The August edition of the new Bridge Open Readings series and Open Mic will take place at the Open Books Pilsen store, 905 W. 19th St. on Saturday, August 31st from 3-5pm. Readings and open mics will be recorded and archived at bridge-chicago.org. Readers for our August edition are:
Dick Farkas grew up on the East Coast sailing in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. With an undergraduate degree from Northwestern and a Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in Political Science, he has been teaching college students for over fifty years about the ways politics intersects with life in a world with accelerating rates of change. Teaching about "comparative" politics, the responsibilities have facilitated travel to over sixty countries, four continents, six oceans, three circumnavigations, and countless relationships with fascinating characters. Politics is a driving force in our lives whether students and young adults understand and appreciate that or not. His YA novel Making Way, out with Bridge Books / StepSister Press, is the attempt to challenge young adults to think about that and to coax them to set their own courses.
Darya Foroohar is a recent graduate of the University of Chicago studying creative writing and urban studies. She has self-published two graphic novels, Somewhere Far From Here (2022) and I Wish I Didn't Think About This (2021). Her graphic novella My Eyes, Your Gaze, is out Aug. 15, 2024 with Bridge Books. She is the recipient of the 2022 Seidel Scholars Grant, which funded her self-directed adaptation of the Persian myth the Shahnameh into a graphic novel. In addition to working on this, she is working on her creative writing thesis this year, as well as personal comic projects and commissions. Outside of writing, Darya likes to make music, do the NYT crossword, and take long, long walks.
Robert Kloss is the author of four previous novels, including A LIGHT NO MORE and THE WOMAN WHO LIVED AMONGST THE CANNIBALS, both reprinted by Inside the Castle in 2022. His newest novel, The Genocide House, is out with Bridge Books Oct. 15, 2024. He lives in Chicago with his wife, the writer and musician Meghan Lamb, and their cat, Daniel Day-Lewis.
Hosted by Bridge Editor-in-Chief Michael Workman. Readings start at 3, and the open mic after. For the open mic portion, please plan on reading no more than 10-15 minutes, max. All readings will be archived and available for streaming at the Bridge website in the readings archive.
Readings from 3-4pm; walk-in readers welcome from 4-5pm