What’s New & What’s Next in Chicago Publishing

CQR editors had a great time at the City of Chicago sponsored publishing event ‘What’s New & What’s Next in Chicago Publishing’ last night. Four writers from the 2nd Story ensemble read – the theme was love in all its various guises – and music was provided by the always fantastic Seeking Wonderland. We also enjoyed a conversation with Jill Pollack, director of StoryStudiochicago, before the reading.

Open Books, check out December events

A worth cause and a place to volunteer or donate books: Open Books is a nonprofit social venture that operates an extraordinary bookstore, provides community programs, and mobilizes passionate volunteers to promote literacy in Chicago and beyond. We enhance lives through reading, writing, and theNEWSWORTHY power of used books.

To learn more about us and find out how you can get involved, visit us at http://www.open-books.org!

Book Review: The Resurrection of the Body, by Armando Maggi

The Resurrection of the Body: Pier Paolo Pasolini from Saint Paul to Sade, by Armando Maggi, (University of Chicago Press, 2009) is an extremely rigorous study of Pasolini’s final works: the screenplay Saint Paul, the scenario for Porn-Theo-Colossal, the immense and unfinished novel Petrolio, and his notorious final film, Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom, an adaptation of the writings of the Marquis de Sade.

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Book presentation: Italian writer Clara Sereni’s novel ‘Keeping House’

Clara Sereni, Italian writer, journalist, translator and former Deputy Mayor of the City of Perugia, read from her book Casalinghitudine at the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago in early November 2009.  Casalinghitudine, (Keeping House: A Novel in Recipes), was recently translated into English by Giovanna Miceli-Jeffries and Susan Briziarelli, and published by the SUNY University Press Women Writers in Translation Series.


As Miceli-Jeffries writes in her introduction, “There is at least one recipe for every significant character that takes hold of the memory and the imagination of both the narrator and reader…”

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