, personal essays, and op-eds have appeared in Newsweek, Elle, Vanity Fair, Boston Magazine, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Toast, and…

  Jilly Gagnon is currently based in Chicago, but is originally from Minnesota, a fact she'll likely inform you of within minutes of meeting you. Her humor writing, personal essays, and op-eds have appeared in Newsweek, Elle, Vanity Fair, Boston Magazine, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Toast, and The Hairpin, among others. She writes both humor and young adult fiction. She's represented by Dawn Frederick of Red Sofa Literary (for humor) and Heather Alexander of Pippin Properties (for young adult writing). Find her on twitter, facebook, or instagram. She's an especially good conversation partner if you love amazing cocktails, terrible television, or talking to your cats.

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  Tuesday, December 6

  6:00pm

  Jason Diamond, "Searching for John Hughes"

  About Searching for John Hughes: For all fans of John Hughes and his hit films such as National Lampoon s Vacation, Sixteen Candles, and Home Alone, comes Jason Diamond's hilarious memoir of growing up obsessed with the iconic filmmaker's movies a preoccupation that eventually convinces Diamond he …

  About Searching for John Hughes: For all fans of John Hughes and his hit films such as National Lampoon s Vacation, Sixteen Candles, and Home Alone, comes Jason Diamond's hilarious memoir of growing up obsessed with the iconic filmmaker's movies a preoccupation that eventually convinces Diamond he should write Hughes biography and travel to New York City on a quest that is as funny as it is hopeless.For as long as Jason Diamond can remember, he's been infatuated with John Hughes movies. From the outrageous, raunchy antics in National Lampoon's Vacation to the teenage angst in The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink to the insanely clever and unforgettable Home Alone, Jason could not get enough of Hughes films. And so the seed was planted in his mind that it should fall to him to write a biography of his favorite filmmaker. It didn't matter to Jason that he had no qualifications, training, background, platform, or direction. Thus went the years-long, delusional, earnest, and assiduous quest to reach his goal. But no book came out of these years, and no book will. What he did get was a story that fills the pages of this unconventional, hilarious memoir.
  
  In Searching for John Hughes, Jason tells how a Jewish kid from a broken home in a Chicago suburb sometimes homeless, always restless found comfort and connection in the likewise broken lives in the suburban Chicago of John Hughes oeuvre. He moved to New York to become a writer. He started to write a book he had no business writing. In the meantime, he brewed coffee and guarded cupcake cafes. All the while, he watched John Hughes movies religiously.
  
  Though his original biography of Hughes has long since been abandoned, Jason has discovered he is a writer through and through. And the adversity of going for broke has now been transformed into wisdom. Or, at least, a really, really good story.
  
  In other words, this is a memoir of growing up. One part big dream, one part big failure, one part John Hughes movies, one part Chicago, and one part New York. It s a story of what comes after the Go for it! part of the command to young creatives to pursue their dreams no matter how absurd they might seem at first.

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  Saturday, December 3

  6:00pm

  Michael Lenehan, "Much Ado: A Summer with a Repertory Theater Co"

  About Much Ado: Much Ado, written by award-winning journalist Michael Lenehan, gives readers an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at the lauded American Players Theatre's 2014 production of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Wall Street Journal drama critic Terry Teachout has called the …

  About Much Ado: Much Ado, written by award-winning journalist Michael Lenehan, gives readers an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at the lauded American Players Theatre's 2014 production of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.
  
  Wall Street Journal drama critic Terry Teachout has called the APTbased in the unassuming town of Spring Green, Wisconsin "the best classical theater company in America." It's also one of the most successful, with an annual budget of $6 million and ticket sales of more than 100,000 each season.
  
  Performing almost entirely outdoors, rain or shine, on the "Up the Hill" stage, the company has established a reputation for authentic, accessible, entertaining shows and Much Ado was no exception, selling nearly 23,000 tickets during its five-month run. Through Lenehan's keen reporter eyes, Much Ado explores the evolution of this complicated stage production, from casting to costumes to curtain call. In doing so, it provides readers with a deeper sense of the company's astonishing artistry and craft, a peek into the intricate technical logistics involved with outdoor theater, and a refreshing perspective on one of the Bard's most famous plays.
  
  Lenehan weaves together firsthand observations and literary analysis with interviews with key members of the APT's artistic ensemble and production staff including lauded director David Frank, lead actors Colleen Madden (Beatrice) and David Daniel (Benedick), and set and costume designer Robert Morganto paint a remarkable portrait of one of our most treasured artistic institutions."

