TallGrass Writers Guild - Open Mics, Readings, & Anthologies

TallGrass Writers Guild is a Chicago-based independent, nonprofit arts organization serving writers at all levels of development. For 30 years, TWG has provided local, regional, national, and international performance and publication opportunities. TWG is a 501-3-C nonprofit literary organization. Entry fees, merchandise, member fees and donations are tax-deductible.

Performance/Entertainment Opportunities — Chicago's Most Supportive Open Mic for 30 Years

TallGrass Open Mics— now virtual; will return to Chicago's Sulzer Regional Library, 4455 N Lincoln Ave. when it is safe to do so.

Virtual Open Mics—1:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Sign-up tp read starts at 12:30 p.m. Open Mic readers have 6-7 minutes of read time to present poetry. fiction, non fiction, comedy and music following the Featured Author's program. Free to all. For information on TallGrass Writers Guild events, visit: wwwDOToutriderpressDOTnet and click on the “TallGrass Writers Guild” tab.
To register your attendance as an Open Mic reader/audience member, or for general information, email jnowakATchipublibDOTorg,You'll receive a link letting you know how to join in.

TallGrass Writers Guild will resume providing these performance opportunities once it is safe to do so:

Themed Readings — Two to four FREE programs a year by TallGrass members at Book Cellar, 4736 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago;

Special Programs — Include February's Black History Month, April's National Poetry Month, June's National

PRIDE Month and October's National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, FREE to all.

Tri-State readings — At venues throughout Illinois, Indiana, and recently at Milwaukee's Historic Central Library; and

Seasonal/Holiday Programs by the TallGrass Performance Ensemble at libraries, nature centers, and universities throughout the Tri-state region. These Performance

Ensemble shows of poetry and short fiction are free, and have earned a listing in The Best of the Best, the programming guide Illinois librarians use to present quality special

events at Illinois libraries.

Willa Moore

Gay Guard-Chamberlin

Caroline

Johnson

Tracie Padal

Michele Williams

Martin Altman

Whitney Scott

Virtual Open Mics — 1 P.M. to 3:30 P.M. Held on the 4th Saturday of the month except for holiday and special events scheduling, when it's the 3rd Saturday. The Open Mic (OM) readers follow the Featured program; each has 6-7 minutes to present poetry, (non)fiction, music, comedy and more. Sign-up to read starts from 12:30 P.M on OM day. Email jnowak@chipublib.org for ZOOM li.nkage

January 27, 2024 Virtual Open Mic—Wisconsin poet Tracey Ludvik is Featured Author. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in poetry (2019) and has had numerous poems published in literary journals including Iconoclast, Rosebud, Haiku Journal and anthologies including Outrider Press’ series of annual titles as well as these collections: From Everywhere a Little: A Migration Anthology (Water’s Edge Press) and Contours: A Literary Landscape from the Driftless Writing Center. Butterfly, her 2023 chapbook, concerns a girl becoming a ‘relatively sane young woman’ who has completed her first full-length manuscript despite brain injury and vision loss. She hosted the 2023 Sheboygan County Writers Club’s first literature and song festival, Word Fest at Peace Park, on the Sheboygan (WI) shore of Lake Michigan. A member of Tall Grass Writers Guild, she previously taught college liberal arts courses in Oregon and Wisconsin.

February 24, 2024 Virtual Open Mic—Chicago's Martin Altman. Image and metaphor have been Martin Altman’s main vehicles in exploring the self in its different manifestations, and in penetrating our everyday experience to our deeper realities. A stutterer from childhood, the major concerns of his poetry are speaking and hearing, breathing and cessation, connection and isolation. He was raised in The Bronx and worked 40 years in the Garment District. Living in Chicago since 2010 he has been featured at The Café, Book Cellar, Printers Row Lit Fest, and TallGrass Writers Guild of which he is VP/Treasurer. Among others, he has been published in Outrider Press, Blue Minaret, Adelaide, Aethlon, Red Ochre, The Closed Eye Open, and Barzakh. Also, he has read and exhibited his poems at the Lemont Center for the Arts, Dank Haus, and ARC Gallery. He is poetry editor of a new on-line literary magazine, Four Extra Hours. On TikTok under the handle "Martin the Male Model," you can find videos of him reading his poetry

March 23, 2024 Virtual Open Mic—New York Times’ best-selling author, Oregon's Patricia Crisafulli will present cuttings from the first and second in her 3-book Ohnita Harbor Mystery series from Woodhall Press. About The Secrets of Ohnita Harbor, Sam Hill, author of the critically acclaimed Buzz... mysteries, writes, “Crisafulli has given us the perfect cozy—an intriguing mystery, characters to root for, and a setting that is both familiar yet unique. And more—the character complexity and exquisite writing of a literary novel. A gem of a book.” And New York Times best-selling author, Anthony Flacco, raves about Secrets of Ohnita Harbor, “Patricia Crisafulli draws her characters with such empathy and compassion, they pull us into the story and make their concerns their own while she weaves a web of suspense around their world.” Crisafulli herself is an award-winning New York Times best-selling author; she wrote House of Dimon: How J.P. Morgan’s Jamie Dimon Rose to the Top of the Financial World (John Wiley & Sons, 2009). She is the coauthor of Rwanda, Inc: How a Devastated Nation Becamean Economic Model for the Developing World (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2012), an Editor’s Choice book on Amazon. Her first book, written under the name Patricia Commins, was Remembering Mother, Finding Myself: A Journey of Love and Self-Acceptance (HCI Books, 1999), which was featured in the national media, including Cosmopolitan magazine. A former journalist, Patricia was a correspondent for Reuters America and has been published in Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and the Christian Science Monitor.

She earned a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree (fiction concentration) from Northwestern University, where she received the Distinguished Thesis Award in Creative Writing. Patricia also studied in the prestigious Bread Loaf writers’ program (in Sicily). In summer 2019 Patricia received the grand prize for fiction from TallGrass Writers Guild/Outrider Press and was published in its anthology, Loon Magic and Other Night Sounds. She was also nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Patricia is the author of a collection of short stories and essays titled Inspired Every Day: Essays and Stories to Brighten Your Day, Give You Hope, and Strengthen Your Faith, published by Hallmark. The recipient of five Write Well Awards from the Silver Pen Association for her short stories, her work has been published in a series of anthologies featuring award winners. She is also the founder of FaithHopeandFiction.com, a popular e-literary magazine with original fiction, essays, and poetry.