Friday, April 25, 2025: Poetry Readings with Rachel Jamison Webster & Virginia Bell
7:00 - 9:00 pm
Join us in for an evening of poetry and cocktails in celebration of National Poetry Month. Our featured poets will be Rachel Jamison Webster and Virginia Bell. There will be time for a Q&A with the audience, and books will be available for sale and signing by the authors.
7:00 -9:00 PM
Join us in for an evening of poetry and cocktails in celebration of National Poetry Month. Our featured poets will be Rachel Jamison Webster and Virginia Bell. 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
Rachel Jamison Webster
Rachel Jamison Webster is a professor of creative writing at Northwestern University and the author of four books of poetry in addition to the nonfiction book, Benjamin Banneker and Us, which was chosen as a Best Book of 2023 by The New Yorker and picked as a Notable Book by The New York Times, Booklist and other outlets. Rachel’s essays, poems, and stories have been published in outlets including Poetry, The Paris Review, and The Yale Review. She lives in Evanston with her husband, the poet John McCarthy, and their daughter Adele.
Virginia Bell
Author of the poetry collection Lifting Child from the Ground, Turning Around (Glass Lyre Press 2025) and From the Belly (Sibling Rivalry Press 2012), Virginia Bell won NELLE Magazine’s Nonfiction Prize in 2020 for the personal essay, “Chicken,” and her poetry won Honorable Mention in the 2019 riverSedge Poetry Prize, judged by José Antonio Rodríguez. Her work has appeared in New City Magazine, Five Points, Denver Quarterly, SWWIM, EAP: The Magazine, Hypertext, The Night Heron Barks, Kettle Blue Review, Fifth Wednesday Journal, Rogue Agent, Gargoyle, Cider Press Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Poet Lore, The Nervous Breakdown, The Keats Letters Project, Blue Fifth Review, Voltage Poetry, and other journals and anthologies. Bell is Co-Editor of RHINO Poetry and teaches at Loyola University Chicago and DePaul University.
Friday, June 20, 2025: Ernest Hemingway Teaches Us About Who We Are
6:30 - 8:00 pm
Join us for our Discussion and Friday@Hemingway series with Dr. Aaron Lawler. Using books by Illinois authors, Dr. Lawler explores philosophical questions about self and purpose, helping audiences reflect on their personal stories. We learn through story, from history and art to science and economics. This workshop delves into the hero archetype, Hemingway’s hero, and pursuing your better self. Participants will explore ideas from Joseph Campbell, Maureen Murdock, Goethe, Ernest Hemingway, David Brooks, and Carol Dweck.
6:30 -8:30 PM
Dr. Aaron Lawler uses books by popular Illinois authors to explore common philosophical questions about self and purpose and help audiences reflect on their own personal stories. We are natural-born learners, and we learn through story. Everything, from history and art to science and economics, is framed in story. This presentation/workshop delves into the hero archetype, Hemingway’s hero, and chasing your better self. Participants will explore work and ideas from Joseph Campbell, Maureen Murdock, Goethe, Ernest Hemingway, David Brooks, Carol Dweck.
*This is an Illinois Humanities Road Scholars Speakers Bureau event. Illinois Humanities is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy Demands Wisdom and the Illinois General Assembly [through the Illinois Arts Council Agency], as well as by contributions from individuals, foundations, and corporations.
Saturday, July 19, 2025: Hemingway Birthday Porch Concert with Local Memory and Lydia Cash
7:00 - 9:00 PM
Tonight, as part of our F@H series we present a porch concert featuring Local Memory and Lydia Cash. We will also acknowledge our student scholarship recipients while celebrating Hemingway’s 126th 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 Local Memory and Lydia Cash. We will also acknowledge our student scholarship recipients while celebrating Hemingway’s 126th birthday. 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
Local Memory
Local Memory is a six-piece indie/alt-country band from Chicago, Illinois, led by songwriter Amy Myers & collaborator Matt Ciani, joined by guitarist Lucas Chamberlain, drummer Nico Ciani, pianist Nicole Murray, & vocalist Lydia Cash.
Lydia Cash
Lydia Cash writes candidly about her life, forging songs as beacons of authenticity in which she reveals the innermost workings of her heart’s loves and losses. Her delicate melodies woven with alt-rock angst showcase this native Alabamian /Chicago transplant’s dichotomy of grit and sweetness.
Friday, September 19, 2025: Storytelling: Dear John
7:00 -9:00 pm
STORY TELLING @HEMINGWAY’S
This evenings Friday@Hemingway's features the Hemingway Birthplace as a backdrop for an evening of storytelling. The crown jewel within the Hemingway Archives collection is the letter Ernest Hemingway received from his nurse, Agnes von Kurowsky, upon his return to Oak Park in 1919 after serving in the American Red Cross during World War I. This famed “Dear John” shaped Hemingway and literary history. Join Chicago-area storytellers for an evening of “Dear John” tales in the front parlor room of Hemingway’s birthplace home.
Storytelling@Hemingways: Dear John
7:00 - 9:00 PM
F@H's features the Hemingway Birthplace as a backdrop for an evening of storytelling. The crown jewel within the Hemingway Archives collection is the letter Ernest Hemingway received from his nurse, Agnes von Kurowsky, upon his return to Oak Park in 1919 after serving in the American Red Cross during World War I. This famed “Dear John” shaped Hemingway and literary history.
Join Chicago-area storytellers for an evening of “Dear John” tales in the front parlor room of Hemingway’s birthplace home.
Friday, October 17, 2025: 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.
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.
