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The Guild Complex and the National Book Critics Circle present Exhibit B at Printers Row Lit Fest 2021! Our eighth show will be live and in-person at the center stage Saturday, September 11th, 5PM at the Midwest’s largest literary festival. It will feature performances from Mojdeh Stoakley, Ruben Quesada, Ignatius Valentine Aloysius, Sky Goodman, and Nick Ward hosted by NBCC Board Member J. Howard Rosier.
4:30 PM CDT @ AWM/Feinberg Stage
The Guild Literary Complex, along with Seminary Co-op Bookstores, Lit & Luz Festival, and Feria del Librio, presents a special Palabra Pura event with acclaimed author Ana Castillo. The night is a celebration of her latest book of poems, My Book of the Dead.
Register here!
Join us for a book release event, celebrating Aviya Kushner’s debut poetry collection, Wolf Lamb Bomb, followed by a discussion on religion, social empathy, and allyship with Hebrew translator Adriana X. Jacobs.
Watch the full recording of this event here!
Book release and reading celebrating Reginald Gibbons’ latest poetry collection, Renditions, published by Four Way Books. The night will also feature readings from Ed Roberson and Illinois Poet Laureate Angela Jackson.
Watch the full recording of this event here.
This reading is a part of the Guild Literary Complex’s Applied Words series of multidisciplinary events and conversations on contemporary social issues. The work of these writers is informed by backgrounds, experiences, and research that reach across national borders. The memories and histories of persecution, migration, exile, and assimilation threaded through these authors’ poetry and prose are a welcome reminder that American writing is always already global.
Featuring: Dipika Mukherjee, Ines Bellina , Michael Zapata, Sahar Mustafah, Frances de Pontes Peebles, Fabiola Werlang
Join us on thursday, March 25th, for a surreal evening as The Guild Complex presents Exhibit B will feature incredible performances from artists Jose Hernandez Diaz, Emily Martin, Ian Wojcikiewicz, and Shailen Mishra.
Exhibit B is a performance series that highlights exciting text-based work in Chicago. Presented by the Guild Literary Complex, a 30-year-old grassroots literary arts organization based in Chicago, Exhibit B showcases prose, poetry, plays, music, and more. We want to create a space that showcases work that you don’t need an MFA to feel and that leaves the audience always wanting more. We want community. We want impact.
Sandra Cisneros, the poet, short story writer, novelist, essayist, performer, and artist whose work beautifully and profoundly explores working class lives and landscapes, will receive the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame’s Fuller Award for lifetime achievement.
The Guild Literary Complex brings together some of the BIPOC writers from our 30 Writers to Watch to read a few of their pieces, chat about their work, and discuss how they’re charting their paths in an industry more embracing of their stories.
Featuring:
Justin Howard Rosier
Nate Marshall
Ciara Miller
Nikki Patin
Mojdeh Stoakley
Exhibit B is a performance series that highlights exciting text-based work in Chicago. Presented by the Guild Literary Complex, a 30-year-old grassroots literary arts organization based in Chicago, Exhibit B showcases prose, poetry, plays, music, and more. We want to create a space that showcases work that you don’t need an MFA to feel and that leaves the audience always wanting more. We want community. We want impact.
January’s event will feature artists Abigail Chabitnoy, Thea Matthews, and Mary Cerney, and will highlight the work of Awakenings, a non-profit organization dedicated to creating a physical and virtual artistic space that furthers awareness and understanding of sexual violence and promotes healing of survivors through the arts.
Please join poet, author, and activist Nikki Giovanni for a special reading of her latest chapbook, Standing in the Need of Prayer. The book, based on a traditional African American hymn written by James Weldon Johnson, is dedicated to all those left in the wake of a loved one taken away by violence.
Immediately following will be a discussion with the author, along with Emily Thornton Calvo, writer, artist, and one of the Guild’s 30 Writers to Watch, who served as the book’s illustrator. Also included in the discussion is Jordan Holmes, who wrote the book’s foreword.
Join us Thursday, December 3rd, as The Guild Complex presents Exhibit B will feature incredible performances from artists Rabha Ashry, Daniel Woody, Alex Wells Shapiro, and Caroline Cooledge McCraw. We will also have a Q&A with visual artist Vashon Jordan Jr. to discuss his debut photo book, “Chicago Protests: A Joyful Revolution.”
Speaking Truths Series will return to the virtual space on Thursday November 12 at 7pm. This event is a collaboration between Speaking Truths Series, Guild Literary Complex, and the National Cambodian Heritage Museum.
Join us for the virtual book launch of “American Gun: A Poem by 100 Chicagoans” a collective response to the individual suffering behind the statistics. Sponsored by Big Shoulders Books, the DePaul University Publishing Institute, the Guild Literary Complex, and the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.
Luis J. Rodriguez in conversation with Logan Lu discussing his most recent book, From Our Land to Our Land.
Three distinct Afro-Latina voices telling their stories and sharing perspectives in this time of revolution: Tiffanie Clark, Kianny N. Antigua, and Ilka Oliva Corado.
Part of the Guild’s Palabra Pura program.
We are thrilled to host the book release for our own Mike Puican’s debut publication, Central Air. Join us September 17th for a reading from Puican and discussion with fellow author and poet, Mark Turcotte.
Six local artists in discussion about art, the nature of protest and living with history of the continued assault on their lives. While the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and most recently, Jacob Blake have been featured in the media the history of violence against men of color is not new it is rare that there is an authentic conversation around the constant effort to live your life in survival mode. These artists share their truths in conversation.
Part of the One State 2020 Conference from Arts Alliance Illinois and the Illinois Arts Council Agency (IACA).
Guild Literary Complex
641 West Lake Street, Suite 200
Chicago, IL 60661641
guildcomplex.programs@gmail.com
Where margins have been meeting since 1989.