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  Friday, December 2

  7:00pm

  Witty Women Writers 10th Anniversary

  We're proud to celebrate the 10th year of our annual Witty Women Writers Night!! All our (and your) favorites will be in attendance including: Stacey Ballis, Wendy McClure, Claire Zulkey, and Amy Guth! Their powers combined will make for quite a rioutous evening, so make sure you get here early as…

  We're proud to celebrate the 10th year of our annual Witty Women Writers Night!! All our (and your) favorites will be in attendance including: Stacey Ballis, Wendy McClure, Claire Zulkey, and Amy Guth!
  
  Their powers combined will make for quite a rioutous evening, so make sure you get here early as seating is limited! Don't worry, we'll have all their newest books on sale so you can take some laughs home with you.

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  Thursday, December 1

  7:00pm

  Ted McClelland, "How To Speak Midwestern"

  About the book: Pittsburgh toilet, squeaky cheese, city chicken, shampoo banana, and Chevy in the Hole are all phrases that are familiar to Midwesterners but sound foreign to anyone living outside the region. This book explains not only what Midwesterners say but also how and why they say it and …

  About the book: Pittsburgh toilet, squeaky cheese, city chicken, shampoo banana, and Chevy in the Hole are all phrases that are familiar to Midwesterners but sound foreign to anyone living outside the region. This book explains not only what Midwesterners say but also how and why they say it and covers such topics as: the causes of the Northern cities vowel shift, why the accents in Fargo miss the nasality that’s a hallmark of Minnesota speech, and why Chicagoans talk more like people from Buffalo than their next-door neighbors in Wisconsin. Readers from the Midwest will have a better understanding of why they talk the way they do, and readers who are not from the Midwest will know exactly what to say the next time someone ends a sentence with ”eh?”.

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  Saturday, October 22

  6:00pm

  Gina Frangello in conversation with Audrey Niffenegger

  GINA FRANGELLO'S last novel, A Life in Men, was selected for the Target Emerging Authors series, has been optioned by Universal Cable Productions/Denver & Delilah, and was a book club selection for NYLON magazine, The Rumpus and The Nervous Breakdown. She is also the author of two other books of …

  GINA FRANGELLO'S last novel, A Life in Men, was selected for the Target Emerging Authors series, has been optioned by Universal Cable Productions/Denver & Delilah, and was a book club selection for NYLON magazine, The Rumpus and The Nervous Breakdown. She is also the author of two other books of fiction: Slut Lullabies, which was a Foreword Magazine Best Book of the Year finalist, and My Sister’s Continent . She has nearly 20 years of experience as an editor, having founded both the independent press Other Voices Books, and the fiction section of the popular online literary community The Nervous Breakdown. She has also served as the Sunday editor for The Rumpus, the Executive Editor for Other Voices magazine, and the faculty editor for TriQuarterly Online. Her short fiction, essays, book reviews and journalism have been published in such venues as Salon, Dame, Ploughshares, the Boston Globe, BuzzFeed, the Chicago Tribune, the Huffington Post, Fence, FiveChapters, Prairie Schooner, the Chicago Reader, and in many other magazines and anthologies. She is currently the faculty editor of The Coachella Review, and teaches at Roosevelt University, the University of IL-Chicago, and the University of CA-Riverside Palm Desert’s low residency MFA.

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  Friday, October 21

  7:00pm

  Bonnie Jo Campbell, 'Mothers, Tell Your Daughters'

  Bonnie Jo Campbell grew up on a small Michigan farm with her mother and four siblings in a house her grandfather Herlihy built in the shape of an H. When she left home for the University of Chicago to study philosophy, her mother rented out her room. She has since hitchhiked across the U.S. and …

  Bonnie Jo Campbell grew up on a small Michigan farm with her mother and four siblings in a house her grandfather Herlihy built in the shape of an H. When she left home for the University of Chicago to study philosophy, her mother rented out her room. She has since hitchhiked across the U.S. and Canada, scaled the Swiss alps on her bicycle, and traveled with the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus selling snow cones. As president of Goulash Tours Inc., she has organized and led adventure tours in Russia and the Baltics, and all the way south to Romania and Bulgaria. Her collection Women and Other Animals details the lives of extraordinary females in rural and small town Michigan, and it won the AWP prize for short fiction; her story "The Smallest Man in the World" has been awarded a Pushcart Prize. Her novel Q Road investigates the lives of a rural community where development pressures are bringing unwelcome change in the character of the land. Her critically-acclaimed short fiction collection American Salvage, which consists of fourteen lush and rowdy stories of folks who are struggling to make sense of the twenty-first century, was a finalist for the 2009 National Book Award in Fiction. For decades, Campbell has put together a personal newsletter - The Letter Parade - and she currently practices Koburyu kobudo weapons training. She has received her M.A. in mathematics and her M.F.A. in writing from Western Michigan University. She now lives with her husband and other animals outside Kalamazoo, and she teaches writing in the low residency program at Pacific University.

