Friday, May 8, 2026: Poetry Readings with P. Scott Cunningham & Christine Poreba
7:00 - 9:00 pm
Join us for an evening of poetry and cocktails with featured poets P. Scott Cunningham and Christine Poreba. There will be time for a Q&A with the audience, and books will be available for sale and signing by the authors.
This is a free event, but we ask you to RSVP as space is limited
7:00 -9:00 PM
Join us for an evening of poetry and cocktails with featured poets P. Scott Cunningham and Christine Poreba. There will be time for a Q&A with the audience, and books will be available for sale and signing by the authors.
This is a free event, but we ask you to RSVP as space is limited
P. Scott Cunningham is the author of Self-Portrait as the “i” in Florida (Autumn House, 2026), winner of the 2025 Donald Justice Poetry Prize, selected by Major Jackson. His debut collection, Ya Te Veo (University of Arkansas, 2018), was selected by Billy Collins for the Miller Williams Poetry Series and was a finalist for the National Poetry Series. His poems, essays, and translations have appeared in The Nation, American Poetry Review, Gulf Coast, POETRY, A Public Space, Harvard Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Monocle, and The Guardian, among others. Born and raised in South Florida, he is a graduate of Wesleyan University and the founder of the O, Miami Poetry Festival. He lives with his family in Illinois.
Christine Poreba is the author of Rough Knowledge (Anhinga Press, 2016) winner of the Philip Levine Prize and This Eye is for Seeing Stars, selected by Pádraig Ó Tuama for the 2023 Orison Poetry Prize (Orison Books, 2025). Her poems have appeared in several anthologies and numerous journals, including Barrow Street, The Southern Review, Cimarron Review, Willow Springs,and The Sun. A native New Yorker who spent many years in North Florida, she now lives in Chicagoland.
Saturday, July 18, 2026: Hemingway Birthday Porch Concert with Rachel Swain
7:00 - 9:00 PM
Tonight, as part of our F@H series we present a porch concert featuring Rachel Swain. We will also acknowledge our student scholarship recipients while celebrating Hemingway’s 127th birthday.
General lawn seating will be available and feel free to bring your own lawn chair. Refreshment service will also be available. *net proceeds benefit the Foundations Student Scholarship Fund
7:00 - 9:00 PM
Tonight, as part of our F@H series we present a porch concert featuring Rachel Swain. We will also acknowledge our student scholarship recipients while celebrating Hemingway’s 127th birthday and the centennial publication of The Sun Also Rises in 1926. General lawn seating will be available and feel free to bring your own lawn chair. Refreshments will also be available. *net proceeds benefit the Foundations Student Scholarship Fund
This event is RAIN OR SHINE
Rachel Swain
Soulful Americana with a heart as big as texas and a bite as cold as the chicago wind
Rachel Swain doesn’t mind when people two-step to her pain—she welcomes it. Raised on the sounds of country, bluegrass, and soul, Swain’s powerful voice and poignant songwriting have earned her recognition in the Americana scene over the past two decades. A native of Austin, Texas, and later Houston, Swain grew up surrounded by music, learning to play fiddle, guitar, and bass, and honing her skills in projects ranging from indie rock to 60s French pop.
Her earlier work garnered acclaim from publications like Performer Magazine and Blurt Magazine, and she was featured on The Falcon’s Nest list of Top-10 Records in 2014. As a performer, Swain has graced the stage at festivals such as the American Music Festival and shared the stage with artists like Bob Schneider, Miles Neilson, and The Arcadian Wild.
With an unmistakable sound that’s rooted in her Texas upbringing, Swain's music is as gritty as it is tender, capturing the full spectrum of human experience. Her upcoming full-length album is set to cement her place as one of the most exciting voices in Americana music today.
Friday, October 16, 2026: Haunted Hemingway, Ghost Stories
7:00 -9:00 pm
Haunted Hemingway, Ghost Stories
F@H's features the Hemingway Birthplace as a backdrop for an evening of literary ghost stories read by Chicago area writers. Authors will be announced as they are confirmed
Ananda Lima
Juan Martinez
Joe Mena
Wendy Parris
Click to learn more about each author.
Haunted Hemingway, Ghost Stories
7:00 - 9:00 PM
F@H's features the Hemingway Birthplace as a backdrop for an evening of literary ghost stories read by Chicago area writers. Featured authors will be announced as they are confirmed:
Ananda Lima is the author of Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil (Tor, 2024) and Mother/land (Black Lawrence Press, 2021), winner of the Hudson Prize. Her work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Poets.org, Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. She is a Contributing Editor at Poets & Writers and Program Curator and Core Faculty at StoryStudio, Chicago. She has an MA in Linguistics (UCLA) and an MFA in Creative Writing (Rutgers University, Newark). Craft, her fiction debut, was longlisted for the Story Prize, the ALA Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal. The New York Times describes it as “a remarkable debut that announces the arrival of a towering talent in speculative fiction.” Lima is also a translator and a photographer. Originally from Brazil, she lives in Chicago and New York.
Juan Martinez is the author of the novel Extended Stay (Camino del Sol/University of Arizona Press, 2023) and the story collection Best Worst American (Small Beer Press, 2017). He lives near Chicago and is an associate professor at Northwestern University. His work has appeared most recently in McSweeney’s, Ploughshares, The Believer, The Chicago Quarterly Review, The Sunday Morning Transport, Huizache, Ecotone, NIGHTMARE, McSweeney’s, NPR's Selected Shorts, Small Odysseys, Shenandoah, TriQuarterly, Sudden Fiction Latino, Flash Fiction America, and elsewhere, and is forthcoming in the Latinx horror anthology Ghosts Where We Are From.
Joe Meno is a writer and cultural journalist who lives in Chicago. A winner of the Nelson Algren Literary Award, a Pushcart Prize, a Great Lakes Book Award, and a finalist for the Story Prize, he is the author of eight novels, Book of Extraordinary Tragedies, Marvel and a Wonder, Office Girl, The Great Perhaps, The Boy Detective Fails, Hairstyles of the Damned, How the Hula Girl Sings, and Tender as Hellfire. His short story collections are Bluebirds Used to Croon in the Choir and Demons in the Spring. His short fiction has been published in McSweeney’s, One Story, Swink, LIT,TriQuarterly, Other Voices, Gulf Coast, and broadcast on NPR. He is co-creator of Question Mark, OH and the creator of Star Witness, a seven part serial on Electric Literature. He was a contributing editor to Punk Planet, the seminal underground arts and politics magazine. His nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Toronto Star, Bomb Magazine, The Chicago Reader, New City, and Chicago Magazine.
Wendy Parris grew up in the Midwest loving books and hoping to glimpse a ghost. After graduating from Northwestern University with a bachelor’s degree in radio/television/film, she acted in Chicago storefront theaters, performed improv comedy, and freelanced in public relations. Now she writes spooky novels for kids. She is the author of JLG Gold Standard Selection Field of Screams (Delacorte Press, 2023) and 2025 Illinois Reads pick Stage Fright (Delacorte Press, 2024). Wendy spoke on the benefits of middle grade horror at both the 2025 American Library Association Annual Conference and the 2025 National Council of Teachers of English Annual Convention. Visit her online at www.wendyparris.com.
