Author Reading

Sappho’s Salon: A Provocative Night of Lesbian Diversions

Featuring Terry Wolverton and Yvonne Zipter, special guest DJ SpinNikki

$7-10 cover includes food and wine

Tonight’s installment of our popular monthly salon night for lesbian and their

friends features two top lesbian literary voices. Terry Wolverton is author of nine books

of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, including most recently the novel Stealing Angel. She

has also edited fourteen literary anthologies, including the award-winning series Hers:

Brilliant New Lesbian Fiction. Yvonne Zipter is the author of the critically acclaimed

poetry collections Like Some Bookie God and The Patience of Metal, the nonfiction

books Ransacking the Closet and Diamonds Are a Dykes Best Friend. Her poems,

humorous essays, and feature articles have appeared in numerous periodicals and

anthologies. Sappho’s house DJ SpinNikki rounds out the mix, playing from her eclectic

catalog of indie, electronica, soul, and world music. Proceeds benefit the artists and the Women’s Voices Fund.

Discretion

Touchstone / Simon & Schuster

Former D.C. sex-crimes prosecutor Allison Leotta has been hailed the “female

John Grisham,” and her debut novel, The Law of Attraction, was named one of the best

books of 2010 by Suspense Magazine. Leotta delivers a gripping sequel with Discretion,

a novel exploring the intersection of sex and power in D.C.’s most secretive worlds.

When a young woman plummets to her death from the balcony of the U.S. Capital, and

evidence points to sexual assault and murder, Assistant U.S. Attorney Anna Curtis is

brought into a case that leads her to a network of a secret social clubs frequented by

D.C.’s most powerful men. Inspired by real-life political sex scandals, Discretion

explores sex, power, and the secrets we keep.

Chicago Center for Literature and Photography Reading

Featuring Lauryn Allison Lewis, Sally Weigel, K. Scott Nelson, and Amy Guth

Tonight’s reading features writers published through the Chicago Center for

Literature and Photography (CCLaP). Two lone scientists work in isolation in what may

or may not be an apocalyptic America beyond their locked compound in solo/down,

Lauren Allison Lewis’s follow up to her cultishly popular novella, The Beauties. In her

short story collection Get Up Tim, Sally Weigel demonstrates why she has been called

the love child of Joe Meno and Joan Didion. Katherine Scott Nelson’s novella, Have You

Seen Me, was a double nominee for a 2012 Lambda Literary Award and described by

Kirkus Reviews as “refreshingly earnest and artfully wrought.” Chicago Tribune writer

Amy Guth’s debut novel from CCLaP is forthcoming.

The Heavens Weep for Us and Other Stories

Breath and Bone

Thelma T. Reyna is author of an award-winning short story collection, The

Heavens Weep For Us and Other Stories, and her poetry chapbook, Breath and Bone,

Natalie Bakopoulos

The Green Shore

Simon & Schuster

Patrick Somerville

This Bright River

Little, Brown

In her award-winning debut novel,
Natalie Bakopoulos vividly illuminates a seminal yet little explored
moment in Greek history – the 1967 coup d’état, which ushered in
a 7-year-period of devastating brutality and repression. Set in
Athens and Paris, The Green Shore introduces sisters Anna and
Sophie, their widowed mother Eleni, and their uncle Mihalis, whose
heartbreaking stories play out against the backdrop of that turbulent
period. In Patrick Somerville’s follow-up to his acclaimed debut,
The Cradle, a man and a woman cross paths when both return,
for varying reasons, to the same small Wisconsin town. Could each be
exactly what the other needs? The weight of secrets, the price of
success, and the cost of love linger at the heart of this surprising,
unsettling, and deeply satisfying novel.  

Teresa Milbrodt

Bearded Women: Stories

ChiZine Publications

Welcome to the contemporary Freak
Show. A woman trying to have a child has a parasitic twin—an extra
lower torso and a set of legs named Bianca. Should she have Bianca’s
body removed to improve her chances at conception? A bearded lady
considers coming out of the closet about her hirsute nature, and a
woman with four ears gets a chance to become the mascot of a tattoo
parlor. Meet “the freaks”—mothers, wives, and lovers—trying
to negotiate a world that is quicker to stare than to sympathize.

St. Sukie de la Croix

Chicago Whispers: A History of LGBT
Chicago Before Stonewall

University of Wisconsin

Join us as we celebrate this
groundbreaking new release by journalist and historian St. Sukie de
la Croix. Chicago Whispers illuminates a colorful and vibrant
record of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people who lived
and loved in Chicago from the city’s beginnings in the 1670s as a
fur-trading post to the cusp of Stonewall. Through years of archival
research and personal interviews, de la Croix reclaims a unique
Chicago history long forgotten, suppressed, or overlooked.  

Elizabeth Crane

We Only Know So Much

Harper Perennial

Elizabeth Crane’s funny and moving
debut novel traces a typical American family as each of its members
confronts a moment of crisis. With empathy, humor, and wisdom, We
Only Know So Much brings to life an eccentric cast of characters
that includes a difficult daughter, a sweet-but-weird son, a
know-it-all dad, a mother with delayed potential, a controlling
matriarchal grandmother, and a grandfather who is losing it. Shot
through with her unique, sharp-witted voice, Elizabeth Crane (All
This Heavenly Glory, You Must Be This Happy to Enter) offers the
unforgettable story of what one family finds when everyone goes
looking for meaning in the wrong places.