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  Tuesday, October 18

  5:30pm

  OFFSITE CCGA Anders Fogh Rasmussen @ The Chicago Council on Global Affairs

  The Will to Lead: America's Indispensable Role in the Global Fight for Freedom The famous staple of Obama’s foreign policy—“leading from behind”—has been under scrutiny throughout his presidency. While some have argued for less interventionism, many others have critiqued his actions (or lack thereof)…

  The Will to Lead: America's Indispensable Role in the Global Fight for Freedom
  
  The famous staple of Obama’s foreign policy—“leading from behind”—has been under scrutiny throughout his presidency. While some have argued for less interventionism, many others have critiqued his actions (or lack thereof) on the Iran nuclear deal, Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and the war in Syria, among other issues. Many argue that America’s foreign policy over the last eight years has strengthened Russia and China. As the general election nears, the nature of America’s foreign policy has become an increasingly contentious issue. What does the future hold for America as a global leader? Should it continue to “lead from behind,” or is the time ripe for a leadership that brings the country front and center on the international stage?

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  Saturday, October 15

  8:00pm

  OFFSITE Dr. Allan Schore @ East Bank Club

  Significant gender differences are seen between boys’ and girls’ social and emotional functions in the earliest stages of development. These variations result from differences in sex hormones, social experiences, and different rates of male and female right brain maturation. Because boys develop …

  Significant gender differences are seen between boys’ and girls’ social and emotional functions in the earliest stages of development. These variations result from differences in sex hormones, social experiences, and different rates of male and female right brain maturation. Because boys develop stress-regulating systems more slowly than girls in the early prenatal, perinatal and postnatal critical periods, the maturation of key right brain structures facilitating attachment are delayed. This leaves boys more vulnerable to stressors in social, emotional, and physical environments. Through his research into right brain development, Dr. Schore is uniquely able to explain how gender differences in development and brain maturation influence the increasing incidence of psychological conditions occurring predominantly in boys: autism, early-onset schizophrenia, ADHD, and conduct disorders. He will discuss the implications of this research for clinical practice in the early assessment and treatment of boys at risk.

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  Wednesday, October 12

  7:00pm

  Poetry Night with the Pittsburg Poets Scott Silsbe and Jason Baldinger

  Come check out the Pittsburgh Poets Jason Baldinger (author of ‘The Lower 48’) and Scott Silsbe (author of ‘Unattended Fire’) wth special guests Parneshia Jones, Jacob S. Knabb, and Daniela Olszewska.

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  Wednesday, October 12

  5:30pm

  OFFSITE CCGA Cheng Li @ The Chicago Council on Global Affairs

  Cheng Li is director of the John L. Thornton China Center, a senior fellow in foreign policy at The Brookings Institution and a director of the National Committee on US-China Relations. He has advised a number of public, private, and non-profit organizations on working in China, and is a member of …

  Cheng Li is director of the John L. Thornton China Center, a senior fellow in foreign policy at The Brookings Institution and a director of the National Committee on US-China Relations. He has advised a number of public, private, and non-profit organizations on working in China, and is a member of the Academic Advisory Group of the Congressional US-China Working Group and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Prior to joining Brookings, Li was the William R. Kennan Professor at Hamilton College. From 2002 to 2003, he was a residential fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Li frequently comments for media outlets including CNN and BBC, and his writing has been featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and The Economist, among others. He is also the principal editor of the Thornton Center Chinese Thinkers Series, a columnist for the China Leadership Monitor, and the author of multiple books on China.
  
  
  
  The Talk
  
  With the US presidential election less than 100 days away, US-China relations face yet another critical turning point, with both major party candidates emphasizing different trajectories for the relationship. Next year, China faces its own leadership transition at its 19th Party Congress, which likely will result in the largest turnover on the Central Committee in the past four decades. According to the 2015 Chicago Council Survey, there is a trust deficit in US-China relations: just 34% of Americans express confidence in China to deal responsibly with world problems, and only 46% of Chinese say the same about the United States. What are the most important issues and policy implications in both of these upcoming leadership transitions? Please join the Council on Global Affairs and Cheng Li for a discussion on the future of US-China relations.

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