The Printers Row Lit Fest, which takes place on Saturday and Sunday, is 40 years old this season, and I am, ahem, a few years beyond that momentous birthday and have been part of every one of those years, when the stretch of South Dearborn Street from Congress Parkway (since July 2018, Ida B. Wells Drive) south to Polk St. becomes for two days a delightful orgy of all things literary.
It was founded by Bette Cerf Hill in 1985 as a means to, as she once told me, “bring books out in the sunshine,” but also to bring people into a neighborhood that had been down at the heels for a while. It was, we old-timers can remember, run by the Near South Planning Board and originally called the Printers Row Book Fair. It was taken over by the Chicago Tribune in 2002 and soon became Lit Fest, though I still prefer Book Fair.
I have been to every one of these annual gatherings, first and perhaps most pleasurably on my own, just wandering around, thumbing through books piled on tables, talking to booksellers, authors and publishers at random, stopping here and there for a cocktail and, for a busy decade, under the Tribune banner, as interviewer of authors in formal settings. There were some weekends when I had as many as seven chores spread over the two days. But who would complain about meeting and talking to writers? In previous years, I had the “job” and joy of interviewing such writers as Pete Hamill, Joan Bauer, Kevin Guilfoile, Barbara Ehrenreich, Jon Alter, Dan Rather, Frank Deford, Rich Cohen and so many others.
The Tribune ended its ownership of the PRLF in 2019 but the paper still has a sponsorship role. My duties have diminished. Last year, for instance, was an easy year, since my “job,” such as it was, entailed talking to some people on the topic of “Remembering Mike Royko.” Those people were Mike’s lively widow, Judy; Northwestern University’s Bill Savage, and Mitchell Bisschop, who was in town to perform in his one-man play, “Royko: The Toughest Man in Chicago.”
It was a huge crowd, many laughs and a lot of memories too.
Founder of the Printers Row Lit Fest Bette Cerf Hill, on Dearborn Street where the fair is held on May 2, 2003. (Michael Walker/Chicago Tribune)
So, the weather this weekend promises to be delightful but there have been weekends of torrential storms and horrific heat.
One such took place in 2010 when I was interviewing Chicago’s Jonathan Eig about his “Get Capone,” about another famous local citizen. Our conversation was being taped for C-Span’s “Book TV” and Eig and I were perspiring so profusely (think Albert Brooks in “Broadcast News”) that we used full-sized bath towels in our attempt to stay dry.
Eig, who has since gone on to write bestselling books about Muhammad Ali (“Ali: A Life”) and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (“King: A Life”), which won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for biography, will be at this year’s fair, at 2 p.m. Saturday on the Plymouth Court Stage.
I will be there too, twice.
At noon at the Grace Place Stage (on the second floor at 637 S. Dearborn), I will be with Abbott Kahler, talking about her exciting new book, “Eden Undone.” This author used to write under the name Karen Abbott and she was a sensation in 2007 with her first book, “Sin in the Second City,” about those entrepreneurial brothel owners, Minna and Ada Everleigh. She’s written more books since and her new book is a marvel of historical research and spectacular writing.
People crowd South Dearborn Street at the Printers Row Lit Fest on June 4, 2011, in Chicago. (Keri Wiginton/Chicago Tribune)
Studs Terkel tells his tales to a sold out crowd at the Harold Washington Library during the Printers Row Lit Fest on June 7, 2008. (Charles Osgood/Chicago Tribune)
You’ll then have a bit of time to browse (eat and drink too if you like) before trying to grab a seat at the hard-to-miss Center Stage at 3 p.m., where I will be talking to Bill Kurtis about his brand new autobiography, “Whirlwind.” Given Kurtis’s stature, he will likely attract the weekend’s biggest crowd and that will remind me of the Lit Fest days I spent talking with Studs Terkel, often in the auditorium of the nearby Harold Washington Library, every seat filled by fans of the Chicago treasure. The last took place in 2018 and it was the final public appearance by Studs, who died at 96 little more than a month later, on Halloween.
In a sense, Studs will be at this year’s bash, at 3 p.m. Saturday on the Joseph & Bessie Feinberg Foundation Stage. That’s where Pulitzer winners Bill Healy and Mary Schmich will talk with WBEZ’s Tracy Brown about “Division Street Revisited,” a podcast that traces the lives of seven people featured in what was Studs’ first bestselling oral history.
There is so much to see and hear this weekend. It is free and also a wonderful way to remind people of the city’s vitality as a literary center. Thousands of books (and maps and posters and other things) are for sale and, perhaps, one day cherished.
The 2025 Printers Row Lit Fest runs 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sept. 6-7 on the streets of South Dearborn, from Ida B. Wells to Polk; printersrowlitfest.org
rkogan@chicagotribune.com
