Women’s Writers Showcase

The Guild Complex and Haymarket Books feature six new books by six amazing, local self- identifying female authors, centering fiction, poetry and short stories about the magic of water, ancestral legacy, grief, longing and memory. A lineup not to be missed! Tickets here.

Featuring:
Virginia Bell was chosen for New City Magazine’s Lit 50: Who Really Books in Chicago for 2025 and Bell’s latest poetry collection is Lifting Child from the Ground, Turning Around (Glass Lyre Press 2025). She is Co-Editor of the forthcoming anthology The Overturning (Erratics Books, an imprint of Hypertext, 2025), and Co-Editor of RHINO Poetry. Bell’s previous work includes From the Belly (Sibling Rivalry Press 2012), NELLE Magazine’s Nonfiction Prize in 2020 for the personal essay, “Chicken,” and Honorable Mention in the 2019 RiverSedge Poetry Prize, judged by José Antonio Rodríguez. Bell has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and teaches at Loyola University Chicago and DePaul University.

Eiren Caffall is an author and musician based in Chicago. Her writing on loss and nature, oceans and extinction has appeared in Orion, The Writer’s Digest, Guernica, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, Al Jazeera, The Rumpus, and the anthology Elementals: Volume IV: Fire (The Center for Humans and Nature, 2024). She has received a 2023 Whiting Award in Creative Nonfiction, a Social Justice News Nexus fellowship, and residencies at the Banff Centre, Millay Colony, MacDowell Colony (waitlisted), Hedgebrook, and Ragdale. She is the author of the memoir The Mourner’s Bestiary (Row House Publishing, 2024) and the novel All the Water in the World (St. Martin’s Press, 2025).

Marcy Rae Henry is a multidisciplinary Xicana artist from the Borderlands who studied Buddhism, meditation and massage in India and Nepal in between academic degrees. She is the author of death is a mariachi, winner of the May Sarton NH Poetry Prize, (Bauhan Press), when to go to the Taj Mahal (Bottlecap Press), the body is where it all begins (Querencia Press), dream life of night owls, winner of the Open Country Chapbook Contest, (Open Country Press), and We Are Primary Colors (DoubleCross Press). Her work has received a Chicago Community Arts Assistance Grant, an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, a Pushcart nomination, first prize in Suburbia’s Novel Excerpt Contest and Kaveh Akbar recently chose her fiction collection, Southwest Stories: Martinis and the Magnetic Poles, as a finalist for the George Garrett Fiction Prize. MRae is a professor of English, literature and creative writing at Wilbur Wright College Chicago, a Hispanic Serving Institution. She is an associate editor for RHINO and a digital minimalist with no social media accounts.

I.S. Jones is the author of Bloodmercy, chosen by Nicole Sealey as the winner of the 2025 APR / Honickman First Book Prize and the chapbook Spells of My Name, selected by Newfound in 2021 for their Emerging Writers Series. Currently, she is a Senior Editor for Poetry Northwest, where she runs her column, The Legacy Suite, a three-part interview documenting the journey of writers publishing their debut poetry collections. Her works have appeared in Granta, LA Review of Books, Guernica, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. While she has lived in many places across the U.S., she gratefully calls Chicago home.

Maud Lavin is the 2020 recipient of the Distinguished Feminist Award for scholarship from the College Art Association of America. Lavin is a key pioneer in the field of feminist art history and visual studies. She is the author of numerous books including the first English-language book on Berlin Dada artist Hannah Hoch, Cut with the Kitchen Knife: The Weimar Photomontages of Hannah Hoch, and most recently, Boys’ Love, Cosplay, and Androgynous Idols: Queer Fan Cultures in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, co-edited with Ling Yang and Jamie Zhao.

Sahar Mustafah’s debut novel The Beauty of Your Face was named a 2020 Notable Book and Editor’s Choice by New York Times Book Review and one of Marie Claire Magazine’s 2020 Best Fiction by Women. Her award-winning short stories have been recently featured in Prairie Schooner, The Massachusetts Review, and Redline: Chicago Horror Stories. Her second novel, The Slightest Green, is forthcoming this November from Interlink Books. Mustafah writes and teaches outside of Chicago.

***We ask that all attendees wear masks in the event space during the program for the health and well-being of the speaker and other guests. We will also have a reception following the event with light refreshments.***