Arts & Entertainment

Printers Row Lit Fest Headliners Include Chicago Author Scott Turow, ‘PBS NewsHour’ Co-Anchor Geoff Bennett

The Printers Row Lit Fest returns next month.

The 41st annual event will bring together more than 200 nationally and locally acclaimed authors, journalists, poets, screenwriters, booksellers and storytellers. Headliners include best-selling Chicago author Scott Turow and “PBS NewsHour” co-anchor Geoff Bennett, who recently authored “Black Out Loud: The Revolutionary History of Black Comedy From Vaudeville to ‘90s Sitcoms.”

The festival will be held Sept. 12-13 from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. along Dearborn Street between Ida B. Wells Drive and Polk Street. It is free to attend.

The festival includes author conversations, panel discussions, book signings, writing workshops, children’s programming and new, used and rare booksellers. Presentation topics span fiction, history, politics, journalism, mystery, horror, memoir, poetry, food, dance, young adult and cultural criticism.

“This year’s Printers Row Lit Fest brings together one of the most accomplished and wide-ranging lineups in the festival’s history,” program director Amy Danzer said in a Monday news release. “Across genres and perspectives, these writers challenge, inspire and remind us of the power of stories to connect us and help us better understand the world — and one another.”

This year’s schedule also includes Eve Ewing, author of “Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism,” and Omar El Akkad, author of “One Day, Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This.” The festival opens with author Dolen Perkins-Valdez discussing her novel “Happy Land.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning authors and journalists are also on the lineup:

• Chicago Tribune’s Gregory Royal Pratt, Andrew Carter, Laura Rodriguez Presa and Erika Slife, recognized for their coverage of the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz”
• Heather Ann Thompson, historian and author of “Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage”
• John West, journalist and author of “The Internet Will Die, and So Will You: On Learning to Live in Our Digital Age”
• Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of “The Sympathizer” and “To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other”

Other journalists and cultural voices set to make an appearance include Scott Simon, longtime host of NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday, who will discuss his collection of essays, “Ulysses S. Cat and Other Animals I Have Known”; Michael Gebert, author of “The Chicago Way: An Oral History of Chicago Dining”; and New York Magazine’s The Cut senior writer Bindu Bansinath, author of “Men Like Ours.”

Additional authors include:

• Layne Fargo, best-selling author of “The Favorites”
• Jarrett Dapier, author of the graphic novel “Wake Now In the Fire” that centers around book banning in Chicago classrooms and libraries
• Cynthia Pelayo, author of “Vanishing Daughters” and “Children of Chicago”
• Owen Keehnen, writer, historian and speaker on LGBTQ+ history
• Nikesha Elise Williams, Emmy Award-winning producer and novelist whose work explores generational trauma, Black women’s resilience and family bonds
• Reshona Landfair, founder of Project Refine

Chicago poet laureate Maya Alexandra del Valle and Illinois poet laureate Mark Turcotte will also be on hand.

The festival’s family programming includes children’s author presentations, storytelling, theatrical performances and a costume parade.

The children’s theater improv troupe Broadway Dropouts will bring favorite literary characters to life, and Homer Hans Bryant, founder of the Chicago Multi-Cultural Dance Center and author of “The Rap on Girls in Ballet,” will lead a dance performance. In addition, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle will present “Horton Hatches the Egg” by Dr. Seuss.

The full festival lineup will be found on the Printers Row Lit Fest website.

Contact Eunice Alpasan: [email protected]

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