On Sunday, September 29^th at 2 PM, The Book Stall (811 Elm Street in Winnetka) partners with The Chicago Quarterly Review to host a reading featuring recent contributors to the magazine, including Syed Afzal Haider, Juan Martinez, Dipika Mukherjee, Faisal Mohyuddin, and Signe Ratcliff. Our emcee for the day will be writer Chuck Kramer. The Chicago Quarterly Review, a nonprofit, independent literary journal, has published short stories, poems, translations and essays by both emerging and established writers since 1994. Work from its pages has been chosen for Best American Short Stories, Best American Essays, the O. Henry Prize Stories and the Pushcart Prize. This program is free, but registration is required. Click HERE to reserve your space.
More About the Readers: Syed Afzal Haider’s short stories and essays have appeared in a variety of literary magazines and his stories have been anthologized by Oxford University Press, Penguin Books, Pearson- Longman, and Milkweed Editions. He is the founding and senior editor of Chicago Quarterly Review. In addition, Syed is the author of two novels, To Be With Her and Life of Ganesh, as well as a short stories collection, The Dying Sun and Other Stories.
Chuck Kramer is a Chicago writer of fiction, poetry, and journalism. Chuck has served as the vice-president of the NewTown Writers, works on the editorial staff of the Chicago Quarterly Review, and previously served as a workshop coordinator with the Chicago Writing Conference. He was the cohost of the long-running Weeds Poetry Open Mic. His journalism has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Sun-Times, The Reader and Windy City Times. His poems and short stories have appeared in many publications, both online and in print.
Juan Martinez is the author of the novel Extended Stay and the story collection Best Worst American. He is an associate professor at Northwestern University, and his work has appeared most recently in Ploughshares, The Chicago Quarterly Review, The Sunday Morning Transport, Huizache, Ecotone, NIGHTMARE, McSweeney’s, NPR's Selected Shorts, Small Odysseys, Shenandoah, TriQuarterly, Sudden Fiction Latino, Flash Fiction America, and elsewhere. He has work forthcoming in the Latinx horror anthology Ghosts Where We Are From.
Faisal Mohyuddin is the author of Elsewhere: An Elegy and The Displaced Children of Displaced Children, as well as the chapbook The Riddle of Longing. He teaches high school English in suburban Chicago and creative writing at Northwestern University’s School of Professional Studies. He is also a visual artist and serves as a Master Practitioner with the global-not-for-profit Narrative 4.
Dipika Mukherjee is an award-winning author of fiction and poetry. She lives in Chicago, but is equally at home in Kuala Lumpur and New Delhi. She is core faculty at Story Studio Chicago and teaches at the Graham School at University of Chicago. Whenever possible, she tries to sprinkle some poetic fairydust as the Literary Life Ambassador for the Chicago Poetry Center.
Signe Ratcliff is a Chicago-based writer and painter with Wisconsin roots. Her short fiction has appeared in Chicago Quarterly Review, storySouth, Conclave: A Journal of Character, and has been listed in Best American Short Stories 2020. She currently serves as Contributing Editor of Chicago Quarterly Review.