Newcity Magazine Chicago's Lit 50 Announced

Newcity Chicago Magazine’s Lit 50 is announced today in their print issue!

I was nominated by my colleagues in Chicago’s literary community to be recognized as one of Newcity Chicago Magazine’s Lit 50 — Top 50 people in Chicago’s literary community.

There are different categories —

• publishers, booksellers & media

• institutions, advocates & programmers

• prose writers

• and poets & cartoonists

Chicago is the third largest city in the United States, so to be recognized as one of the most influential prose writers is wonderful. Out of the 50 literary figures, there are 18 recognized in prose, and I am included with prose.

This is an immense honor. Thank you so very much.

I remember being in my MFA program at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and reading the Newcity Lit 50 list, in a coffee shop on Michigan Avenue, and hoping that one day what I do as a writer would be noticed by Chicago’s greater writing community.

It’s a dream come true to be celebrated by Chicago’s literary community in this way. It’s always been a goal of mine, for the work I do to be seen as transcending genre. I finally feel that is recognized today, and this means so very much to me.

Thank you tremendously to all of my brilliant colleagues. Congratulations to everyone else included this year.

Thank you to the amazing Amy Danzer for interviewing me.

And as always, thank you, Chicago, this great American city of immigrants. You helped a girl from Puerto Rico live her dream, telling stories ❤️

From the print edition -

In discussing Newcity’s relationship to Printer’s Row Lit Fest, Todd Hieggelke, Managing Editor and Publisher of Newcity writes -

“To commemorate these forty years, we asked the city’s literary figures to meet us at the district’s most storied watering hole, Kasey’s Tavern, and photographed them around the street we’ve called home all this time.”

Hieggelke continues -

“At the same time, the city’s literary world has always felt dispersed, even siloed. A labyrinth of books where one door opens to Gwendolyn Brooks’ Bronzeville, another to Nelson Algren’s Polish Triangle, yet another to Saul Bellow’s Gothic Quadrangles. Beyond this page you’ll find a cultural map of this moment in Chicago’s literary history - an effort to throw open those doors. A bit of self-mythologizing for our city, and the many people within it who work to hone their craft, to support those who do, to build new worlds and to shape our cultural history.”