his week is continuing to be enormous in terms of publishing news.

To begin with, there are two days worthy of note:  Buy Indie Day and Free Comic Book Day.  Buy Indie Day is happening tomorrow, Friday, May 1st.  It was started in order to financially support Indie Bookstores and also to help build a community of writers, publishers, and booksellers who care about Indie Bookstores.  If you’re interested in attending, find an Indie Bookseller near you.  Furthermore, if you’re interested in comics, free stuff, or both, you should definitely participate in Free Comic Book Day.  Participating comic book stores will be giving out comics absolutely free, and there are lots in Chicago.  You can search them by zip code here.

The University of Illinois at Chicago’s brand new literary journal, Packingtown Review, just released their first issue.  The journal costs $13, and you can order a copy or pick one up tonight at Jak’s tap from 4-6.

Front 40 Press‘ new book The Time After received an Honorable Mention Award at the 2009 Green Book Festival.

Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip , published by Chicago Review Press, was reviewed by Publisher’s Weekly.  The book, due out in May, is enjoying quite a bit of success already.

…if you fill out this five-question survey.  The coupon lasts for the entire month of May.  Perhaps you could use it to check out Delectable Desserts, or Beyond My Control, selected for our April 2009 Featured Books from Chicago Publishers.

t’s been an exciting week in Chicago Publishing news, and it’s only Tuesday!

Spreading like wildfire in the blogosphere is the news that Bookslut’s Jessa Crispin will be moving to Berlin.  She plans to keep Bookslut running with the help of her team, and the Chicago reading series will continue as normal.

Gaper’s Block recently posted a lengthly and fascinating review of Family Secrets:  The Case that Crippled the Chicago Mob by Jeff Coen, recently highlighted on our April 2009 Featured Books from Chicago Publishers.  Family Secrets is Published by Chicago Review Press.

Film rights to Whitley Strieber’s original graphic novel The Nye Incidents, published by chicago graphic novel publisher Devil’s Due, have been picked up by Dark Castle.  Todd Lincoln, director of Hack/Slash, has been selected to direct this adaptation as well.

Finally, educational publishing giant McGraw Hill reports a revenue drop of 5.3% for the first quarter ending March 31st.  The fall was not as large as what they’ve experienced in the past, owing largely to the company running a tight ship and eliminating several hundred positions in 2008.  Read the full article at Publisher’s Weekly.

oe Meno, Chicago author, speaks to Chicago Magazine about his new book, The Great Perhaps, published by W.W. Norton and Company, writing as a parent, and the Chicago literary scene.

“This I Believe” is an NPR program in which “Americans from all walks of life share the personal philosophies and core values that guide their daily lives,” recently featured Local Author Luis Urrea. You can read or listen to his essay, “Life is an Act of Literary Creation,” on their website.

Urrea is the author of many books.  His newest book, Into the Beautiful North, published by Little and Brown, is set to come out May 19th, and has already recieved some fantastic reviews.

‘m so pleased to feature Dancing Girl Press in our National Poetry Month series.  They’re one of my favorite chapbook/poetry-based presses because they’re innovative, inexpensive, have a fantastic blog, sponsor writing and literature focused events, and feature a lot of new authors in their chapbooks.  I was able to ask Kristy Bowen, who founded and runs the press, a few questions about what they do.

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et’s start with the bad:

Though we don’t usually cover newspapers here at Publish Chicago, it’s worth mentioning that the industry just took a huge hit: the Chicago Tribune just laid off 53 employees. Yikes. The Chicago Reader has a full list of everyone who lost their job.

On to the good:

The Chicago Reader’s Bookswap is this coming Wednesday, the 26th, from 6-9 at the Bottom Lounge.  You can bring up to fifteen used books for swapping.  Whee!

Finally, this Saturday is Poetry Fest at the Public Library.  Date:  April 25, 2009.  Place:  Harold Washington Library Center, 400 S. State Street.  Time: 10:00-4:30.

f you’re looking for something fantastic to do for Earth Day that will help the environment, you should check out the three fantastic new books from Green Sugar Press: Earl the Earthworm Digs for his Life, N is for Nature: An Environmental Alphabet Book, and An Environmental Guide from A to Z. These books take environmentalism seriously from their production right through their content. ¶ View In Entirety… ⇒

n case you don’t have your calendar marked, Thursday happens to be Shakespeare’s 445 birthday, and in celebration of this, Mayor Daley has decided to name Thursday “Talk Like Shakespeare Day”. Though Bookslut makes a fair point about creepy dudes speaking in iambic pentameter, I have to say that the website for the event is rather entertaining and web savvy. They include guidelines to help you speak like shakespeare, links to youtube videos featuring humorous depictions of his work, a live feed that anyone can post to, and a bunch of other stuff. I particularly like this suggestion for speaking like Shakespeare: 4. Instead of cursing, try calling your tormenters jackanapes or canker-blossoms or poisonous bunch-back’d toads. Mayhaps I’ll put some of these into action come Thursday.

