We love large sweeping brush strokes. The paintings of Andrew Holmquist remind us why.

Few artists in contemporary recording meld poetic narrative and musical accomplishment as well as songwriter and pianist Daniel Knox. This exclusive session evidences the skill and haunting poignancy of a truly original musician.

Daniel Knox's second album is a fascinating, well-crafted journey through both the streets of Chicago and the mind of a thoughtful songwriter.

M. Molly Backes, author of the forthcoming The Princesses of Iowa and the Assistant Director of StoryStudio Chicago wrote a phenomenal blog post recently on how to be a writer and, since that’s not complicated enough, how to be the parent of a young writer. An excerpt: Let her fail. Let her write pages and pages of painful poetry and terrible prose. Let her write painfully bad fan fiction. Don’t freak out when she shows you stories...

Sam Selinger “Curious Masonry” Christopher Patton 2011, 9781554470938, $15.95 Christopher Patton’s third book, Curious Masonry, includes three translations of Anglo-Saxon poems from The Exeter Book, and “Hearth,” a work which he calls a “palimpsest,” mostly made up of erasures from his translation of “The Earthwalker,” using both the translation and the original text. The Exeter Book is an anthology of...

Sam Ramos The balloon drifted into the clouds and then a thousand more joined it. The pilots inside leaned out to her, each becoming ever smaller in the offing. It wasn’t that she was sad, though she was. It was life’s awful brilliance – the eternity of every single thing, small and big. A flood brought misery with it, but the click of her heels when she walked was sublime. Families were executed in turbulent times, but the scent of...

John Middlebrook Retracing my steps, I walk my life backwards, resisting the urge to grasp too soon. I recede all the way to where words were not heard, trading my refinements for the gifts of birth. Now moving forward, I see once more clouds on puddles dropped by the sky; shadows are sponges cast from the sun— haunts of the forest wrung dry of light. The grass with attitude makes its own cracks in sidewalks. It covers the fields...

Gold Rush - A series of works from Chicago based artist Misa Verbeek

April, the subtle tear of spring. These seasonal movements– scored by a languid cellist –are quaint in their sexuality. The sun asks no simple questions, and in its light I become a prospector panning damage for identity. This month T.C. Boyle sits down with me to discuss the inspiration behind Wild Child, we stream Judson Claiborne’s much anticipated second release, Time and Temperature, Thomas Matlack opines on being a good...

Friday November 6th 2009, 7:30PM Molly Jenson Strand of Oaks Samantha Farrell with opening act Milano Friday November 6th 2009, 7:30PM Wheaton College Chicago Tickets are $10.00 for students and $15.00 for general admission and are available at The Wheaton College Bookstore or by selecting an option below. Ticket Type General Admission $15.00 Student $10.00 ...