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Fountain Square LitFest
August 23 @ 12:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Fountain Square | 1601 Sherman Ave. | Evanston, IL
Bookends & Beginnings and the Guild Literary Complex present an afternoon of literary celebration on Saturday, August 23rd, from 12-8pm. Immerse yourself in author readings, hands-on writing workshops, bookmaking, and live music in downtown Evanston. Whether you’re a seasoned writer, an avid reader, or simply looking to be inspired, this festival centers around a dynamic community space to connect, create, and celebrate the written word in all its forms.
All events are located at Fountain Square, unless otherwise noted.
Keynote Speaker:
Angela Jackson
Outgoing Illinois Poet Laureate
(1:00-1:45pm)
READINGS
Guild Complex
(2:00-2:45pm)
Helene Achanzar
Jeremy Gordon
R.A. Villanueva
Tyriek White
curated by Helene Achanzar
Sunday Salon
(5:00-5:45pm)
Simone Muench
April Gibson
Vincent Francone
Dina Elebogen
curated by Ignatius Valentine Aloysius
Plus Youth Poetry Reading (4:00-4:45pm) featuring Young Chicago Authors and Youth Poet Laureate Eila Kittikamron Mora
& Children’s Reading presented by Mallory Raven-Ellen Backstrom (12:15-12:45pm)
WORKSHOPS
Poetry: Kenyatta Rogers
1:00-2:30pm at Bookends & Beginnings [Register Here]
Graphic Narrative & Comics: Nate Olison
3:00-4:30pm at Bookends & Beginnings [Register Here]
LIVE MUSIC
from Esso Funk
(6:20-7:15pm)
About the Artists
Mallory Raven-Ellen Backstrom
Mallory Raven-Ellen Backstrom is the founder and creator of Fairy Tales for Sunkissed Women. A poetic worldbuilder, her passion for storytelling, diverse representation, mindfulness, and mysticism shines through the universes she conjures on the page, stage, and canvas. An award-winning playwright, author, illustrator, and teaching artist. Mallory’s play, Cephianne’s Reflection, received the prestigious L. Arnold Weissberger New Play Award and the Jay Harris Commission from the Williamstown Theatre Festival, where she is also an Artist in Residence. She’s an alumna of the Playwrights’ Unit at Goodman Theatre, where her work has been developed in Future Labs and the New Stages Festival. Mallory has received the Chicago Esteemed Artist Award, the B2B Arts grant, is a 3Arts Make-A-Wave awardee, and a Chicago Dramatists Tutterow Fellow. She was the inaugural Sullivan Playwright-in-Residence at the University of Illinois. CineCity Studios, The Story Theatre, Sideshow Theatre, The Athena Project, The New Coordinates Theatre, and The Refracted Theatre Company have supported her plays.
“A craftsman of the English language,” Windy City Reviews praised her debut novel, Reasons for Being. Going on to say, “Mallory’s writing is as clear and beautiful as springtime in a meadow. You inhale the delicate natural musk to make it a part of your very being.” Her anticipated children’s book, Let’s Catch a Happily Ever After, is the first in her collection of Fairy Tales for Starkissed Children. Mallory has lectured at the University of California-Davis, the University of Illinois, Devil’s Daughter, and Illinois Humanities. Her art has been showcased at The Freedom and Movement Gallery and The Breathing Room. Connect with her @fairytalesforsunkissedwomen and www.MalloryBackstrom.com
— Guild Complex —
Helene Achanzar
Helene Achanzar is a poet and editor whose writing has appeared in The Georgia Review, Sixth Finch, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. Winner of the 2022 New England Review Award for Emerging Writers, her work has been supported by Bread Loaf, the T.S. Eliot Foundation, and the Chicago Architecture Biennial. She is a senior editor for Poetry Northwest, Midwest Regional Chair for Kundiman, and Director of Programs at the Chicago Poetry Center.
Jeremy Gordon
Jeremy Gordon is the author of See Friendship, which was released in March by Harper Perennial. He’s a senior editor on the culture desk at The Atlantic, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, GQ, Pitchfork, The Nation, and The Outline. He lives in Brooklyn.
