Description:

Lunch will be served, and free books will be given to the first 50 people who register. PLEASE RSVP for the LUNCH and to reserve complimentary books! Hosted by Northwestern's Kaplan Humanities Scholars Program, the Black Arts Consortium, and the Litowitz MFA+MA Program in Creative Writing.

Born and raised in Chicago, Jeffery Renard Allen is the award-winning author of six books of fiction and poetry, including the celebrated novel Song of the Shank, which was a front-page review in both The New York Times Book Review and The San Francisco Chronicle. Winner of the CLMP Firecracker Award, the novel was also a Dublin Literary Prize nominee and a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. His most recent book is Fat Time and Other Stories from Graywolf Press. authorjefferyrenardallen.com

Toya Wolfe earned an MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago. Her debut novel, Last Summer on State Street, is the recipient of The Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award, was a finalist for the PEN/Open Book Award, winner of the Friends of American Writers Adult Literature Award for Fiction, winner of the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year Award in Traditional Fiction, and selected by four-time NBA Champion Stephen Curry for his August 2022 “Underrated” Book Club. Toya teaches fiction for the Bennington Writing Seminars and resides near Chicago. toyawolfe.com or on social media @toyawolves.