For the fifth consecutive year, the University of Illinois Press will have a large presence at the Chicago Tribune Printers Row Lit Fest.  Festival goers can visit the University of Illinois Press tent on Dearborn Street, near Harrison. Press staff will sell Chicago- and Illinois-themed books from 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. on June 12-13. 

Featured titles include Illinois Politics: A Citizen’s Guide by James Nowlan, Samuel Gove, & Richard Winkel, Lincoln Hall at the University of Illinois by John Hoffman, and Barns of Illinois by Larry Kanfer and Alaina Kanfer.

The Lit Fest program committee has invited multiple University of Illinois Press authors to discuss their recent books.

Lincoln T. Beauchamp Jr. (BluesSpeak: The Best of the Original Chicago Blues Annual), Steve Cushing (Blues Before Sunrise: The Radio Interviews), and David Whiteis (Chicago Blues: Portraits and Stories) will discuss blues music in a panel discussion on June 12, Noon – 12:45 p.m., at the Jazz Showcase location.

University of Illinois alumnus Larry Kanfer will make a special presentation on Barns of Illinois on Sunday, June 13, at 2:30 p.m. in Dearborn Station/Lower Level, 47 West Polk Street.  Kanfer will be accompanied by co-author Alaina Kanfer.

“You don’t have to live in a rural area to appreciate barns,” says Kanfer. “One of the best a-ha moments I had was at Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago where there is a barn! People everywhere connect with the nostalgia of hard work and ingenuity that barns represent.”

Other University of Illinois Press authors who will participate in Lit Fest programs on June 12-13 include:  James Nowlan (Illinois Politics: A Citizen’s Guide), Thomas Saler (Serving Genius: Carlo Maria Giulini), Robert Lombardo (The Black Hand: Terror by Letter in Chicago), and Scott Christianson (Freeing Charles: The Struggle to Free a Slave on the Eve of the Civil War).

The Printers Row Lit Fest was founded in 1985 by the Near South Planning Board to attract visitors to the Printers Row neighborhood (once the city’s bookmaking hub). By 2002, it had grown to five city blocks (on Dearborn, from Congress to Polk), attracting more than 200 booksellers from across the country displaying new, used and antiquarian books, and featuring seven stages with more than 100 free literary programs. It is considered the largest free outdoor literary event in the Midwest-drawing more than 125,000 book lovers to the two-day showcase.