R.A. Villanueva
R. A. Villanueva is the author of two collections of poetry: A Holy Dread, winner of the Alice James Award (forthcoming in 2026) and Reliquaria (University of Nebraska Press, 2014), winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize. New work has been featured by the Academy of American Poets and National Public Radio—and his writing appears widely in international publications such as Poetry London and The Poetry Review. His honors include commendations from the Forward Prizes, and fellowships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Tyriek White
Tyriek White is a writer, musician, and educator from Brooklyn, NY. He is the author of WE ARE A HAUNTING (Astra House, 2023), winner of The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. The novel was also a finalist for the Gotham Book Prize and the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction; and longlisted for the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize. In 2024, he was named a National Book Foundation ‘5 Under 35’ honoree. He is currently the media director of Lampblack Literary Foundation, which seeks to provide mutual aid and various resources to Black writers across the diaspora.
— RHINO —
Nile Lansana
Nile Lansana is an interdisciplinary artist from the South Side of Chicago. An acclaimed writer, poet, performer, and filmmaker, his work is centered around revealing radical truths and amplifying marginalized voices and narratives through a lens of Black imagination and visionary intention. He is a nominee for the inaugural Chicago Poet Laureate position. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with degrees in Journalism and English-Creative Writing. He is a nominee for the inaugural Chicago Poet Laureate. He won the 2021 Ronald Wallace Poetry Thesis Prize and 2020 George B Hill Poetry Prize. His work is published in American Gun: A Poem by 100 Chicagoans, The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop, & elsewhere. He holds fellowships from the Rebuild Foundation and Obsidian Foundation. He is a proud uncle and the oldest of four Black boys.
Timothy David Rey
Timothy David Rey is a playwright, poet, and performer. His poetic play. .ZIP! was a 2023 semifinalist for the Eugene O Neill National Playwrights Conference. His poetry and creative writing have been exhibited at the Poetry Foundation, Steppenwolf Theater Lookout Series, Obsidian: The Literature of the African Diaspora, RHINO Poetry (forthcoming), and Black Horse Review. He is a New City Magazine 2025 Lit 50 (People who really ‘book’ in Chicago.)
Maja and Steven Teref
Steven and Maja Teref’s translations include Ana Ristović’s Directions for Use, shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award, Best Translated Book Award, and the National Translation Award, and Novica Tadić’s Assembly. Their translations have appeared in The New Yorker, Brooklyn Rail, Columbia Journal, and elsewhere. The Terefs’ latest book is Milena Marković’s sympathy for the salami, a translated collection of her shorter poems, which features two excerpts from Children. Steven is a co-editor with Aleksandar Bošković of Zenithism (1921–1927): A Yugoslav Avant-Garde Anthology. He is the editor for Academic Studies Press’ Companions to Slavic Literature series. Maja teaches at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools where she is also the faculty advisor for the student-run literary translation journal Ouroboros Review. The Teref’s are members of the Third Coast Translators Collective.
Diya Abbas
Diya Abbas is a first-generation Pakistani poet from the Midwest, now living in New York. They were named the 2022 George B. Hill Poetry Prize Winner and the Lyman S.V. Judson Awardee in the Creative Arts. Her poems are forthcoming in North American Review, Poetry Northwest, and LAKEER Mag, and have been featured in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Foglifter, Adroit, The Offing, BAHR Magazine, Emerge Literary Journal, RHINO, and others. She studied Creative Writing and South Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
— Sunday Salon —
Simone Muench
Simone Muench is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship and the author of seven full-length books, including Lampblack & Ash (Sarabande; Kathryn A. Morton Prize), Wolf Centos (Sarabande), and The Under Hum (Black Lawrence Press, 2024), co-written with Jackie K. White. She serves as faculty advisor for Jet Fuel Review, a senior poetry editor for Tupelo Quarterly, and poetry editor for Jackleg Press. She is the founder of the Hungry Brain Sunday Reading Series, which she co-hosts with Kenyatta Rogers.
