Friday 10/24: David Bell is at The Book Cellar to promote his novel The Forgotten Girl. 7 p.m.
Saturday 10/25: The Chicago Humanities Festival kicks off today in celebration of its 25th anniversary. These are some of the best literary events you’ll attend all year. Today, Jamaica Kincaid talks to Lawrence Weschler about the breadth of her distinguished work. Go to the website for tickets. Cahn Auditorium, Northwestern University, 600 Emerson St., Evanston, 11 a.m.
Eula Biss continues a great day of distinguished writers at Northwestern University’s Leverone Hall, where she’ll discuss her new book On Immunity. 2001 Sheridan Rd., Evanston, 2:30 p.m.
Gary Shteyngart appears at the Cahn Auditorium on Northwestern’s Evanston campus, where he’ll discuss his new memoir, Little Failure. 7:30 p.m.
20×2 Chicago features twenty speakers from various media, who will each answer one question for two minutes. Writers scheduled to appear include Bobby Biedrzycki, Jasmine Davila, Eden Robins, Mike Ewing, Hannah Gamble, James Gordon, Darryl Holliday, Leah Jones, Coya Paz, Monica Reida, and Jack Silverstein. Schubas, 6:30 p.m.
Sunday 10/26: Lalami Lalla is in conversation with Gina Frangello at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts to talk about her latest novel, The Moor’s Account. 12:30 p.m.
Stay right there at Logan Center for the Arts to see Ben Marcus in conversation with Adam Levin about his new story collection, Leaving the Sea. 2:30 p.m.
Lucy Pick is at Seminary Co-op to celebrate and discuss her first novel, Pilgrimage, Pilgrimage. Pick teaches at the University Chicago Divinity School. 3 p.m.
Curbside Splendor’s live lit series, The Marrow, is back at the Punch House with a stacked lineup. Naomi Huffman and Leah Pickett host performances by Ben Tanzer, Wyl Villacres, and Jacqui Shine. 7:30 p.m.
Monday 10/27: A.E. Stallings is Poetry Foundation’s special guest for its Poetry Off the Shelf series. Stallings has written three volumes of poetry and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations. 7 p.m.
Tuesday 10/28: The Moth’s StorySLAM Chicago has taken up the Chicago Humanities Festival’s theme “Journeys” for its next event at Martyrs’. WBEZ co-sponsors the event. 6 p.m.
Reggie L. Williams is at Seminary Co-op to promote Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance. 6 p.m.
Wednesday 10/29: MacArthur “genius,” Bryan Stevenson discusses and signs his most recent book, Just Mercy, an immersion into the broken American criminal justice system. Watch Stevenson’s TED Talk if you haven’t already. Harold Washington Library (State and Van Buren!), 6 p.m.
Cheryl Strayed in conversation with Megan Stielstra at the Northwestern University School of Law, Thorne Auditorium downtown is certainly notable, but it’s sold out. 6 p.m.
Polarity Ensemble Theatre performs selected scenes from the work of the late Fern Chertkow and her friend, Richard Engling, at Uncommon Ground on Devon. Engling will sign books after the performance. 8 p.m.
Thursday 10/30: Diane Cook has released her debut short story collection, Man v. Nature. It’s being compared to the work of George Saunders and Aimee Bender, and Booklist’s Donna Seaman loved it. Cook’s been featured on This American Life. She’s at The Book Cellar, 7 p.m.
