Category Archives: Chicago Writing
A.K. Ramanujan: A Country You Can’t Reach
Born in Mysore, India, Attippat Krishnaswami Ramanujan (1929-1994) is considered by many to be India’s finest modern poet writing in English, though he went far beyond English, his other writings as poet, scholar, playwright, philologist, folklorist, and translator ranging over … Continue reading
Neil Tesser: Out of Season
With everything on hold this year, including baseball, I’m re-reading Neil Tesser’s piece “Out of Season” with greater than average nostalgia. David Starkey and I put this piece in our 1999 book Smokestacks and Skyscrapers: An Anthology of Chicago Writing. … Continue reading
Willard Motley: His “Race”
In the Afterword of my book Black Writing from Chicago, after I apologize first for not including the great novelist Leon Forrest, I apologize second for not including Willard Motley. I wrote: “Among other worthy novelists that could not be … Continue reading