April Gibson
April Gibson is a poet, writer, and author of The Span of a Small Forever (Amistad/HarperCollins, 2024), shortlisted for a Chicago Review of Books Award and Chicago Reader’s Best of Chicago. Her work is also published in The Kenyon Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner and elsewhere. April is an Assistant Professor of English at Malcolm X College.
Website: https://argpoetry.com/
Instagram: @poetmamawoman
Vincent Francone
Vincent Francone is the author of Like a Dog, The Soft Lunacy, and A Book No One Wants. He edited Open Heart Chicago: an Anthology of Chicago Writing and is Editor-in-Chief of Jabber Literary. His stray poems, essays, and stories have popped up online and in print thanks to various journals (New City, Southword, Three Percent, Akashic Books, to name a few).
Bluesky: @vincentfrancone.bsky.social
Instagram: @vincentfrancone
Dina Elebogen
Dina Elenbogen is author of the poetry collections, Shore (Glass Lyre Press) and Apples of the Earth, (Spuyten Duyvil, NY) as well as the memoir, Drawn from Water. She’s received fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council and the Ragdale Foundation. Her work has appeared in anthologies and magazines including What the House Knows (Terrapin Books) City of the Big shoulders, (University of Iowa Press) The Nature of our Times anthology, Beyond Lament, (Northwestern University Press), Lit Hub, Bellevue Literary Review, Brevity, Prairie Schooner, december, Woven Tale Press, Cimmaron Review, Patterson Literary Review, Connecticut River Review, New City Chicago and other venues. She has an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and teaches creative writing at the University of Chicago Writer’s Studio.
You can find her at www.dinaelenbogen.com
— Young Chicago Authors —
Eila Kittikamron Mora
Eila Kittikamron Mora is a Thai-Colombian American poet, performer, and promiser of the rainbow. A playwright, songwriter, and screenwriter in her free time when she’s not dancing Salsa or acting, her works draw on love and the body, identity and language, and coming-of-age. She is serving as the 2025 Chicago Youth Poet Laureate. She represents young queer people of color that are a little bit crazy, but nonetheless persistent and unabashed.
Isaiah Allen
Hi! My name is Isaiah Allen but most call me Zay. I am 17 years of age, I started writing plays, songs, poems, and short films at the age of 15. I’m going into my senior year of High School where I am the captain of the Track team, Peer leader to the freshman basketball team and I was the lead actor in this previous year’s fall musical. Alongside of those things, I have created a website which gives facts about all the art I create and other aspects of my life which opens doors and opportunities for myself and people like me.
Yarely Lopez
My name is Yaya, and I’m in 10th grade. A fun fact about me is that I love collecting sneakers!
— ESSO —
ESSO Funk? Yes, the Chicago-based bilingual dance band. Their kaleidoscopic approach to fusing Americana with Latin dance and Tropical groove has propelled them to tour, performing for multicultural audiences on festival stages across the US, and into Mexico. The live group keeps the vibration high while engaging all ages with inclusive energy and expansive musical range. Website: http://essofunk.com/
— Workshops —
Kenyatta Rogers
Kenyatta Rogers is a Cave Canem Fellow and has been awarded scholarships from the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference. His work has been previously published in or forthcoming from The Academy of American Poets, Poetry Magazine, Jubilat, Vinyl, Bat City Review, The Volta, PANK, MAKE Magazine among others. A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, he is as a co-host of the Sunday Reading Series with Simone Muench and is the Creative Writing Department Head at The Chicago High School for the Arts.
Nate Olison
Nate Olison is a Chicago-based educator, artist and entrepreneur who’s been helping students harness the creative process to transform themselves and their environment for over 15 years. Through his company, Optimist Comics, he combines project based learning and visual storytelling to improve access to literacy. He’s a fiction writer, poet, and cartoonist. He is currently producing (both writing and drawing) The Fragile World of Mr. Frazzle, a forthcoming YA graphic novel series about growing up and claiming your destiny against all odds.