We’re excited to announce that submissions are now open for the 2025 Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Awards (GBOMA)! This annual poetry competition celebrates the legacy of Illinois’ former Poet Laureate, Gwendolyn Brooks, by uplifting emerging poets and giving them a platform to share their work. Interested poets can find full submission guidelines and apply here:👉…
We are honored to share that the Guild Literary Complex has been selected as one of 12 organizations nationwide to receive a Sustainable Futures Grant from the Poetry Foundation. This multi-year general operating support grant will provide $225,000 over three years, helping us continue and expand our work in amplifying underrepresented voices and building inclusive…
Newcity Lit has named our upcoming event, Power Lines Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Celebration, the top literary event in Chicago for May 2025! Presented in partnership with the Poetry Foundation and the Poetry Center, this special evening marks 25 years since the release of Power Lines, the groundbreaking 1999 anthology that captured a decade of vibrant poetry…
We are proud to announce that our very own Board President, Faylita Hicks, has been named one of the 2025 Writing Freedom Fellows by Haymarket Books and the Mellon Foundation. This prestigious fellowship recognizes and elevates the voices of writers impacted by the carceral system. The Writing Freedom Fellowship offers its recipients opportunities for professional development and…
CHICAGO, February 5, 2025—The Poetry Foundation announces its roster of free public events for the spring 2025 season under the theme “Power Lines,” inspired by the landmark anthology of the same name released by the Guild Literary Complex 25 years ago. The electrifying event season highlights new work by Chicago and Midwest presses, partner organizations, and…
In partnership with Guild Literary Complex and with the support of Healing Illinois, NON:op announces a call for proposals for commissioned responses to SAY THEIR NAMES. The commission is for two to three poet/composer teams to create new work that responds to individual cases, groups of cases, the map, or the entire project. The application opens on January…
New Board Chair The Guild Literary Complex announced Tuesday that critically-acclaimed author and Art for Justice Grantee Faylita Hicks has been elected Chair of the Guild Literary Complex’s Board of Directors for a three-year term, effective September 18, 2024. A recent transplant to Chicago (2022), Hicks comes to the Guild from Central Texas with over…
Congratulations to Nikki Patin for her 2024 Pushcart nomination for Working on Me. The Guild was honored to host her book launch in April, and she was one of our 2019 Writers to Watch.
The Guild Complex is excited to announce the recent award of several grants, including those from DCASE, the Field Foundation’s ART (A Road Together) program, the Illinois Arts Council, Illinois Humanities, the Crossroads Fund, and the Poetry Foundation.
The Guild Complex has been nominated (again!) for Best Poetry Organization under Arts and Culture in The Chicago Reader’s Best of Chicago 2024.
Join us at Printers Row Lit Fest from September 9-10! The Guild Complex is excited to host and participate in a suite of events, including: Exhibit B @ Printers Row Saturday, 9/9 | 4:00 PM | 731 S. Plymouth Ct. Going the Distance: A Printers Row Reading with Ana Castillo and Reginald Gibbons Sunday, 9/10…
June 7, 2023 marked the 10th anniversary of BrooksDay, the Guild Literary Complex’s annual celebration of Gwendolyn Brooks. This year, we joined forces with the Poetry Foundation to additionally celebrate the launch of One Poem, One Chicago, which started with a reissue of Brooks’ 1987 poetry collection Blacks (Third World Press). You can view the…
June 2023 One Poem, One Chicago, an opportunity to engage Chicagoans in poetry and foster a sense of community through reading, will launch with a reissue of Gwendolyn Brooks’s landmark poetry collection Blacks, which will be available via CPL and public programming. To complement Chicago’s collective reading of Blacks, there will be several free events…
The Programming Intern will assist the Guild Literary Complex in planning, outreach, and administration related to its core annual programs. This internship will be project-based, and the intern will gain experience in event planning, communications, and marketing related to arts programming. Responsibilities may include communications on behalf of the organization, social media coordination, audience engagement,…
Part of Lifeline’s season programming, join the actors, director and a member of the production team discussing the process with an excerpt from the play From the Mississippi Delta. A Q+A will follow with guest co-facilitator: Andrea Change, executive director, Guild Literary Complex.