Frances Osborne

Park Lane

Vintage Books

In a novel that will delight Downton
Abbey fans, bestselling author Frances Osborne (The Bolter)
introduces two strong and determined women whose lives collide in the
halls of a pedigreed London townhome on the cusp of WWI. When
18-year-old Gracie Carlisle’s plans of securing a secretarial job
are unsuccessful, she takes a job as a housemaid at Number 35, Park
Lane. There she is quickly caught up in the lives of its inhabitants,
including Beatrice, who has just returned from America after being
jilted by her fiancé. Unknown to both women, their subsequent
choices will connect their chances at future happiness in dramatic
ways.

Sappho’s Salon: A Provocative Night
of Lesbian Diversions

Featuring Deidre McCalla and Monica Del
Castillo, with guest host Vernita Gray

$10 cover charge includes food and wine

At this month’s Pride edition of
Sappho’s Salon, we are honored to present the internationally
acclaimed women’s music legend Deidre McCalla. Since coming of age
in New York City’s folk music heyday, McCalla has released five
albums (three on the Olivia record label) and performed everywhere
from the main stage at Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival to Carnegie
Hall. Opening for McCalla will be Chicago-based folk-rock singer and
songwriter Monica Del Castillo. Guest host Vernita Gray is a legend
in her own right. A long-time civil rights activist, and Chicago Gay
and Lesbian Hall of Fame inductee, Gray’s life of adventure and
activism is currently being chronicled in a biography by Tracy Baim
and Owen Keehnen. Cover charge benefits the artists and the
Women’s Voices Fund.

Annual Pride Open Mic Reading

Join us tonight for one of our most
popular annual events: our LGBTQ Pride open mic. Every year, seasoned
pros and nervous first-timers come to share their work with our
supportive audience. Bring a short piece of original poetry, prose,
or song lyrics to read or perform. Everyone is limited to three
minutes—seriously--so time yourself before you get up on the stage
to make sure you’re within the limits. Readers are encouraged to
sign up in advance by dropping by the store or calling 773-769-9299
(time slots fill up quickly).

Richard Russo and Kate Russo

Interventions

Down East Books

Tonight’s special event presents the
father-daughter collaboration of Pulitzer Prize–winning author
Richard Russo and his daughter, the artist Kate Russo. Interventions,
a very special four-volume set of novellas (including the
never-before-published title story) that includes frame-worthy
original artwork by Kate Russo, is a celebration of the tactile
aspect of reading. Bringing together four short tales about obsession
and interventions, Interventions is a beautifully bound
tribute to the relationships among books, book binding, and art.

Eva Gabrielsson

“There Are Things I Want You to
Know” about Stieg Larsson and Me

Seven Stories Press

Swedish American Museum

5211 N. Clark St.

*Tickets required

In her internationally renowned
memoir, Eva Gabrielsson, life partner of writer Stieg Larsson, offers
a series of revealing vignettes about the Millennium Trilogy author
and their 32-year relationship. In short, lyrical chapters,
Gabrielsson regales Larsson’s readers with insight into how he
wrote, why he wrote, and who the sources were for Lisbeth and his
other characters and all of the real-life issues -- racism,
anti-Semitism, and the mistreatment of women -- that Larsson based
his books on. *This is a ticketed event and seating is limited.
Tickets are free with the purchase of Gabrielsson’s book (now
available in paperback). To order a copy of the book and reserve a
ticket, call the store at 773-769-9299.

When We Were Outlaws
Spinsters Ink
In Conversation with Achy Obejas
In her sweeping memoir, groundbreaking queer journalist Jeanne Cordova
presents a raw and intimate chronicle of an activist torn between conflicting personal
longing and political goals. When We Were Outlaws presents the true story of a brash
young radical lesbian during the early struggles for gay and women’s rights. Featuring an
introduction by renowned historian Lillian Faderman, When We Were Outlaws paints a
vivid portrait of political engagement and the search for self-identity, set within the
maelstrom of 1970s social and sexual revolutions. Tonight’s program presents Cordova
in conversation with two-time Lambda Award–winning novelist (Ruins, Days of Awe)
and Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Achy Obejas.

Featuring Catherine Lundoff and Beth Grogg, with Special Guest Host C. C. Carter
$7-$10 sliding scale includes food and wine
This month’s installment of our popular salon night for lesbians and their friends
presents writers Catherine Lundoff and Beth Grogg. Minnesota-based Lundoff is the
award-winning author of several books, including Night’s Kiss and Silver Moon: A
Wolves of Wolf’s Point Novel, editor of Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades: Lesbian
Ghost Stories, and co-editor of Hellebore and Rue: Takes of Queer Women and Magic.
Although her first love is poetry, Chicagoan Beth Grogg has also written screenplays, a
one-woman show, performance pieces, journalism, and, alas, advertising and public
relations copy. (A girl’s gotta eat, right?) She is also a former Sappho’s volunteer and
long-time Sappho’s Salon supporter. Tonight’s special guest host is nationally renowned,
award-winning spoken word artist and POW-WOW founder, C. C. Carter. Proceeds
benefit the artists and the Women’s Voices Fund.