s many of you know, April is National Poetry Month. In celebration, Publish Chicago is featuring various publishers who specialize in poetry from the Windy City. Chicago has a fantastic poetry scene, with many publishers focusing purely on publishing books and chapbooks from little-known poets. In short, this is a great place to find undiscovered writers doing fantastic things with language. If you’re interested in poetry publishers, stay tuned throughout the month, or check out our links and resources for a complete listing of publishers specializing in poetry in Chicago. If you’re interested in poetry events, check out Literago, which has a fantastic events calendar for the literary events happening around the city, many of which involve a lot of poetry.

Imagine the feelings of a whole
continent, I said. A sheer blank
space of delightful mystery, its black
thoughts, its body
at rest in the middle of blessings.
If such is the meaning
of a French steamer, and it was, were
we who had pronounced a judgment upon
the whole population cleared into
the heart of an unknown planet? We could for a
while, of massacres, of
craven terror, of burning noble words.
It was very grave, were we
who had gone mad, completely.

-taken from a light heart, its black thoughts, written by Gnoetry and Eric Scovel, published by Beard of Bees

Beard of Bees Press is a small, independently owned Chicago press focusing on experimental poetry. ¶ View In Entirety… ⇒

StepSister Press recently interviewed Doug Fogelson, founder and director of Front 40 Press, both based out of Chicago. He talks about the history of Front 40, as well as their most recent title, The Time After, which was recently featured on our April 2009 list of featured books by Chicago publishers. You can read the full interview at the StepSister Press blog.

ruce Crane, executive director of Streetwise Chicago, reports that the publication is “a couple of months away from the brink,” in an article by Michael Miner over at the Chicago Reader.

his April, with its constant cold rainy days, has made me feel like reading. If you’re like me and looking for some good books to cozy up with, check out our April book list of featured books from Chicago publishers. This month we have a huge variety of books from fifteen different publishers. Whether you’re looking for photography, fiction, nonfiction, children’s books, or even poetry, we’ve got the book from you, and they all come straight from the Windy City. Following this post are the fifteen best books coming out of Chicago this month (you can also see the complete list to your left). If you think we’ve left out anything important, as always, don’t hesitate to shoot us an email.

“Even in Chicago, a city steeped in mob history and legend, the Family Secrets case was a true spectacle when it made it to court in 2007. A top mob boss, a reputed consigliere, and other high-profile members of the Chicago Outfit were accused in a total of eighteen gangland killings, revealing organized crime’s ruthless grip on the city throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

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“This book is the first in English to consider women’s movements and feminist discourses in twentieth-century Taiwan. Doris T. Chang examines the way in which Taiwanese women in the twentieth century selectively appropriated Western feminist theories to meet their needs in a modernizing Confucian culture. She illustrates the rise and fall of women’s movements against the historical backdrop of the island’s contested national identities, first vis-à-vis imperial Japan (1895-1945) and later with postwar China (1945-2000).

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“Over the past thirty years, visionary anthropologist Michael Taussig has crafted a highly distinctive body of work. Playful, enthralling, and whip-smart, his writing makes ingenious connections between ideas, thinkers, and things. An extended meditation on the mysteries of color and the fascination they provoke, What Color Is the Sacred? is the next step on Taussig’s remarkable intellectual path.

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“The legendary Cava di Gioia quarry in Carrara, Italy, was the source of the luminous white marble used by Michelangelo, Bernini, Henry Moore, and other renowned sculptors. Carrara, a volume of stunning photographs by William Wylie, reveals that the beauty of the quarry itself can be as alluring as the sculptures carved from its stone.

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“One of the greatest high school basketball players to ever play in New York City , there was no way Bill Rieser wasn’t going to make it in the NBA He could do things on a basketball court no one else could–and that’s why they called him ‘White Jesus.’ But after a serious knee injury and clashes with his college coach derailed his career, Bill descended into a self-destructive lifestyle of drinking, drug abuse, and womanizing. He was going to be just another washed-up playground legend–until he encountered Jesus Christ and became something far more.

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