Today's listings include an open house at Storystudio Chicago, a MasterChef screening with contestant Suzy Singh and Quenchers Soundtrack Serenade tackling the Wedding Singer. more ›

In this roundup, a local writer wins a prestigious award. Poetry Foundation's new apps. StoryStudio Chicago readies some writing classes and more. more ›

We’re having trouble dragging ourselves out of this wintertime rut, which means we’re also having trouble motivating ourselves to write much. It’s seems like it’s always raining these days, and we’d much rather complain about the weather than crack open our MacBooks and type away. So maybe the solution is getting out of the city for some writerly inspiration. Here are some out-of-town opportunities to kick start your writing. more ›

Here are a few literary goings-on to keep on your radar. more ›

The first of November marks the start of an international event in which thousands of writers around the world vow to do something kind of ridiculous: write a 50,000-word novel in one month. National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, is rare in the creative world because it stresses quantity over quality: “Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap,” the event’s website says. “And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.” more ›

Running down a few of the great literary events going on around the city over the next couple of days. Check out more inside. more ›

Writing the next great American novel during the summer can be tricky. We’ll admit our own writing regimen has already suffered due to all the awesometown events, festivals and outdoor drinking happening left and right. If you think it might be challenging to keep your laptop open over the next few months, we don’t recommend missing all the fun. But you can at least try to dedicate a few days to focus on writing. Here are a few events that might help you do that. more ›

Did you hear? This weekend the Printers Row Lit Fest is taking over Dearborn from Congress to Polk streets. Chicago’s annual literary festival includes panel discussions, booths, author discussions and signings, events for kids, cooking demonstrations, and tons of other programming. Kind of surprisingly, a slew of other literary events are happening this weekend and aren’t happening at the Lit Fest. Here are our recommended picks: more ›

Last fall, Claire Zulkey published a book that was 10 years in the making. An Off Year is a young adult novel about Claire Zulkey herself and not about Claire Zulkey herself. She started writing it her freshman year of college when she was the exact same age as Cecily, her book's main character. At the time, Zulkey was facing a lot of the same challenges she gives to Cecily's character. As Zulkey developed this character, a story eventually evolved. Now it is a shiny real live book about a young high school graduate who has every reason to continue along an ambitious and successful path to college. But she is not so sure she feels like being ambitious and successful. And so her "off year" follows. Time Out Chicago describes Cecily's year unfolding "in a haze of television, professional help and vague guilt, as she tries to locate the core of her ambivalence." more ›

Open Books, 213 W Institute Pl., 6:30 p.m., free more ›

A variety of interesting writing workshops start this weekend and the beginning of next. Some focus on creative fiction, some focus on professional nonfiction. Some run for several weeks, some last a couple hours. Some cost nothing, some cost more than our paycheck last week. So if you're at all interested in firing up your laptop and putting it to good use, there just might be a workshop of interest below. more ›

Break out your college-lined notebook and your frilly pink pen, StoryStudio Chicago is hosting its fourth annual In-Town Writers Retreat. StoryStudio bills itself as a “growing community of writers building Chicago’s premier center for writing and related arts.” This translates to classes on everything from blogging to screenplays, to the ambiguously titled “LifeWriting” course and the less ambiguously titled session, “Writing Sex.” more ›