Guild Literary Complex

It’s November! Time to recover from your Halloween-candy coma with a trio of festive Guild Literary Complex events!

But before we put our party hats on, we want to remind you about our Author Challenge Grant! Some sterling Chicago authors have pledged $2500 to the Guild if we can match it by November 15. Can you help us meet the goal? Click here to find out more.

Now, about those festivities…

The first celebration has us partnering with the 2014 Chicago Humanities Festival (also in their 25th year!) to present Transatlantic Literary Worlds, a discussion with the award-winning author Colm Tóibín called at 4 p.m. Nov. 9. The Guild’s Director John Rich will interview Toibin.

Do you want to win tickets to see Toibin’s discussion? Click here to find out how!

TONIC returns for a second year, and we’d love to see you come out and party with us! It’s from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Nov. 13 at The Beauty Bar. There will be music and libations — and the coolest people in Chicago will be there along with Marcel Proust telling fortunes. Not to be missed!

Our last programmed event for 2014 will be Palabra Pura: From the Margins of the Margins, from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.  Nov. 19. Featuring Daniel Borzutzky and Justin Petropoulos, they’ll look at whether Latino/a poetry remains a viable, subversive political logic, or whether it is now merely a marketing strategy already co-opted and rendered ineffective in the face of capitalism. This evening is curated and hosted by Paul Martinez Pompa.

And don’t forget Guildcast! October’s edition with Valeria Luiselli was posted a short while ago (click here to listen).  The New York-based Mexican novelist and essayist talks about her 2 new books, Faces In The Crowd and Sidewalks, writing, and her favorite Mexico City poets. The next podcast to be released later this month features nonfiction author Jonathan Eig, discussing his new book, The Birth of the Pill, about the origins the birth control pill, one of the most important inventions of the 20th century. You can hear all these author conversations at our Soundcloud page.

Much to enjoy —we know we’ll see you soon!