Saturday August 9th is
Bookstore Romance Day!
Be one of the first customers to buy a book from the Romance, Chicklit, or Romantasy aisle and get a little something sweet.*
*While supplies last*
September 9th 6-7:30 pm
Summertime and the Business is Easy
Join us for workshop #5 of 6 in Sharon Woodhouse's Summertime and the Business Is Easy Series, a how-to series for authors, writers, creatives, freelancers, and other solo pros. The topic is: Why you should take an entrepreneurial approach to your creative career and how you can start a business today. The program will include a 30-40-minute presentation, Q&A, booksigning, and a chance to ask Woodhouse questions one-on one.
The workshop is free, but those who buy a copy of her book from after-words on the night will get a 20% discount, a free 3-month subscription to Woodhouse's paid author business coaching community and article archive on Substack, and the chance to win a free one-hour consultation with Woodhouse.
Sharon Woodhouse was the founder and publisher of Lake Claremont Press, a Chicago-based
indie publisher specializing in nonfiction books about Chicago, for 25 years. She's the current owner of
Conspire Creative, a book business agency that offers coaching, consulting, project management,
and business support services for authors and indie publishers. She writes and teaches about all aspects of creating holistic, income-generating author businesses you love and finding your place in the
vibrant ecosystem of books on Substack, Medium, and elsewhere.
Her latest book is The Profitable Author: 1,001 Ways to Build a Business You Love Around Your Books.
Trauma and American Fascism
September 11th 6:30 pm
Join us for a discussion on September 11 between two devoted practitioners in their respective fields about our collective trauma.
Zak Mucha, LCSW, is a psychoanalyst and president of the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. He spentseven years working as the supervisor of an Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) program, providing 24/7 services to persons suffering
from severe psychosis, substance abuse issues, and homelessness. Mucha has worked as a counselor and consultant for U.S. combat veterans undergoing training for
digital forensic investigations in child pornography and is a board member of the Legislative Drafting Institute for Child Protection. He currently also provides
consultation to various mental health agencies in Chicago.
Before going into the clinical field, Mucha has worked as a freelance journalist,
truck driver, furniture mover, construction worker, union organizer, staff member at a juvenile DCFS locked unit, and taught briefly at a women’s prison.
He is the author of Emotional Abuse: A Manual for Self-Defense and Swimming to the Horizon: Crack, Psychosis, and Street-Corner Social Work as well as two collections of poetry.
Michael Zapata is a founding editor of MAKE Literary Magazine and the author of the novel The Lost Book of Adana Moreau, winner of the 2020 Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction, finalist for the 2020 Heartland Booksellers Award in Fiction, and a Best Book of the Year for NPR, the A.V. Club, Los Angeles Public Library, and BookPage, among others. He is a recipient of a Meier Foundation Artist Achievement Award, an Illinois Arts Council Award for Fiction and two City of Chicago DCASE Individual Artist Program Awards. He is on the faculty of StoryStudio Chicago and the MFA faculty of Northwestern University. As a public-school educator, he taught literature and writing in high schools servicing drop out students. He currently lives in Chicago with his family.
October 1st Book Launch
Clout City by Dominic Pacyga
Join us at Marz Brewery in Bridgeport for the launch of Clout City: The Rise and Fall of the Chicago Political Machine.
Award winning historian Dominic A. Pacyga will be at the brewery on October 1st at 7pm.
In Clout City, award-winning historian Dominic A. Pacyga reveals how cultural, ethnic, and religious forces created this
distinctive system—and ultimately led to its collapse. Tracing clout’s origins in the Irish Catholic–dominated
working-class neighborhood of Bridgeport, shaped by De La Salle Institute and home to the legendary Daley family,
Pacyga shows how communal ties can be a force for good and also the deepest wellspring of corruption.
We'll see you there!
Banned Books Club October 7th 6:30 pm
From the original, uncensored journals of Anaïs Nin, Henry and June spans a single year in Nin's life when she discovers
love and torment in one insatiable couple. From later 1931 to the end of 1932, Nin falls in love with Henry Miller's writing and his wife June's striking beauty. When June leaves Paris for New York, Henry and Anaïs begin a fiery affair that liberates her sexually and morally, but also undermines her marriage and eventually leads to her psychoanalysis. As she grapples with her own conscience, a single question dominates her thoughts: What will happen when June returns to Paris? An intimate story of one woman's sexual awakening, Henry and June exposes the pain and pleasure of a single person trapped between two loves.
While not a widespread ban, the book did face challenges from some who considered it obscene or indecent.
These challenges sometimes involved legal battles and questions about its distribution and sale.