Dear Friends of the Guild, The 2017 Author’s Challenge Grant is here! For us, our camaraderie with authors here in Chicago is one of the brightest and most powerful reasons for our ongoing work, and we are so grateful to be able to continue sharing new voices with each and every one of you. As…
Each Other’s Harvest, Annual Summit on Homelessness A 2017 Guild Literary Complex Applied Words Program Wilson Abbey 935 West Wilson Avenue, Uptown, Chicago, IL 60640 This event is free and open to the public. ~ Thursday, November 16, 2017 6:00 PM Doors & Mingle with visual arts show, 6:30 PM Performances 8:00 PM Dinner &…
THE GUILD PRESENTS A CONVERSATION ON TRANSNATIONAL POETICS Sunday November 5th 2017, 6:00 PM- 7:30 PM Chopin Theatre, 1543 W Division St, Chicago, IL 60642 STUART COOKE | NATANIA ROSENFELD | TONI NEALIE Please join the Guild LIterary Complex in a conversation with authors and poets Stuart Cooke, Natania Rosenfeld, and Toni Nealie as we journey…
Arts in the Dark with the Guild and Partners — we are looking for marchers! Here is an opportunity to celebrate the literary arts! The Guild Literary Complex is looking for people to walk in Chicago’s Arts in the Dark Parade, Saturday October 21st from 6 PM to 8 PM on Columbus (between Balbo and Monroe). Join us as we become…
Brooks In Translation | Wednesday, October 18, 2017 Come for a night of bilingual Brooks with poetry, music, conversation, and more! Join the Guild Literary Complex in partnership with Our Miss Brooks 100, Brooks Permissions, Chicago Community Trust, and the Chicago Public Library as we bring you a very special Palabra Pura celebrating the life…
We’re baaaaaack. Your friendly Wicker Park Lit partners are back at the Farmers’ Market. Sunday, September 17th | 9:00–13:00 Wicker Park – Chicago Park District 1425 N. Damen Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60622 Same as last year – Bring a book – Take a book (or 2) This is Wicker Park Lit Fest Weekend – so…
Sunday Sept 17th, 6:30 PM- 8:00 PM Volumes Bookscafe | 1474 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, Illinois 60622 Join The Guild Literary Complex and Partner Volumes Bookcafe during Wicker Park Lit Fest weekend for a reading/conversation about Community of Place with the amazing Audrey Petty and Vida Cross. Vida Cross is a blues poet. Her work…
Falling for Gwendolyn Brooks! With Brooks Permissions Sunday, September 17th, 2017 4:30-6:30 PM The celebration of the Gwendolyn Brooks centennial continues with a special look at the fall section of SEASONS: A Gwendolyn Brooks Experience. SEASONS is a unique look at the life and work of Ms. Brooks in this new book filled with thematic…
Exciting Announcement 24th Annual Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Awards 2017 SUBMISSIONS Extended to Sunday, September 10th at 11:59 PM! The Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award competition is open to Illinois residents aged 18 and older. This annual event is always a crown pleaser with past winners including the esteemed poets Sename Amagashie, Lucy Anderton, Tara Betts, C.C….
Tuesday, August 1st, 2017 | 5:00-7:00 PM at the American Writers Museum Join us for a reading and signing with Dipika Mukherjee (Shambala Junction), winner of the Virginia Prize for Fiction winner, Aurora Metro Books’ biennial prize to encourage and promote new writing by women. Mukherjee’s debut novel was long-listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize (2011)…
‘The Collection is dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the people of the West Side of Chicago” – Guildworks: Writings by the West Side Writers Guild, 1996 Join The Guild, OMB 100 and Jane Addams Hull-House Museum as we reunite–for the first time in two decades–the founding members of the West Side Writers Guild (WSWG), an organization…
Our July Applied Words (originally scheduled for July 10) has been moved to the Fall due to the likelihood of inclement weather, as well as the request of our moderator. Thank you for understanding. Be sure to check us out for our Fall season!
Join us for a very special Palabra Pura with Dr. Grisel Y. Acosta and Vincent Toro–two amazing Latinx poets in from NYC!–as we talk about memory, language and the way mythology moves through the modern experience. __________ Where: Pint Chicago 1547 North Milwaukee Avenue, Wicker Park, 60622 Thursday June 22 | 7:30 – 9:30 PM…
Let the 50th Celebrations Begin: Guild Books Remembered, Lit Forward We are kicking off the 50th anniversary celebrations of Guild Books’s beginning. When, you ask? Sunday, May 21, 2017! 2 to 4 pm! Come, celebrate the vitality of independent literature and appraise how literature continues to contribute to social transformation at a time so different from…
Poesía del “Santuario” Pasa abril llenando el mes con poesía, pasa abril dejando el gusto verde de los versos, cuando se despierta la maleza y las alergias, los poemas y la problematica social nos hace llorar en la ciudad de los vientos. Este mes Palabra pura nos presenta poesía del los Andes y del interior…